Suicide Notes

you, so that you have to wait it out under a tree. Then your T-shirt is soaking wet and all you can think about is getting home and into something dry.

Rankin was humming. I could hear it through the shower wall. It wasn’t really a song, more like this weird out-of-tune melody. I listened to him while the water warmed up or maybe just until I got used to it being cold. Something about the song was familiar. Then I realized he was humming “London Bridge,” only not quite right. He sounded like a little kid trying to sing something he’d just learned in school.

I soaped up and tried to ignore him. I could still taste him in my mouth. I wished I had some mouthwash, but I didn’t, so I just opened my mouth and let the water fill it up. I swished it around and spit, but I could still taste Rankin’s dick. It was like when you eat peppers or something and no matter what you drink, you can’t get it off your tongue.

After a few minutes he stopped humming and got out. I heard him drying off. Then he left without saying anything, as if nothing weird had happened. Again.

I stood under that water for a long time. For some reason, I couldn’t get that stupid “London Bridge” song out of my head. “London Bridge is falling down,” I kept hearing. “Falling down. Falling down. London Bridge is falling down, my fair lady.”

When I was little, I had a record of that song. I used to play it over and over. Standing in the shower, I started singing the next words. “Take a key and lock her up. Lock her up. Lock her up. Take a key and lock her up, my fair lady.”

For some reason, that made me start crying. I just slid down the wall and sat there in that goddamn shower, crying and singing that stupid song, over and over.

Day 30

I think I’ve figured out what Rankin’s brand of crazy is. He’s projecting, or whatever they call it when you accuse someone else of being what you are. Personally, I call it being an asshole, but I guess they needed to come up with a name that sounds more official.

This morning I went to the bathroom to pee. I put it off as long as I could. You know, like when—for whatever reason—you don’t want to get out of bed, so you lie there hoping the pee will just magically turn to steam or something. But it doesn’t, and eventually you can’t stand it anymore and have to get up.

I lasted for maybe half an hour. Then it got to the point where I either had to get out of bed or pee in it. Frankly, I was tempted, but I just couldn’t do it. I had to get up.

And there was Rankin. I don’t know how he always manages to be in the bathroom when I need to use it, but it’s starting to freak me out. He’s like one of those dogs who can sense when a person is going to have a seizure, only Rankin senses whenever I need to pee.

He was shaving at one of the sinks. I didn’t look at him while I went to the urinal, even though he was literally right behind me. For a few seconds I actually expected to feel him come up behind me again, but he stayed put.

After I peed, I went to wash my hands. I figured I should say something, since Rankin seemed a little edgy.

“Hey, about yesterday,” I said. “It’s no big deal. You don’t have to worry. I’m not going to tell anyone about you.”

I figured that was kind of big of me, you know, since he was the one who got all gay on me. I mean, I didn’t start any of it.

“About me?” he said, making that confused face he does when he doesn’t understand something. “What about me?”

“About how you’re—you know,” I said. “About what happened.”

He looked like I’d just called him a puppy killer or something. “Me?” he said. “I was going to say that I won’t tell anyone about you.”

I couldn’t believe it. He was the one who came into my room. He was the one who touched me. Not the other way around. When I told him that, he shook his head.

“No way, man,” he said. “I’m not like that. I was just fooling around with you. It’s not like there are any girls here to do it with or anything. If we weren’t in here, it would never have happened.”

“There are girls here,” I said. I was mad, and I wanted to push him a little.

He made a grunting sound. “None I’d go near,” he said. “They’re all whack-jobs.”

“And what are you?” I asked him. “What am I? In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re all whack-jobs.”

“I’m just saying,” said Rankin. “It wasn’t anything to get bent out of shape about, okay?”

“Yeah,” I said, washing my hands for like the sixth time. “Okay. I wasn’t going to say anything, anyway.”

He smiled a goofy smile. “Me neither,” he said. “So we’re good?”

I nodded as I turned off the water. Rankin gave me this weird punch in the shoulder, like we’d just scored a goal or something. Then he went back to shaving and I went back to my room. I waited until I was pretty sure he would be out of the bathroom before I went back for my shower.

I still can’t believe he thinks I’m the one with the problem. How is that even possible? Okay, so maybe I was the one who did the sucking, but he was the one who wanted it. I didn’t. I just did it because he did.

I can’t even think about it right now. It makes me too mad. I’ll deal with it later. Besides, there’s other stuff on my mind. Namely, leaving.

In my session with Cat Poop today, he reminded me that I’m two-thirds of the way through my forty-five days. On the one hand, that makes it seem like time is flying by. On the other, I feel like I’ve been here for thirty years, not thirty days.

“You didn’t seem very excited about leaving when your parents talked about it yesterday,” Cat Poop said. “How come?”

I shrugged. I didn’t know what to say. Because here’s the weird thing: Sometimes I wish I could stay here forever. It’s like being in a castle with a moat around it. Sure, it’s a castle filled with crazy people, but at least no one can get in unless we let them in. Of course, we can’t get out either, but when you think about it, what’s so great about being out there? There’s too much out there that can hurt you. In here you don’t have to worry about it. You just have to worry about being molested by jocks. But like I said, I’m not thinking about that.

Cat Poop tried another question on me. “What do you want your life to be like when you leave here?” he asked me.

I thought about it for a minute. “I want to be so rich that I can buy my own island and live on it all by myself.”

You know what he said? “What about music? What about movies?”

“I’ll order them online,” I said. “Food, too. You can pretty much get anything online. Did you know you can even buy black widow spiders online?”

It’s true. Amanda and I looked it up one day when we were talking about how you could kill someone and get away with it. Just hypothetically, of course. I have enough problems without being a psychopath. Or sociopath. Whatever. Anyway, Amanda thought you could get a whole bunch of black widows, put them in a box, and mail it to whoever you wanted to kill. And it turns out, you can. They aren’t even that expensive, something like three bucks each.

“Even friends?” Cat Poop said.

“What do you think most people spend their time online doing?” I asked him. “Isn’t that the whole point of the internet, that you can pretend to be someone else so that a bunch of other people will like you? Practically every kid in my school has their own website. And believe me, they make themselves sound a lot more interesting than they really are. Seriously, does Jamie Kazinsky really think anyone is going to believe the pictures her cousin took with his digital camera were used in the Venezuelan edition of Seventeen?”

“What about love?” Cat Poop asked me, not answering my question. I’m getting kind of tired of him doing that. Personally, I think it’s rude.

“What about it?” I asked back.