The Suicide King Read online

  I knew he'd do his due diligence and get everything correct. No foul play to find, and we had found enough staged suicides over the years to make sure he went over everything with a fine-tooth comb.

  "I think the last thing you said to me was after that kid on Forty-Second Street overdosed," Gates said and blew out a deep breath. "You said it was a shame they didn't care more about living than they did about sticking shit in their veins. Well, I have to say the same to you, buddy. It's a shame. I'm surrounded by death all day, every day. Some of them I can get; however, you, I just don't see it. I know the job is hard, but you had life by the balls, man. I can honestly say I never saw it coming."

  My nostrils flared and the hostility rolled off me in waves. People like him pissed me off. He was a medical professional. Out of everyone, he should understand mental illness. Sometimes I just felt like crap for no reason. I was pissy or in a shit mood or didn't feel like getting out of bed. No huge defining moment caused my mood. It just was. It existed and nothing anyone did or said would change it. There had been studies on brains. Normal brains versus brains with different kinds of mental traumas. He should have understood this kind of data. The fact he wasn't looking at the facts ate at me.

  He should have gotten that. Hearing his judgment. Feeling the preverbal slap in his tone, even having Luke there to witness it, stung.

  Of course I'd heard people judging me, and others like me, all my life. Why couldn't I just be happy? Those little magic pills I'd been prescribed weren't so magical. I didn't just swallow them and wake up the next day to discover the sun was brighter, the birds chirped louder, and I tap danced down the street. Fuck no. Instead, as soon as I sat down for more than five minutes, I wanted to sleep more. My senses felt dulled. I was in zombie mode, and my suicidal thoughts increased tenfold. So, what was supposed to help me essentially made me worse. I bet I wasn't the only person who ever felt this way.

  "I see your brain working a million miles a minute. What's going on in there?" Luke asked.

  "Nothing."

  "Something."

  I huffed.

  He growled.

  "How can Doc sit there and judge me?" I turned my attention back to the medical man. "How can you pass so much judgment on me like that, Gates?"

  "Maybe the point is," Luke said, "not everyone will understand. And the people you think would get it, are the ones who won't, and the ones who you least expect to understand, will be the ones who forgive you first."

  "I don't want their damn forgiveness. I want them to understand."

  Luke raised a dark brow and cut me a sideways glance. "Isn't that the same thing?"

  "No, it's not."

  "Well, maybe that's why you ended up where you are."

  6

  As soon as I noticed the pale-yellow accent wall, the oversize diamond mirror behind the sink, and the countertop cluttered with makeup products, I relived all the memories of us getting ready in this bathroom. Even fighting over our shared sink flooded my memory. Steam filled the room as the sound of the shower running echoed off the tiles inside. I turned to shove Luke out of the room. Panic shifted inside of me, my pulse thumping in my throat. My hands shook as I tried to shove against his granitelike form, gaining nothing. Soft sobs echoed in the small space. My heart lurched.

  "Damn you, Jason," Maggie whispered and I froze.

  "Dammit, Luke. Get out." I hissed.

  "I'm not leaving."

  "You have no right to be in here. This is a private moment."

  Luke chuckled like that was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. "You lost the right to privacy along with your right for a lot of other things."

  Our bickering was drowned out by Maggie's hoarse voice. "I don't understand you. I tried. I tried to do everything right. I tried to be everything you needed. I know things were rough, and you felt like you were slipping through the cracks and sometimes you couldn't pull yourself out…but you promised."

  Guilt sliced through me. I might as well have sliced my own guts open with a knife. I stepped toward her and pressed my palm against the glass shower door. Watching my wife slumped against the tiles, sitting with her arms wrapped around her knees—her familiar black mascara lines streaking her cheeks as the hot water cascaded over her dark hair, plastering it to her face—was unbearable. It was like watching her try to make herself as small as possible in the most vulnerable position I'd ever seen her in. If I could, I would have wrapped myself around her. To protect her. "What did you promise?" Luke asked. His close proximity caused me to jump, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up.

