I Don't Miss Her

I sit on the bench with my head between my legs, staring at the steady streams of rainwater being herded down into the sewer. I think it had something to do with the movement of the water that reminded me of the human race. The race to the finish, the race to death. I had a friend who beat a lot of us to it. Lila. She tied her jump rope around the ceiling fan and hung herself.

I watched her do it, too. I told her she was brave. I don’t miss her, either. I don’t miss her constant chatter or the glow of the sun on her warm skin. I don’t miss the way her hair smelled like coconut, or the smile she only ever gifted to me. She always liked the rain. It was raining when she died, just as it is now.

I don’t miss her. I don’t miss the droplets hanging on her eyelashes as she danced in the rain. I don’t miss the way she held my hand when she tiptoed across the edge of the sidewalk while I stood in the road.

The day she killed herself, she invited me over. That was when she told me about how humanity was doomed from the start; that our vanity made us impure and that was why we held onto life so tightly. I remember she took my hand in both of hers and told me that she wouldn’t be gone long from my side, if only I followed in her footsteps. I saw the jerk of her muscles as she strangled, without saying anything.

She kissed my cheek before she did it. I didn’t stop her, the shock too great to process what was happening, as she stepped daintily onto a stool and slid on her rope necklace.

After it was over, her parents blamed me. I had done nothing. I had told her she was brave. They thought I was a monster for telling her what she wanted to hear, for letting her go and not keeping her here to suffer with the rest of us. I don’t miss the sound of her skirts swishing in the evening breeze. I don’t miss her high, crisp laugh or the multi-coloured bands on her wrists.

I ask myself as I sit on this sodden bench why I did not follow after those auburn curls and sea storm eyes. I can see the glow of darkness at the edge of my vision, pulling me toward the heights of the buildings, the sharp points of my razors, the gun in my parents’ closet. She calls me to her, and she feels close enough to touch. But she isn’t here. And I don’t miss her.