"Hey," she said, sitting down at the girl's table in the crowded library. Sarah was immediately shushed by the tables next to them, but she simply rolled her eyes and brought her attention back to the girl.
Sarah's roommate only looked up with her deep green eyes for a moment before timidly going back to her book.
"Okay," Sarah started, quieter this time. "We've been living together for two weeks now, and I don't even know your name. So, in the spirit of friendship, my name is Sarah. What's yours?"
The other girl closed her book slowly and looked up at Sarah. There was a darkness in her face, a darkness that contrasted Sarah's light nature, and the silence because of it frightened both girls. They came from different stories, and now they were supposed to coexist in a place that did not know or care about them. It was impossible, it was a square peg and a round hole. Sarah knew, as she looked into the other girl's eyes; the attempt was for nothing.
"My name is Eileen," the girl said. The friendly smile Sarah had held on her face before broadened into a dazzling grin. Maybe not so hopeless after all.
"Awesome," Sarah said. In her mind, she had won and the conversation was over. She went to leave when she felt a cold hand on her wrist. It was Eileen. From Sarah's almost standing position, the girl looked small, fragile, like a hummingbird blown aimlessly in a hurricane. "What's wrong, Eileen?" she asked, trying to commit the name to memory.
"I'm not usually like this," she whispered. "I would have talked to you earlier, been your friend, but there are things that are affecting me now."
"Oh!" Sarah exclaimed, and was once again shushed. She waved her hand at the protestors. "I'm sorry, I didn't know." She sat again and allowed Eileen to keep hold of her arm. Eileen looked down to her hand, but made no move to disconnect. They were both frightened by the position they were in, but Sarah was no coward and Eileen was no recluse. "You know," Sarah added, "you can tell me what's wrong. I can help."
Eileen smiled, but it was a calm and hopeless smile. A funeral smile, fake and for someone else's benefit. "I'm not so sure about that, Sarah. But that's perfectly fine."
"Look, we're friends now, and friends stay and listen. They help. So are you going to tell me what's wrong?"
"Bobby."
The silence was back again, the cloud of darkness that was locked within Eileen had come out with the boy's name. Sarah could do nothing but stare in confusion and pity at the smaller girl. Like how one looks at a recently deceased bird, before the reality of the situation comes to world and the flies come to the corpse.
Eileen was just a dead little bird.
Sarah shivered and shook off the thought. She covered Eileen's hand with her own and asked calmly, "What happened with Bobby?"
Eileen's eyes shot to Sarah's, as if she had forgotten her surroundings for a moment. They were both painfully aware of the silence around them, of the eavesdroppers and gossipers mere feet away, but the flies were setting in quickly, and it was either telling now or keeping silent forever. "I loved him," Eileen said, and her eyes were downcast again. "I didn't love him in the way someone loves a person in the moment. Does that make sense to you? I had loved him forever, I had loved him in the past. We were seventeen, and I had loved him a thousand years. Is that possible?"
No, Sarah thought to herself in the silence after the question. No, it is not possible. But this was not her story; she was only a supporting role here, and she would play the part dutifully. "What happened with Bobby, Eileen?" she asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.
Eileen was lost inside herself, though, and carried on with the story at her own pace.
"We always talked about ourselves like that, like we were bigger than our lives, than our problems. I told him how I felt, I told him about the thousands of years I had loved him, and he believed. We made up stories of our romance through time. We talked about our souls, who we were before, everything. But Bobby," she took a shaky breath. No more tears would come, but the dry sobs still wracked her body. "Bobby liked to focus on the future. He was obsessed with it. Unhappy with this life, with this soul, he couldn't wait to meet me again, to change and be someone more important than who he was. Maybe he had that desire all his life, but I fueled it by loving him the way I did."
Sarah noticed now the tears were gone, but the silence had returned. She also noticed the circles under Eileen's eyes, the sheen to her face. The silence wasn't acceptance, Sarah realized. The lack of tears didn't come from comfort. Eileen was just tired. She had flapped her wings too hard for too long and had burned out on Sarah's doorstep. Someone had to do something about it. Sarah went to speak, but was interrupted.
"The cops told me it was the drugs that had made him do it, but I know why he jumped off that roof, and it wasn't because of any syringe," Eileen said suddenly, and Sarah's eyes widened. Eileen went on. "He had told me to come over and wait for him in his room. I found the letter in a matter of minutes, but it didn't matter. I didn't know where he was, didn't know where to run to, how to save him. So I didn't. Didn't find him, didn't run, didn't save the boy I loved, the boy who loved me. I just sat in his room and waited. And he jumped off the roof of the school, two miles from his house."
Sarah was stuck in a trance, eyes wide and mouth dry. There was nothing to say, so she said nothing, for a while, until curiosity got the best of her. This wasn't her story, and so she was immune to the pain and reality of it. Swallowing hard, she asked, "What did his letter say?"
Eileen smiled the same dead, hopeless smile. Her eyes were vacant when she looked at Sarah. "It said: 'Next time I'll be better.'"
"Oh."
Eileen shoved her book aside and stood up, her eyes still devoid of emotion. "I'm going to go now," she said, and Sarah nodded her head and let her go.
Only after finding Eileen an hour later hanging from their dorm room fan with a note crumpled on the floor that stated 'There's no such thing as next time' did Sarah realize what the other girl must have felt like waiting in Bobby's room for him to die.
~
Somewhere out there, a boy felt a strange stab in his chest followed by extreme sadness, but it dulled quickly, and he made no move to find out the reason it had happened.
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