Chapter Two – Learning How To Die
“While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.”
-Leonardo da Vinci
~
My left hand slipped a little as a harsh wind hit my side hard. It was hurricane-style weather with crashing waters below and an ever dropping temperature. The rain wasn’t rain anymore, it was ice and tears. It was years and years of the tears from every single girl who stood at the edge of a building, bridge, cliff or ledge. It was the tears of every girl who had died all alone.
I was hanging off the side of the bridge with my hands gripped to the hand rails behind me. They continued to slip under the rain. I figured that once they finally gave out, once the rain was too much and the night wanted to take me that it would be my time. That would be my sign to go.
Damn those waves below. They continued to rejoice at my pain, dancing and clapping. “Come to us,” they would say, “Come and fall down into our hands and let the world see you for the coward that you are. Let those who have pained you delight in the news of your end and they can laugh and dance and sing! Come to us!”
“Damn you!” I shouted. I had been shouting to anyone who had ever hurt me, ignored me, laughed at me and abandoned me. This was a dedication to anything and everything in my life that had come to this dark end.
It was time to turn another page in the small, meaningless book that had been my life and recall further how I got to this bridge. I would not let these women’s tears go to waste on me this night. I was going to tell it all. The world would know about me. This storm would carry my sorrow for miles.
This storm was my suicide letter.
~
“God damn it, Joseph!” My mother shouted to my father in Japanese, “Here you are, walking in late again from another long work day smelling like Red Door perfume. How stupid do you think I am?”
My mother was not an alcoholic. She was not a drug addict, cheater or gold digger.
My mother had grown up in a very poor home on the outskirts of Japan in a small village nobody knows about. Her parents were rice farmers who worked their hands bloody every day to put food on the table.
My mother had been the most beautiful girl the village had ever seen. The expression “It takes a village to raise a child” must have come from the combined efforts of my mother’s childhood peers as this was just the case from the moment she had been born. Inou Mitsuki, of Kendo Mitsuki and Mai Mitsuki, was the star child of the village the moment she was brought into the world and together the town knew she would do great things.
As a small child, Inou was taught to read and write. She had been so smart that as she hit her early teen years she had out-studied many of the city students and was now moving on to college level math learning English, Mandarin and French. The entire town put my mother through one of the most proficient schools in Tokyo and then most of her way through university.
At the age of 19, Inou Mitsuki had been working directly under the university’s president of science, well on her way to becoming one of the world’s brilliant minds. It was this year that she had met, fell in love with, and bore the child to Joseph K. Yang; a Chinese-American soldier traveling through Asia.
My brother, Kai Yang, was born on November 13th of that same year. It was on November 14th their love story ended… as did their love.
“Get out of my face with this!” He spoke in English. Rarely would my father indulge my mother by speaking in her native language.
“I am sick and tired of pretending that I don’t know about her, Joseph. I know all about these late nights at the motel and the dinners during our children’s birthdays and Christmas holidays and even your own daughter’s birth!”
My face had been pressed delicately against the wooden door of my room. I couldn’t see them but in my mind I could envision what the scene looked like. It was dark with that single, florescent lamp in the corner near the window seat in the living room. Mother had been shouting to him from the other side of our overly expensive Italian silk couch with her Japanese good luck charm in her hand.
Father must have been unbuttoning his officer’s uniform slowly, an entire foot taller than her, rolling his eyes and biting at his bottom lip as he always did when he was angry. He was a muscular, large man, very much different from the typical Chinese man that cliché’s and stereotypes had made them out to be.
There was a sweet, elegant smell on him that mixed with his aftershave. It had confused me when I was little but as I grew, the smell was something of a joke. The first time I was able to put a name to the scent, Red Door perfume by Elizabeth Arden, I was in Macy’s with my mother. She placed her red nail over the name of the scent for just a moment, the distinct look of pain jolting across her dark eyes, before we moved on and never looked back.
He was also drunk most of the time. Mother would ignore him on nights like this when he was far too intoxicated to even hold a conversation but she’d had it now. There was no turning back. My mother simply refused to be left behind in the shadows any longer.
“Get over yourself, woman. Get out of my face and leave me be. You have no idea what you are talking about.”
There was a crashing. I jumped a little and shut my eyes tightly. I tried to think of what it could be that crashed against the back wall of the living room, glass shattering across our family portrait.
