Author's Note: It is my recommendation to the reader, because of the huge intervals of time between posting chapters, to go back to the beginning and read the whole story straight through. It makes much more sense as a whole than as fragmented vignettes. The ending will hit you more strongly if you soak in the whole tone of the story at once. But that's just a suggestion. Thanks for reading, and thanks especially for being patient.
Also: Because this story consumed such a large chunk of my life, I have written out extended author's notes/after thoughts, if you're interested in the behind the scenes bull shit of this story. I will e-mail them to you upon request, because I was too lazy to upload them to my website.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o
She didn't leave a note. That's how I knew she was serious. Ellie had a flare for the dramatic, and when a girl like that wants to try and kill herself, she's going to do it with gusto. But there was no note. No dramatic farewells, no last requests, no elaborate explanations. She wasn't trying to prove a point or get someone's attention. She just wanted out. It was the purest form of desperation there is. Just, so much hurting that only death could fix it. She wanted the quickest, easiest way to escape the avalanche of pain that was about to crush her. Every time I think about her sitting alone in that room, so lost and so scared and so hopeless… devoid of any reason to stay alive… reaching for that familiar razor blade… I still have nightmares. I still hate myself sometimes when I think that if I had been there, maybe I could have saved her.
Even Sean says it wasn't my fault. Even he admits that saving Ellie was a much bigger task than simply taking the razor from her hands. Saving Ellie was something people had been trying to do for years. There was a certain part of Ellie that was unreachable. Complicated wounds that nobody had the talent to heal. All the love and support in the world wouldn't change that dangerous streak in her.
But these were conclusions we reached much, much later, after years of grieving and contemplation. After her absence became more of a reality than the lack of her presence. These are the things Sean tells me now, to ease my still struggling mind. These are the things we all say after-the-fact, the mantra that allows us to cope and live a normal life again.
In the moment, it was completely different. In the moment, it was not just "one of those things." In the moment, there were no excuses or explanations. There was certainly no sign of a normal life on the horizon. In the moment, my world was sinking in oblivion and I had nothing to live for.
They say sometimes you have to hit rock bottom before you can start working your way back to the surface again. Ellie's suicide was most definitely rock bottom for me. The bull shit that had been building up in my life over the past year, my vicious and sudden divorce, my growing drinking problem, unpaid bills, depression, the affair with Ellie and my crumbling relationship with my brother... The ground shattered beneath my feet and all of this shit caved in on top of me when Ellie died. It was the horrifying point that pushed my life over the edge.
When someone dies, it's like a bullet goes straight through the fabric of your universe. For awhile you lose all sanity, all hope, because as hard as you try you can't get yourself to accept a reality with this big bleeding hole in it. The helplessness you feel is... unreal. It's kind of like having your hands and feet handcuffed together, being tied to a concrete block, and thrown into a river. Times ten. It throws right into your face the fleetingness and meaninglessness of life. It makes you face reality, bare and raw and sans bull shit, and at that point in my life, reality was the last thing I was capable of dealing with.
I couldn't be in that house any more. It wreaked of her, of her life and her death. It made me want to rip down the walls with my bare hands. I moved in with Clint and Phil, into their haven of constant partying and cheap rent. There were always strangers there, always drugs, always drama and bull shit. There was no comfort there, and I was glad. I didn't want comfort. I didn't want anything. I didn't want to know that I even existed. I felt nothing and I felt like I was nothing and there was no better place to stop existing than the shithole my friends called home.
I drank. Perpetually. I sometimes waded into the river of drugs that poured through the apartment. I lost my job. I stopped taking care of myself. I stopped giving a shit. I barely scraped by. Days turned into weeks, into months. It didn't take me long to fall off the face of the earth. Sean started calling. Wendy started calling. Even my parents left a concerned message or two. I never called back. Rock bottom is a place without visiting hours.
I was plagued by Ellie's ghost, constantly rummaging through my memories of her, torturing myself with thoughts of the life that I had held so close in my arms. The life that no one would ever touch or know again. Obsessively, I tried to remember every fuck, every smile, every veggie burger and petty argument. I tried so hard to hold onto them as long as they would last; tried to piece them all together in hopes of seeing a bigger picture that didn't exist. She was a puzzle that was incomplete. A wrong that would never be righted. A question that had no answer. A life cut short.
When I thought of her, I thought of everything else I'd done wrong in my life. Sean. Wendy. Charli. Money. Drinking. My friends. My parents. My life. Myself. For the first time in my life, I hated myself. I spent my sleep sorting through nightmares, and I spent every waking hour trying to drown every memory of everything I'd ever known.
