Tuesday

(Trigger warning: contains depictions of suicide.)

It was a Tuesday when we said goodbye, and on Wednesday she jumped.

It all came out on the Thursday. In the local paper, block letters bemoaned the ‘tragic loss’ of ‘promising 21-year-old student’, Poppy’s smiling face staring unblinkingly back. I recognised the photo. Her face had been cropped from a recent group shot of our university friends celebrating the end of third year exams; the arm visible in the background was mine, wrapping tightly around her. Most of the calls happened on the Thursday, too; the ones between me and the rest of our friends, sobbing to each other down the phone. The one from my mother to me, telling me in no uncertain terms that she was on her way down to support me, no arguments. The more muted call - after several ones I hadn’t picked up - from Poppy’s father, confused and broken, asking me what I knew.

Afterwards, the police asked me about Wednesday. They needed to get a clearer picture of events. They had to rule out certain lines of inquiry.

‘Did she call you at any point that day? Text, WhatsApp?’

‘No, I last spoke to her on Tuesday evening. We said goodbye at the bus station.’ 

Crushing me in an embarrassed hug, pressing her nose into my neck. Traces of the sickly perfume her grandma had given her for Christmas, sweeter and subtler after a few hours of wear.

‘Did you see her get on the bus she was supposed to?’

‘Yes. Yes, I’m sure she did.’

It had been windy and her curly hair had whipped comically back into her face as she’d turned to look back over her shoulder. She’d answered my laugh with a sheepish grin of her own, teeth bright in the harsh headlights of the bus.

‘What was her mood like the last time you saw her? Did she seem stressed or anxious at all?’

’No, she was - happy.’

Not the whole truth. Most of the day she’d been nervous, searching the faces of strangers suspiciously and glancing at me when she thought I wasn’t looking. 'Jasmine, I need to tell you something.'

’She didn’t seem distracted?’

‘I wouldn’t say so.’

Over coffee, I had been theatrically retelling the story of the terrible first date I’d been on the previous week when I noticed Poppy tearing a napkin into tiny shreds with her fingers, creating a mess on the cafe table. Annoyed, I’d pulled her hands away and held them in mine for a few seconds, hardly noticing the way she froze. 'Listen! This is the best part.'

‘What did you two get up to that day?’

‘Oh, the usual, I guess. We went for a coffee, bought some new clothes for summer. We were meant to be shopping for her - her new flat.’ I paused. The police officer’s gaze dropped to the ground then, embarrassed. ‘But we didn’t buy much, in the end.’

'Jasmine, I need to tell you something.'

A photo of the incident started going round on social media on the Thursday, too; a second-year from our university had been nearby when an ambulance and two police cars screeched up and blocked off the bridge. He had leant over the railing and snapped a shot of curly hair, darker than it should have been, plastered to a rock with blood. 

'Do you think I should dye my hair?' Poppy had halted in front of a hairdresser’s after our coffee, solemnly considering the murderous expression of the blonde model on the poster. 'She looks pretty happy about it.' I had picked up a slightly frizzy strand of hair from her jacket and coiled it round my finger, soothing its curl pattern. 'Absolutely not. There’s only room for one dumb blonde in this friendship.'

My friends were outraged and got the second-year suspended two days after the photo was first published, but it was all over the university by then. I’ve seen that photo now more than I’ve seen the photo the newspaper used. Every time it gets taken down, someone else posts it again. The guy who originally took the photo has become the butt of a morbid joke. ‘Watch out for Lawrence Davies,’ people tease as their friends get ready for nights out. ‘He pushes girls off bridges.’

I started seeing Linda, the university counsellor, a week after Poppy’s death. 

‘Do you want to talk about last Wednesday?’ she asked at the beginning of our first session.

‘Sure.’

I never want to talk about Tuesday.

Linda does a lot of the talking in our sessions. I’m grateful. I think it means she’s bad at her job, but it seems to keep her satisfied.

‘You’ve suffered a trauma, Jasmine. You’ve just lost your closest friend, and you were the last known person to speak to her. It’s a lot to process, and it’s going to take time.’

‘Yes. She was my best friend.’

Close since the first day of Fresher’s Week, bumping into each other in the narrow hallway of our student building and shyly introducing ourselves. We learnt that we were both from tiny secondary schools in tiny villages, and made an unspoken pact to cling to each other. Even once we’d found our larger group of friends, it was always Poppy I made a second cup of coffee for in the morning; it was her hand I searched for in a crowded club, to pull me safely from unwanted attention.