Was it the crystal vase my parents had received from my father’s parents for their wedding?
“Who is she?”
Another crash.
Or was it the porcelain egg my mother had won at auction 10 years ago?
“Tell me right now, Joseph! Is it your secretary? Or is that too typical for you? You are far more sophisticated than a secretary!”
Another crash.
Maybe it was the Depression glass my mother had found at the garage sale two weeks ago.
“Tell me, damn it!” She was sobbing, begging and crying for answers. She was a fighter, my mother, a woman of passion. The years of smiling in photographs, being introduced as the trophy wife of a war hero and idly standing by in the shadow of glory had been a cage to her unresting soul.
There was another crash. But this was not the sound of glass exploding across the family room. It wasn’t the window, a mirror or a trinket of value.
Following the crash was a loud thud and sharp breaths of shock.
It had bee my mother, slapped in her unaging face, by my father.
I tried hard to close my eyes even tighter now. It was not to envision the scene at hand now but to block out all that had been happening. I wanted to hear, I was curious, but I didn’t want to see my mother on the floor. She must have been holding at her face. Her brightly, freshly painted red nails glowing under the light of that lamp in the corner. She was in her black silk pajamas, hair up in curlers.
“You are my wife and those are my kids. You cook and you clean and you go to graduations, weddings and funerals. I bring home the money that keeps that pretty little face staying pretty. That is all you need to know.” He paused, probably to stand and adjust himself, “Now get into that bedroom, put some of that expensive night cream on your face and go to bed.”
There was another pause. No movement came from the room for what seemed like an eternity before my mother finally stood and stormed off to the room. She slammed the door hard behind her. My father made his way back, stumbling a bit, to the door which had then been locked. He jingled at the handle and yelled for another 30 minutes to follow until he finally walked down into our basement to sleep on the cot.
By the time the fight was over, my nails were all gone. I had bit them all off and several were even now bleeding from my nibbling at the skin which was left. I was still in my school clothes and jeans on the floor of my white room. Unlike most girls my age, I didn’t have posters or decorations. The shelves were empty, the desk was empty with the exception of my backpack and a laptop. My bed was a black comforter and white pillow.
This was my cell. I didn’t let people in here and if I could help it, no one would ever leave.
As I stood to sit on my window seat, vibrating in my pocket caught my attention. I pulled the little white phone from my jeans to see that across my caller ID was a familiar face and set of digits.
Amy West
555-152-5555
Calling!
In the picture, she had a bright white smile and her hair was down in curls for homecoming about a month ago. I didn’t go. She went stag but ended up dancing with everyone there. She put the picture on there for me so that I would always know.
Instead of answering I allowed it to go to voicemail. Instantly afterwards, another slight vibrate, was her texting me.
Amy West: Hey girl, why didn’t you answer?
She was acting like nothing was wrong. From her end, nothing was wrong. David wasn’t mine. I had no claim on him. He was just a boy at the school I happened to go to. I also had mentioned to her, once, of my infatuation with him. From any outside party, this was not a big deal. This was just Amy, one of the most beautiful, pleasant and sweet people in the world casually dating David… the boy of my dreams.
Me: I am having a late dinner with my parents. They hate when I answer the phone at the table.
She waited a bit to reply back. I sat at the window seat of my own room, no pillows or candles, just the wood of the seat and the glass of the window.
Amy West: But you can text?
Me: What do you want?
Amy West: Wait a second, are you mad at me for something?
Me: Why would I be mad at you?
Amy West: You tell me. I haven’t done anything wrong, Mai.
It was at this point, she and I were both dancing around the same topic. I started to feel sick to my stomach. What if she got mad at me and told David about what I said? Oh god… what if she hated me and started telling everyone around school about me. What if she told people about my insecurities and they started to play off of them? What if they all laughed at me? What if they knew?
I turned to my trash can and threw up. I watched as the water, the only thing I had managed to keep down all day, filled the bottom portion of the little white container without a bag.
Damn it. That has been happening a lot lately.
Me: Like I said, I am not mad. How was your day?
It pained me to input those letters. She must have been smiling now. She knew all about me. I wouldn’t go head to head with a strong and confident girl like Amy. There was no way.