It was a dark, ugly time. Rock. Bottom. Nothingness.
Three months after the suicide, it took Phil overdosing for me to wake the hell up. He didn't die but he almost did, and when I stood over his lifeless body in the hospital, I saw the spitting image of where my life was going. But more importantly than that, more important than seeing what a truly destroyed man looks like, I saw Manny. I held that sobbing girl in my arms as we stood by her brother's bed and saw how hopeless she felt. I knew that feeling because I had been there, too. And I knew I didn't want to put Sean in Manny's shoes.
I wanted to get my life back. Ellie had given hers up, had not been strong enough to deal with it. Phil was throwing his away to drugs. These were people that I loved, people that I wanted so badly to save. The day I turned my life around was the day I admitted my powerlessness. You can't save anybody. The most you can do is save yourself, and love who you can along the way.
I left Phil's hospital room that day and the first thing I did was start returning calls. I politely let my parents know I wasn't dead. I reluctantly asked Wendy for some money to help get me back on my feet. I called the local chapter of AA. I called Sean, and apologized so many times. We did a lot of talking, and a lot of working to love one another again. We moved back in together and slowly, awkwardly, painfully, but surely, I started to get my shit together.
It wasn't easy, but nothing ever is, and I'm kind of glad for that.
o-o-o-o
It's been almost two years since Ellie's death, and in spite of the multiple storms I've weathered since then, I am now holding the most beautiful girl I've ever seen in my arms.
"Cookie!" she squeals, pounding her chubby fists against my chest. I stroke the fuzzy black curls on her forehead and smile at her big brown eyes. A trail of drool dribbles from her mouth as she pouts at me. Absolutely gorgeous.
I laugh and reach into the red cardboard box, retrieving a lion-shaped cookie and placing it in her tiny hand. No one has ever had me as completely whipped as Sage Eleanor Cameron. I can't even imagine what hell she's going to give me once she starts walking.
"Tracker, if you don't hurry your ass up, all the good seats are going to be taken," Wendy snaps, determinedly shoving her way through the slowly-shuffling crowd. That's my boo for you.
Eventually we manage to snag some third-row seats and it's not long before the ceremony begins. Good old Raditch steps up to the podium and starts rambling his obligatory cliché mush, and I do my best to keep the restless little girl in my lap from making too much of a fuss. After several boring speeches, it's time for the moment we've all been waiting for. My wife turns to me excitedly and I take her hand as we wait anxiously for the C's. I take a moment to look at her, then at my daughter, then at my brother up on the stage, and I smile as I think of how amazing it is that we're all here today.
It's Sean's graduation. This kid's been dealt a rough hand in life, gone through much more than I have, and I know Ellie's suicide devastated him ten times more than it ever could have done to me. But here he is, standing in a dorky robe on a stage that I never made it to, and words can't even describe how proud I am of his strength. When he steps off that stage today, there's nothing but the future in front of him. Nothing but possibilities. Nothing but life. And god I hope he figures out what it's all about with a little less turbulence than I did.
Not that I've gotten such a bad lot in life. I've got more regrets and demons than you can shake a stick at, but I've been blessed with some pretty amazing things. As Wendy helped me rebuild my life, and worked with me to finance my own garage, I began to realize what a good thing she was in my life, and used all the strength I possessed to win her back. She married me again, this time for good I hope, and gave birth to our beautiful daughter just as Cameron Motors was starting to grow into a business I can proudly use to support my family.
"Rachel Maureen Calico…" Raditch calls out. "Douglas Peter Camden… Sean Miles Cameron…"
Wendy and I clap ferociously as Sean walks across the stage. He takes his diploma and shakes Raditch's hand, the same stoic, tough-guy look on his face as always. I've got no doubts he hates those stupid robes and can't wait for this crap to be over, but just as he rejoins his classmates and takes his seat, he catches my eye and grins.
Sage bounces enthusiastically and waves her little hand at her uncle. Sean laughs and waves back. I place a kiss on her tender forehead and she looks up at me with those mischievous Cameron eyes.
"Cookie!" she coos.
I know there'll come a day when Sage is too big for my arms, a day when I'll have to let her take on the world by herself and make her own mistakes. I'd suffer through life's lessons all over again if it meant she didn't have to, but I know by now it doesn't work like that. I have so much to give this child before she leaves my safe arms, so much to teach her about life and love and the big world out there. About all the beautiful but tragic things Ellie taught me.
I reach for a giraffe and give it to her. I guess cookies are as a good a place as any to start.