Detached by Christina Kilbourne

Author:Christina Kilbourne
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dundurn
Published: 2016-07-19T16:00:00+00:00

It seemed like years had passed since I’d walked across suicide bridge, but it had only been four months. I glanced out my bedroom window at the snow falling. Even the botched hanging had receded. Panic clawed out from inside my chest and I lay down on my bed. I tucked my knees under my chin and tried to clear my mind. What was wrong with me? I wondered. Why couldn’t I just go through the motions of living like everyone else and act happy? Was everyone as miserable as me but a better actor? Did Aliya sometimes wish she could fall asleep and never wake up? Did Kyle ever want his brain to just shut up? I shook the thought from my head and sat up again. I needed a distraction and turned on my laptop. Joe found me on Facebook within minutes.

“Do U ever study or R U, like, always on FB?” I asked him.

“Nice conversation starter,” he quipped back.

“Sorry. How R U?”

“Fine. Did Mom tell U her big plan for Christmas?”

“Not really, what?”

“She wants to go on a cruise.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, she thinks if we stay home all we’re going to do is think about Granny and Gramps like last year.”

I didn’t know what to write back. I didn’t want to think about Granny, or Gramps.

“U still there?” Joe wrote a minute later.

“Yeah, I’m here. Getting away would be good.”

“She needs us to convince Dad.”

“How?”

“You’re his favourite. Don’t U have any strategies?”

“Yeah, rite, I’m his favourite. Where does she want to go?”

“Alaska, but they don’t run in winter.”

Too bad, I thought when I pictured all that icy water slapping at the hull of a cruise ship.

“Where else?”

“The Caribbean, the Mediterranean, the South Pacific.”

“Aren’t cruises big $$$$?”

“Yeah, I was surprised too. But something down in the Caribbean is probably ok.”

“It would be nice to be warm for a week.”

“So talk to Dad.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

I’d never been on a ship before but I imagined it would be pretty easy to sneak onto the deck at night and slip over the railing. Once I was in the ocean there was no way I’d be able to swim to safety and nobody would be around to rescue me. In fact, it might be considered an accident and Mom and Dad would be spared the grief of knowing they’d raised a suicidal freak.

“Sweetie?” Mom knocked on my door and poked her head into my room.

Sherlock, who was lying beside my bed, raised his head hopefully and whacked his tail on the floor. The cat jumped off my bed.

“I’m going to the mall now. You still want to come?”

I slapped my hand over the list lying beside me.

I have to stop being so careless, I thought.

“Yeah, sure. Give me five minutes.”

I logged off my computer, tucked the note back into its secret compartment, and joined Mom in the car. I almost got out again because the thought of being at the mall was overwhelming, but I forced myself to put on the seatbelt.

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