Amy West: It was fantastic! I want to tell you all about it. You know David, right?
I threw up again. In my head she was caressing his shirt again. He was smiling and they were laughing together. She said something and then turned away, very coy. He shrugged and laughed again.
Me:….
I couldn’t think of anything to type but this was a crucial moment now. She was testing the waters to see how I was reacting.
Had she really done this on purpose? Maybe she thought I had been talking about a different David. Maybe I was overreacting.
Me: Yes, the one from our English class, right?
Amy West: Lol! Duh, stupid!
She had replied fast that time. Of course she knew it was the same David. I felt sick again but managed to hold down any urge that came to throw up. I leaned back onto the hard wood of the seat and watched as the white walls, now a dark gray in the darkness of the night, begin to close in on me. In the light of the moon outside the tree was spider webbing around the shadows of the dark cell I was now in.
Amy West: So I got moved to sit behind him, right? And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, he is telling me how gorgeous I am, wont stop calling me. Mai, I think he is like… totally in love with me. What should I do?
The day that Amy had been moved behind David I was indeed watching carefully. It was just from the corner of my eye and in times when no one else was looking, but I was there.
Amy dropped her pencil next to him. He failed to see and assist so instead she used it as an opportunity to stand, grab the object and then delicately fall over onto him. He smiled and assisted her where she then giggled.
After that, he turned away. She gave him an odd look and then tapped him on the shoulder. He laughed a little and turned again. She smiled and made some sort of joke he didn’t quite get at first but then she persisted by explaining to him what the pun was. He then laughed.
Me: Marry him.
Amy West: Oh, he isn’t all that great. I mean, yea he is hot and he totally wants me but I want to keep my options open.
If I were her I would have felt privileged. David wasn’t a guy you used and kept your options open. David was the type of guy you married and bragged about on your Spacebook and even cherished.
She was so stupid.
Me: You are so lucky, I wish I was you.
I closed my phone and shut it off. She would think my parents had taken my phone away and then sit accomplished for the rest of the night. I threw the device down and realized I had left my iPod at the field. I only remembered because my phone landed at my iPod charger on the floor.
“Crap!”
As the last light in the house, the light from my mother’s room, went out I looked out onto the world below. From my room I could see a lot of the neighborhood. It was still, very quiet and relaxing. Inside these homes were happy families and joyous occasions.
Never did anything actually…
Wait a second.
The house across the street from me, a young girl, even younger than me, was standing on her roof. I tried to rack my brain for her name as I watched her balance down the midline of the roofs structure.
Carrie? Carlie? Crazy?
She was in her pajamas, a very small figure and I couldn’t make out much. What was she, 13 or 14 years old now?
Cailie? Colby?
She stopped at the front of her house which was centered over an empty driveway. The lights in her house were all off, including her own room. She just stood there, gazing down at the ground.
Casey!
I stood and opened my window. There was an odd noise coming from outside. As the glass pane moved backwards, the sound was far more distinct.
She was sobbing. She was in utter agony and sobbing. Only someone in desperate amounts of pain made that noise alone at night… in the darkness… on a roof.
“What the hell is she doing?” I asked myself as I moved now so close to the screen that my nose was pressing up against it, eyelashes dragging across the little aluminum cubes which allowed me to gaze out into the world.
And with one step, one final breath, one final sob, she was off the roof and splattered onto the cement below.
I remember, in the very dark night, the blood splatter only looked black. You could make out the white of her nightgown but the rest of it looked like one of those ink blots. Was this some sort of a test? Let me guess… it is a zebra. No, it’s a unicorn. You can tell by the horn on its head.
As I fainted, the scream of another nosy neighbor from outside, and the pain as my head hit the floor, I couldn’t help but think to myself, “Why a unicorn?”
~
Unicorn - To see a unicorn in your dream, symbolizes high ideals, hope and insight in a current situation. It also symbolizes power, gentleness, and purity. Alternatively, it may represent your one-sided views.
~
At school the next day it was all that anyone could talk about. But what I had learned quickly, entering my algebra class, was that this was the second youth suicide the school had seen.
“Yea, the first one was some junior high kid who had just found out she was pregnant!”
“Wait, I thought that was why she killed herself?”