  "Will you stop that?"

  "No, I won't. What did you promise her, Jason?"

  I threw my hands in the air. "I don't know!"

  Maggie pushed her hair out of her face and took a shuddered breath. "I don't know what was worse…having Kyle knock on the door to tell me they found your body and were investigating it as a possible suicide, or having to turn around and try to explain it to Grace. I just don't know how I could have been so stupid. I believed you. I saw all the signs. I knew something was wrong. I called your therapist and told him you weren't okay. I called your chief and told him you weren't okay. I tried to get you more help. But at the same time, I never knew what to say to you that wouldn't set you off. So sometimes, I didn't say anything at all. Maybe I should have pushed harder. Maybe I should have called you out when I knew you were lying about being fine. I just don't know how I'm supposed to feel right now."

  "Not like this, Mags! Not like this. I wrote you a letter. I know you haven't seen it yet, but I told you none of this was your fault." My voice cracked, but she couldn't hear my pleas.

  She groaned.

  And that made it worse. It was like she could almost hear me.

  "And a letter. My God, Jason, what kind of bullshit is that? If you think it will give me any of the answers I'm looking for, it won't. I'm never going to understand. I'm hurt. I'm angry. I'm sad and frustrated. I want to hit you, and I want to hold you and…" She let out a strangled sob. "I can't stop crying, and if you think for one second I'm better off and I could go find someone else without problems, or that I can just go on with my life, well, it just brings back all of those horrible fights we used to have. When you'd tell me I'd be better off without you. The one's you'd threaten me with suicide and tell me I'd move on in no time and be better off with someone without all these issues. Those were some of the most heartless things I'll remember you've ever said to me. You looked me in the eyes and said you'd never commit suicide. Even though you were a walking contradiction, you promised you would never do that to Grace. You said you'd never do that to me. And I believed you," she whispered the last three words. I believed you. The words echoed around in my head. Her sobs were no longer quiet as they reverberated off the tiles.

  Luke raised a brow and shot me a look that could have cut stone in half.

  I lifted and dropped my shoulders in a shrug. I knew he already knew I'd said those things, so there was no point in confirming it aloud to him. I wanted to crawl into the shower and wrap my arms around her. I wanted to tell her I was sorry. But sorry was an empty word. It wouldn't fill the void I'd left. It wouldn't fix what I'd broken inside of her. I'd left more open wounds when I'd stupidly thought I'd filled a lot of them in. I paced back and forth in front of the sink. "What do I do, Luke? How do I fix this?"

  "There is no fixing this. What's done is done."

  "No." I stopped and pointed my finger up in his face. "No. Look at her. This wasn't how it was supposed to be."

  "And how exactly did you think it would go? Did you think your death was some huge romantic gesture, and everyone would tell grand stories about you and no one would be angry, hurt, confused, or upset? Her grief isn't a result of a sudden illness or a tragic car accident. This is about your choice."

  "It was the only one I had."

  "But was it?"

  Maggie lifted her face to the water, allowing it to wash over it, her eyes red and puffy. "I don't k
now how I'll do this without you, you big idiot. All these people are coming at me from everywhere with their condolences or their stupid asshole theories of why you did it, or how I knew you were going to do it and did nothing about it, and I just don't know how much of this I can handle. I want to protect Grace, but you put her right in the line of fire. I don't know how I can love and hate someone so much at the same time. I pray every single second that you found peace and this was all worth it. And I pray that God will show me how to forgive you, because I just don't know how. Losing you was my worst fear every night you went to work, and for you to decide to do it yourself, is just unbearable."

  Tears welled in the corners of my eyes before they broke free and fell at a rapid pace down my face. I couldn't do or say anything. Luke's question resonated in my mind. But was it? Was death the only option? At the time suicide felt like the only way out. I'd defended mental health issues time and time again when people I loved and respected didn't understand and were hurt and angry until I was ready to lash out. And yet…here I was wondering, without the weight of the world bearing down on my shoulders, would I have chosen the same path knowing what I knew now? I wasn't so sure.

