Ways to Commit Suicide When You're Bored
an excerpt

When I slept, I dreamt of her again. It was that time. That horrible, wonderful time. I was back home from college again. Home for the summer, but not quite sure what was going on. My first semester had been a total wash, I had passed all of a single class and that was only because that class had interested and engaged me. The rest? Well ... I did a lot of not showing up and ignoring my schoolwork. Academic probation had soon followed.

She had been adamant that I had to do better. People made mistakes. She knew that. But we had to learn from them and fix them. I had another semester in which to pull myself out of that slump and to improve my GPA. She expected nothing less than the best.

And I had done better. Because of her faith in me, maybe, or because I saw the need for improvement, my second semester had been leagues better than the first. I had passed most of my classes, all but a calculus class that I wasn't sure I would have passed even in my most responsible state of mind. Numbers were never my strong point.

It hadn't been easy. Lance's depression had deepened and worsened into something horrifying to behold. He would sleep for two days straight through and then be up and out for just as long before returning home to crash in something not too far from coma. It was like living with some sort of robot, it was either gone or there but so far away that there was no way of connecting with it.

His school habits, however, hadn't improved one iota. So it had been me, trying to fight the good fight alone. Had I made it? It was hard to say. My grades were okay, nothing special but respectable for anyone. Would they be high enough to save me when all was tallied? If I didn't have a 2.0, I would be expelled.

This night we sat upon a hill at the school, watching the sun set. I had picked her up from school, or I had come to school to pick her up, and had been roped into helping her with some project or another. I didn’t mind. I liked feeling useful. It happened so rarely. And now we were sitting on the hill. It overlooked the street and the cars blazing by. I know that. But in my dream it overlooked much more than that—it was some high plateau that overlooked all of the town, south all the way to endless fields and north all the way to the middle of Omaha, all the way to UNO where I had gone to Prom with her.

And we sat together, looking out over the city below us, and I smiled. She smiled back, her eyes bright and radiant. Her hair blew in the high wind so far up. She brushed it back behind her ears, but it blew out far behind her like some sort of veil. I was transfixed by it against the evening sky. It was May and felt beautiful. And right here, with her, in this place, it was comfortable. We sat in peace.

“Do you remember my house,” I said to her, pointing. And there was the house where I had grown up.

“I was never inside of it.”

“No, but you visited it once,” I said. “Remember that one day, when we were younger, so long ago.”

“I remember that one of my friends brought me. She was your friend too.”

“She was the girlfriend of my friend, that’s different,” I said with a sigh but shrugged it off and kept pointing anyway. It was as if the world was turning under us, and we came closer to the house, and hovered above it. I looked up into the heavens, and remembered the day. It had been summer, hot and slow and humid. A classic Nebraska summer.

“I wanted to come and see you,” she said, smiling softly. Her face lit up when she smiled. It made me feel wonderful inside. I took her hand and looked at her but said nothing. “That was after we had spent that time together, and I had hoped … I had hoped you liked me.”

“I remember I was very surprised when you showed up on my doorstep. I didn’t know what to do. I’d never had girls show up on my doorstep before. I wasn’t sure what was an appropriate response.”

“You could have let us in,” she said, her tone scolding.

“I could have. I should have. But I didn’t. Instead, we were outside talking. I didn’t know what my parents would say, if they would approve. You’ll have to forgive me, I was young and foolish. Only fifteen, you know. And a sheltered fifteen for all that.”

“So? I was younger than you.”

“But you knew what you wanted,” I pointed out.

“I wanted you to acknowledge me, and you didn’t.” Her face fell into a pensive frown, and I felt the skies grow overcast. My world was a little darker when she was unhappy. I sensed rain in the air. I wondered if the rain would be salty. I assumed it would be.

“I did acknowledge you. You were all that mattered that day. But you asked me to hug you, and I couldn’t do that. Even if you pouted and pleaded, I couldn’t. It broke my heart and tore my mind, but I could not say yes.”

“Why not?” Her face was still clouded, the heavens were still undecided. But there was expectant curiosity in both.

“I wasn’t worthy to touch you. You were so wonderful, and I wasn’t. How could I have dirtied you by hugging you? I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself.”

She made a face, but looked amused and flattered. “You were fifteen, Max. What did you have to lose?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted with a sigh.

“Wasn’t it enough that I wanted you to, and you wanted to as well?”

I looked up at her, and again the sun was shining and she smiled kindly.

“And look there,” she said, her slender arm extending and a graceful finger indicating the distant point below that rushed upon us like a distant wave. “There was where you lived that one night.”

“Which night was that,” I asked her, smiling. Myriad nights had passed between us in that place, each one special.

“The night you took the kiss I owed you,” she said, her eyes bright and shining in the shifting light of the world around us.

“I remember that. My first true kiss. I was so afraid of you, of the experience, what it would be like. I was in a sheer panic over the very idea. I remember my hands shaking as I felt your lips on mine.”

She pressed forward and her lips were against mine, soft angelic heaven. I remembered that first kiss and the thousands that had come between them, lifetimes of bliss that were little more than us making that wondrous connection. She only pulled away to speak. “Your first kiss …. well, you suffered none for lack of experience.” She paused, and straightened up in my arms. “I still think it so odd that I was the first woman you kissed, but not the first you touched or held intimately.”

I could see the look on her face, and I knew the truth. This fact was a sore point with her. Something that she had carried with her and had hurt her as long as she had known it. I looked away to the horizon. Dark clouds gathered at the edge of sight. A storm bore down upon us, away off yet but coming fast.