I was listening in to the two who sat behind me. Usually they were the type of stoners that let nothing affect them but apparently, especially in our side of the country, teen suicides, especially white teen suicides, and two in a row was enough to get an entire community talking.
“No, they are getting it all mixed up. She killed herself because her father moles…”
“Class!” My teacher came in right in the nick of time. I knew what the girl was going to say but I didn’t want to know. Instead I kept my head face forward and at attention.
I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know.
As the class droned on, the unicorn continued to come back to me. I found myself drawing little horns around my math problems until the bell rang and scared me back into reality.
“Purity?” I asked myself remembering the entry from the dream dictionary.
That girl had been pure once. If what the girls were saying was true, she died longing for that purity again. I wished I could tell her just how pure she was. She had not been tainted. Not in my eyes.
Everywhere you turned, people were talking about her like they knew her. The story was beginning to evolve into this ugly, horrific monster. She was on drugs and she was pregnant and all in addition to her father doing those… horrible… terrible things to her. I began to feel the walls closing in on me. I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t do this anymore!
I turned another corner and watched as David and Amy now walked towards me. They didn’t see me but I saw them through the rush of students. They were giggling, holding hands and then… a kiss.
Everything went black. My heart was racing. One turn was to throw up my water breakfast into the trash can.
Thud. The thud of my heart beating ever so slowly now.
More blackness again and another turn was to escape the front doors of the school.
Thud. More blackness.
I was now at the field running up the stands to my favorite seat. It was early in the morning. Nobody was out because the clouds, dark in the sky, were going to burst any moment.
Thud.
I was there, lying in my spot, crying. Amy’s smile was there every time I closed my eyes. Her sweet voice and gentle hands were there. She was helping me, laughing with me, probing me for information.
Perfection. They were both perfection. They did belong together. I couldn’t imagine being part of that world. I wouldn’t know how to be around someone so… perfect.
“You forgot this.”
The voice caused me to jump and fall to the next row of seats below. I stumped to stand and then fell backwards onto my bum. My iPod with the green cover was now in the pale hands of a boy I had never met before.
“Get out of here!”
He didn’t jump or frown. I grabbed the player from him and shrieked back pulling my knees of to my chin. I was trying so hard to stop crying but I had let the beast out and it would be hell to put it back in.
“I am sorry, I didn’t know you owned this field. Might I say it is a lovely field at that?”
He had a small smirk on his face as he sat beside me. He was going to make fun of me. Friends were going to pop out from behind the stands and throw water balloons at me or call me names.
“Get away from me!”
He continued to smile as he looked down at my arm. I hadn’t realized before but my arm was slightly exposed to him. Deep, ugly scars were now glistening under a few premature raindrops and the dim light of the sky shining through the storm clouds.
Quickly, I pulled my sweater sleeve down and pulled my hood up and over my face. Nobody was supposed to see those. Nobody was ever supposed to see those. Damn it, why did he see?
“What happened?”
I stood to walk away but he grabbed me and turned me in his direction. I was actually seeing him now. He was not just a blurred figure. He was tall, a head taller than me with short, dark brown hair and bright green eyes. He was also oddly pale but dressed just like any other, average teenage boy.
What did he want? Why did he even care?
“It’s none of your business!” I jerked away from him and fell back onto the steps. I tried to crawl away but as I realized he wasn’t laughing or signaling for his friends I realized I could stop for just a moment.
“Hey, look at me. I am not here to harm you.” He was in a black, pullover hoodie and Hollister jeans. The hoodie had some weird symbol on it I had seen before. It was a popular brand with most of the boys my age. Kai liked it. I couldn’t remember what it was though.
“Who are you?” I asked, my lip quivering as a tear fell down my cheek. He sat down where he stood and didn’t try to move closer to me now.
“My name is Kyle.”
I took in a deep breath using my arm to wipe away tears. I didn’t say anything at first. I just watched him as his eyes scanned over me. Pitied me.
“What is your name?”
I motioned to answer when the sound of another familiar voice came from the opposite side of the field.
“Mai, are you over here?”
It was Amy. I stood and I ran in the opposite direction as fast as I could. I prayed to god she didn’t see me. As my legs carried me away as fast as they could move, I realized I still left my iPod behind.
Get out while you still can, Kyle. You have a pure face. You don’t belong here.
You don’t belong here, Kyle.