  7

  This was going to be absolute hell. I don't know why I never bothered to anticipate this moment when I should have.

  Luke unbuttoned his suit jacket, dropped a pair of sunglasses on his face, and stretched out on a sun lounger—as if he belonged here. Completely making himself at home.

  I shoved his shoulder. "Get up. You don't have the right to act like this."

  "Pipe down. The show is about to get started."

  The sound of a phone ringing and the all too familiar "hello" brought the weight of a thousand rocks to my stomach. I sank to the edge of the chaise Luke occupied.

  My mother strolled out of the open sliding glass door to the patio. The ocean waves rolled in behind us, salt clinging to the afternoon air.

  "Oh, Maggie, I'm so happy you called. Are you guys still coming down for summer break? I found the cutest bathing suits for Gracie. The weather is phenomenal right now. It's eighty-seven degrees outside, and the breezes coming off the gulf are like kisses from God."

  I knew my mother. If Maggie didn't interrupt her soon, she wouldn't get a word in edgewise. This would be a three-hour one-sided conversation, and my mother wouldn't have a clue something was amiss.

  "Mom," Maggie attempted to cut in over the speakerphone.

  My mom had insisted from the very beginning that Maggie call her Mom, too, since Maggie hadn't had a great relationship with her mother. She wanted to be supermom to both of us the day I first brought Maggie home. I hoped that never changed. I'd never thought of that until now.

  "Oh, and I found these pretty little dresses for you too. And those long shorts with all the pockets Jason likes." My mom paced in front of the chaise. She was always a pace-and-talk kind of person.

  "Mom," Maggie said a little louder, desperation evident in her voice.

  "Oh! I almost forgot to tell you—"

  "Deloris! Please."

  Silence filled the line. My mom stopped directly in front of us. If there was a surefire way to get her attention, it was that. Maggie had never in twenty-three years called my mom Deloris. It was either Mrs. King in the beginning or Mom. No one called her Deloris. Even her friends called her Didi.

  "What happened, Maggie? Is it my Jason?"

  My Jason. All of my life, she'd never referred to me as just Jason. I was always her Jason.

  Maggie let out a ragged breath over the line and with that, my mother's legs gave out.

  I shot forward to catch her. I didn't care what Luke said or did, I wasn't going to let her break a knee or a hip because of this. By some miracle, I was able to gain purchase and lower her to the chaise behind her.

  "Thank you," I said to Luke gruffly.

  "She's about to be hurt enough."

  A shuddering breath filled the line on the speakerphone. "I…I don't know how I'm supposed to tell you this. Especially over the phone. But I didn't want you to hear it from anyone but me. And I just—"

  "Maggie."

  Another shuddering sigh. "He's gone, Mom. I'm so sorry. He's gone." The last words were said on a whisper.

  The phone fell from my mother's delicate hands onto the wood deck. Her face pinched in pain and grief. Her cries started silently as her shoulders shook, becoming louder with each gasp for air. All I could hear over the weeping was Maggie in the background and her constant apologies of "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't want to ever have to tell you this. I wish it wasn't over the phone. I'm so sorry."

  "This is torture."

  "You should see hell."

  I shoved Luke's feet off the chaise "This isn't a joke!"

  "I'm glad you're finally starting to see that."

  "Mom, are you still there?" Maggie begged through the line.

  My mother wiped her face with the palms of her hands, then ran her fingertips under the edges of her lower lashes before she picked up the phone. "I'm here."

  "I don't really know what to say. I feel like I let you down."

  Both women sniffed simultaneously.

  "What happened?"

  Maggie sniffed again. "Well, they came by this morning to inform me that he…well… I don't know how I am supposed to tell you this. God, help me with this right now."

