Casey Roland is dead. Tessa doesn't want to admit it, but she knows she is responsible for her best friend's death. With bullying her for the past several months, Tessa should have seen the suicide coming, but she doesn't. Why would she when her m...
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A phone call in the middle of the night is never a good thing.
I groan at the sound of the landline ringing from downstairs. I wanted to curse whoever was calling. Seriously, but who on earth calls at this hour of the night? I hide my head under the pillow, but it does nothing to block out the sound. I give up, lying on my back as I stare up at the ceiling in the dark, hoping I will be able to get back to sleep after whoever called and interrupted my sleep. I have an assessment tomorrow I don't want to mess up because I couldn't sleep well.
It stops ringing. I wonder if Dad had maybe answered it or if he had missed the call.
A few minutes passed, and I figured whoever called must have realised no one was going to pick up. It was nearly midnight anyway. I roll onto my side and closed my eyes. Within seconds the door creaks open, and I groan. It's not even morning and my eight-year-old twin brothers think it's okay to sneak into my room to wake me, just like they do every morning.
"Kaiden, Jackson, get out of my room right now," I scold, sitting upright.
But it wasn't my brothers standing at the door. With the hall light shining behind the tall dark figure, I see it is Dad. When I see him there, my body goes cold, and it wasn't because it was winter. The last time he came into my room at this time of the night was when I was eleven; informing me that Mum was killed by a drunk driver on her way home from her shift at the restaurant.
Whoever was on the phone, it can't be good, I tell myself.
"It's just me, sweetie." He switches on the light. I shield my eyes from the brightness. "I didn't mean to wake you. I wanted to see if you were up."
"Who was on the phone?"
Dad doesn't say anything as he strolls into my room. There's something unusual as the way he walked. He always held his head high. Instead, he has his head down, and it instantly takes me back to the night he woke me up to tell me what happened with Mum. Was he coming in here to tell me that someone has died? Or was he coming in to break some other bad news to me? He sits down beside me. For a moment he just sits there, not making any eye contact as he thought about his words carefully. "Corey Roland was on the phone. Tessa... something happened to Casey this evening."
When he mentions my ex-best friend's name, I wanted to laugh. I'm sure whatever happened to Casey, she only did it for attention. But by the tone of my father's voice, it was no laughing matter.
"Tessa, Casey took her own life."
I feel the blood drain from my face. I wanted to believe it was all a joke, that somehow Casey was pulling a prank on everyone and had gotten her older brother to make the phone call. It was something I was sure she would do to get attention. That's all she has been doing for the last six months since our friendship drifted apart. She has always been jealous of me for having a boyfriend and of my band MTripleT. She would do about anything for me to notice her.
But of course this wasn't a joke. I recalled the message she had sent me earlier today. If our friendship is truly and definitely over, then I just want to say goodbye.
I laughed at her message and replied Of course it's truly n definitely over. R U stupid or something? Our friendship has been over since U began getting jealous when I started dating Mark, n when I started hanging out with the band.
She never replied back. Now I wonder why I even wrote that. As soon as she sent that message, I should have taken it seriously. Casey and I have been best friends since kindergarten. I was being bullied by some older boys in another grade and they had taken my lunch. Casey came and sat with me, offering me a vegemite sandwich. I wasn't a huge fan of vegemite, but I took it because I didn't want to wait for school to be over to eat. Since then we have been inseparable. She has been there for me too when my mother had died, and I was there for her when her parents would argue until they finally divorced last year right before our friendship drifted apart. We were more like sisters than friends, especially when we both didn't have sisters.
"H-How did she die?" I ask when I find my voice after the shock of the news. Could I have stopped her if our friendship wasn't over? If I had listened to her rather than pushed her away, could I have saved her?
"Corey didn't say." Dad wraps an arm around my shoulders and pulls me into a hug. I didn't want the hug. I didn't deserve it. I made Casey end her life. I know I did. She is dead because of me. "I'm so sorry, Tessa."
Dad hugs me for what seems like a long time before getting up, telling me to get some sleep as I have school in the morning. He promises to tell my brothers not to come into my room in the morning to wake me like they annoyingly do every day.
I lie back down once Dad had turned off the light. I should be crying, but I'm too shaken by the news to allow my emotions to takeover. I imagine Casey for a moment, wondering what her last thoughts were before she had taken her life.
