“You’re twenty-three, Hannah,” Lainey said. “You don’t need her approval anymore.”
“I know,” I said. “But I kind of hate tattoos, too.”
“Thanks a lot,” Lainey said with a laugh.
“I hate them for me,” I said. “I love yours for you.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she said, smiling.
Tyson chewed his lip, deep in thought. After a few seconds, he said, “I feel like we should do something, though. In Summer’s memory.”
“Like what?” Lainey asked.
“I don’t know yet,” Tyson said. “It’ll come to me.”
—
Later that night, after we made dinner and cleaned up the kitchen, we opened a second bottle of wine. The mood was somber, then downright dark.
“Have either of you ever…had any sort of suicidal thoughts?” Tyson asked us at one point.
I winced hearing the word—one I could no longer bear to say aloud—then shook my head.
“No. Never,” Lainey said. “What about you?”
Tyson hesitated just long enough to concern me, then said, “I’ve wanted to disappear, but not die.”
“Disappear? Where?” Lainey asked.
“Disappear from anywhere…everywhere…”
“Um. That’s called ‘death,’ ” Lainey said.
“No. It’s not the same thing. It’s not about wanting to die. It’s about wanting to escape pain,” Tyson said. “Do you know the David Foster Wallace quote? Where he likens suicide to jumping from a burning building?”
Lainey and I said no.
“It’s not that the person doesn’t fear falling—because he does—it’s just that falling feels less terrible than burning,” Tyson said, paraphrasing the quote.
“Damn,” Lainey whispered. “When you say it like that, I sort of get it. Almost.”
“Me too,” I said, wishing for the millionth time that I had called Summer the second I got her text. Gone straight to her room. Saved her.
The wave of guilt and regret was followed by a familiar aftershock of confusion and anger. Why had the toughest person I’d ever known given up so suddenly, with no warning whatsoever?
“Promise me you would never—” I said to Tyson.
“See? That’s the point,” Tyson said. “I don’t think that’s a promise anyone can make. Unless you’ve been standing in that burning building, you just don’t know what you’d do.”
“But promise you would at least talk to us—” I stopped in midsentence.
As I looked into Tyson’s eyes, I could see a lightbulb going off. “That’s it! That’s the promise we need to make…. If we ever feel like we’ve hit rock bottom—whether for a specific reason or no reason whatsoever—we have to promise to talk.”
“Yes,” I said, nodding emphatically. “Not only talk. But come together. Like this.”
“Yes,” Tyson said. “Just like this.”
“No matter where we are or what we have going on,” Lainey added.
Tyson nodded, then pulled a spiral notebook and ballpoint pen out of his backpack, turning to a blank page.
“What are you doing?” Lainey asked.
“I’m drawing up a contract,” he said, clicking the pen and starting to write furiously.
After a few minutes, he stopped, looked down at the page, and said, “There. Finished.”
“What does it say?” Lainey asked.
He cleared his throat and read aloud: In the days, months, and years to come, should we, the undersigned, find ourselves in a crisis, depression, or moment of deep sorrow or darkness, we hereby solemnly swear to reach out to one another before taking any drastic steps or making any permanent decisions. We make this pact in Summer’s name and memory.
“Wow,” I breathed. “That’s perfect.”
Tyson nodded, then said, “It just needs a title.”
“The Suicide Pact?” Lainey said.
Tyson looked as horrified as I felt. “God, no. That sounds like a cult where we promise to kill ourselves,” he said.