  My mother raised her head to the cloudless sky, closed her eyes, and took a shuddering breath. "He did it to himself, didn't he?"

  "Yes," Maggie squeaked.

  My head whipped to Luke. "How did she know?"

  I never discussed the things about the job that haunted me. It wasn't her burden to carry. It wasn't her burden to share. I wasn't sure how she knew.

  "Sometimes prayers are asked and sometimes they are answered. And sometimes no matter how much you wish they didn't, you discover a mother just knows." He lifted his shoulder in a casual shrug as if this wasn't one of the most devastating moments of my life. My nonlife. My afterlife? I wasn't sure where I stood.

  My mother rose slowly on shaky legs, wearing the white capris she always wore this time of year. "I never should have left him and moved here. I should have been there for him. Oh, my baby. My son. He was my everything. Why didn't he feel he could come to me with how he was feeling? I would have talked to him anytime he needed. I told him a hundred times he could call me no matter the time of day."

  "Mom, please don't do this to yourself. I know these words are going to sound hollow and empty and absolutely nothing is going to help you with your pain…but you cannot blame yourself. Don't add this burden on top of your grief. Please."

  "I just… Oh God above. I can't, Maggie. I can't breathe. He was always so happy, but I've noticed the light in his eyes fade. He was withdrawing and every time I asked him if he was okay, he always pretended he was. A mother always knows when her child is hurting. I just didn't want to push him." With a palm over her chest, my mom took shallow breaths, likely on the verge of a panic attack.

  "I know. I mean, I don't. But I do. I don't know what I'm saying. Please ignore me."

  "This isn't your fault, either, honey. You're allowed to grieve too. How's Gracie?" She rubbed her chest and seemed to give up on the idea of pacing and sank back onto the chaise.

  The sun beat down on her white hair, her blue eyes a stark contrast to the red they'd become. It would have been a beautiful day out if she hadn't gotten the worst news of her life.

  "Destroyed. Grace doesn't understand how or why any better than we do. She blames herself. It's a mess."

  "It wasn't any of your faults!" I yelled. "Why are all of you blaming yourselves for something that had nothing to do with any of you? I wrote her a note! If only she could see the damn note! I told her why. I've told her time and time again I couldn't take all this bullshit anymore." I pounded a fist into the edge of the chair.

  "I'll catch the first plane out. I need to be with my family. Gracie needs me."

  Maggie let out anothe
r whimper. "I need you too."

  "We need one another." My mom hiccupped and sucked in a strangled breath. "I didn't get to tell him this today, so I want to make sure I get to tell you. I love you, Maggie. And tell Grace, I love her too. I'll see you soon."

  Horrible sounds filled the other end of the phone. "I…love…you…too."

  They hung up, and my mom turned her head, looking almost directly at me for a beat before glancing up at the sky. "Why? Jason? I was here! I've always been here. I prayed every day and begged God to help you find peace. But I never meant like this. Not this way. This wasn't his way. Mothers aren't supposed to bury their children. You weren't supposed to go before me. I always believed in you. I told you how proud I was. Wasn't my love enough? How am I supposed to say goodbye? How am I supposed to bury you? How do I look Gracie in the eye and tell her it's going to be okay when I'm not okay?

  "I will never stop being your mother. I will never stop loving you. I will never stop worrying about where you are or if you're okay. Wondering if they're treating you well where you are and that you're happy. That's every mother's wish for her child. That they're loved and they're happy no matter where they are. On earth or not.

  "I wish you could have talked to me. I wish I could have helped you. I always kissed away every owie you had as a little kid and made it better. When you were a teenager, we worked through your angst together, but at some point, you stopped talking. Maybe you thought those problems were too big for me. I wish you'd given me the chance to kiss them for you. I would have done anything." She picked a handful of pebbles out of the potted plant next to her chair and hurtled them over the railing.

  "I'm sorry, Mom," I whispered.

  Then she wept. And so did I.