“What I did before was curiosity, without meaning or consequence,” I said as I turned back to her. “A kiss is an act of love. Exploring a human body is not. I did not love anyone buy you.”

“I find it harder to accept than you do.” She shook her head, but I could tell that I had settled her mind somewhat. I decided to change tactics, and smiled at her.

“There are no complaints when I put my knowledge to good use, as far as I can tell,” I said.

She laughed and the sky brightened into glorious crimson dusk. I felt all living things experience contentment in that sound that rained down like the sweetest bells. “No, I can appreciate your skill, even if I might not like how it was gained.”

I nodded, and turned back to the sight from the hill. “And there is your home,” I said, and there it was, the earth rolling away beneath us to expose it to our sight. “The home I’ve always known you. The place where so many memories exist.”

“Tell me one,” she said absently, looking at her home distant below us.

“There was that time you wanted to make the rice dumplings, even if neither of us can cook. So we did. And we got messy and made wonderful play-doh but it tasted absolutely awful. I always loved that. Our food we made together was terrible. I fell in love with you that moment. All over again. It was divine.”

She leaned against me, and I wrapped my arm around her, and she was nestled against me so perfectly. “That was nice,” she said with a happy sigh. And then we sat and watched as dusk slowly deepened. Finally, she spoke up. “So what now?” She looked up at me, and in her eyes I could see the coming of the starry night before it was there in the heavens. Nightfall would be swift and sudden tonight.

“Which ‘what now’ are you asking about?”

“What now between us,” she said. I felt her sudden, deeply-hidden insecurity welling up within her. It was like a change of air pressure in the world around us, subtle but telling.

“Well, we could wait and see,” I said.

“Wait and see about what?”

“About school, about time, about what would be the best course. About where we’ll be with each other in the future.”

“You’re sounding too responsible,” she said as she nudged my side with her elbow. “it doesn’t become you. Don’t rush into being adult, cheer up. It’s a simple question. What. Do. You. Want? That’s all that matters. Don’t think, just answer.”

I paused for a moment. What did I tell her now? Should I tell her what I really wanted, what deep secret hope nestled in my heart. Or would it be best to tell her something more palatable. The problem was torture in that moment. Do I speak the hidden dream aloud and thus change everything? Or better that she remain ignorant of my intentions. To speak it would make it real, an irrevocable choice that I would not be able to withdraw once it was extended. Would I be okay with that? Was it fair to her?

Then I realized that she had asked, that she always knew my mind better than I and knew that I wouldn’t lie to her. In reality, she had already made the choice. Asking me the question, I was left with only the ability to respond and thus make everything change its course. The comfort that she had invited this choice was the only thing that leant my words and kind of power as I opened up that deep part of my heart and let the most personal dream escape into the outer world.

“Marry me.”

“What?” She looked at me, and laughed softly, but there was no mocking or meanness in it. It was a laugh of surprise and (I believe) delight, incredulous and startled out of her. “You can’t be serious.”

“Why not?” I took her hand in mine and held it close and kissed her cool skin and looked up into her eyes shining with starlight that wasn’t in the sky yet. “Would that truly be so bad?”

“I didn’t say that,” she said, a smile in her eyes. The sun was dropping beautifully onto the horizon. “But what of our parents? We’re so young, they’d never agree to it.”

“Then we simply won’t tell them,” I said. “There’s no need to involve them.”

“No need? And what of the preparations and technical matters? Are you suggesting we go get married and tell no one and live apart while my heart breaks? Or that perhaps we should run off to Lord knows where and get married suddenly in some one-hour chapel and find another place to live and try to make a life for ourselves together as we both give up our dreams. Is that it?”

“No,” I said, reflecting for a long moment. “I don’t’ mean either of those things. I mean that we can agree to be married. For now, we’ll leave it at that. We’ll make the commitment, pledge ourselves to each other. Engagement. Betrothal. Nobody needs to know, yet, until they can accept it. When the time is right, we’ll let the world know. We’ll shout it from the rooftops. But from now on, if you agree, we’ll know we are to remain together, joined by words and emotions and thoughts.”

I was exuberant. I was liberated. I felt as though I could do anything in that moment. I had spoken my mind and I knew what I wanted. The power of that revelation came upon me in a rush. I felt as though I could fly. And yet, in that moment, I was content to remain there with her, seated, awaiting the answer.

In that moment, I thought nothing of the troubles ahead. I had no reckoning of the letter probably cooling in a printer somewhere, awaiting stuffing into a plain, simple envelope. That letter would exile me from both school and from Celine’s side. That letter would spell my downfall, by no more than a tenth of a point, a mere digit on someone’s calculator. I didn’t know the paid we would suffer, the horrors we would visit upon ourselves, or the eventual end to us that would come almost on year later to the day.

Right now I was in the present, and I knew only joy. And when her mouth opened and her eyes gleamed it was rapture. In her voice was the herald of the dying sun, speaking in the soft tones of the night that descended upon us, wrapping us in its intimate embrace. There, with her, I knew true peace. I knew contentment.

“Yes..” A whisper of the wind, the earth settling, fires kindled and tides crashing. “Yes,” she said.”

There was more, much more, more than could fill reams and reams of paper. But my dream froze in that moment, when that long-awaited answer fell from her perfect lips. All was still, frozen in some hiccup of time. And then, with a blast, the vision shattered and shards of my thought were scattered into the void. I awoke in pain from it, screaming into the new-born day.