‘It’s absolutely okay to feel sad, angry or confused. You might even be experiencing feelings of depression - that’s what I’m here for.’

‘I guess I’m still working through all of that.’

I don’t think of sadness, but of happiness. All the confused happiness of Tuesday, squeezing my heart in its uncomfortable grip and keeping me awake all that night, itching to pick up my phone and call her but resisting, because she’d asked me not to. I grew up on the seaside, and I wonder if Linda knows the breathless anticipation of standing a little too close to the cliff edge on a windy day, watching the waves crash below and wondering if today is the day the wind will finally take you. That was how it had felt that night, clutching my phone on that cliff edge and waiting for a push.

My phone had rung eventually. But it wasn’t Poppy.

‘It’s also normal to feel guilty.’

‘I don’t feel guilty.’

I do. 

My friends ask me about Wednesday too, but they don’t stop. Every conversation is about Wednesday. They used to circle me like a shield, tight embraces whether I wanted them or not and watery eyes meeting mine, the grief larger than the questions. But recently, I catch them huddling together, whispering with backs turned towards me. Their eyes dart to me, then away again - like Poppy’s did, that Tuesday - as if I’m a wild animal they expect to attack. They accuse me of keeping things from them. I think they blame me.

‘But what did you talk about the last time you saw her?’

‘I don’t know, nothing much. Normal stuff.’

'Jasmine, I need to tell you something. But I’m scared.'

‘Are you saying you didn’t notice anything weird? Things like this don’t just happen. Didn’t you notice anything?’

‘I don’t know what to tell you. Nothing - nothing seemed wrong.’

I noticed the little stain of coffee at the corner of her mouth. I wish now that I’d told her it was there. I wish I’d wiped it off for her.

‘Jasmine, we were all friends but you two were like sisters. You talked about stuff that you didn’t tell the rest of us - and that’s fine - but it might help, Jasmine. Maybe she mentioned a boy - or some sort of trouble she was in?’

‘I swear to you -‘

'Don’t tell anyone. Promise me you won’t'.

‘Why didn’t you text her that night? You said goodbye at the bus station at seven - you didn’t even ask if she got home safe? Did you have a fight?’

‘We didn’t fight -‘

'I’ll call you when I’ve done it.'

‘Jasmine, please! We just want to know what happened. She was our friend too.’

Their faces are a mirror of my own, pale and tear-streaked. They cling to each other, huddled together for protection against whatever I might say. They look like a recreation of that celebratory group photo - the one they cropped Poppy out of for the paper - only without Poppy, and without me. I want nothing more than to be enveloped by their arms again. To be one of them again, to grieve together again.

‘I don’t know what happened.’

Eventually, they stop calling me.

The verdict, when it comes, is a shock to everyone except me.

Suicide. Death caused by blunt force trauma to the head. 

I can’t comprehend why it comes as such a surprise. Some people had thought - hoped - it had been an accident. Others thought she had been killed, by someone she knew or an opportunist. But in the end, there are no suspects lurking in the shadows, no hooded figures or university culture of drugs to blame. Poor Lawrence Davies, falsely labelled for the rest of his university career as the boy who pushes girls off bridges.

I realise in time, though, that of course it was a surprise to most people. They didn’t have all the information. A girl with her whole life ahead of her, loving family and supportive friends, found dead underneath a bridge on a normal Wednesday. She can’t have done it to herself. What other conclusions could be drawn?

I saw her parents for the last time at the funeral. The church was packed; the family aren’t religious, but Poppy was well-liked. I sat on the second row with our friends, but we didn’t speak except to say hello. They cried during the hymns instead of singing. I wished Poppy was there to belt out ‘Abide With Me’ like it was Monday night karaoke at the student union. 

At the wake, I approached her parents to pass on my condolences. Her father looked uncomfortable in an obviously borrowed suit; her mother looked severe, her hair exactly like Poppy’s pulled tight back into a bun. Poppy never wore her hair up, and I swallowed down a memory of wild curly hair tangled with a sheepish smile. Her parents looked at me with suspicion. They were a family of cautious people, I realised. Poppy had done well to break away as much as she had.

‘I’m sorry for your loss.’

‘Thank you.’

I started to move along, uncomfortable with their obvious grief.

‘Jasmine?’

Poppy’s father was looking at me strangely. It was the same way my friends had looked at me when they’d thought I was hiding something.

‘Yes?’

‘We had an... odd conversation with Poppy, the night before she - well.’

‘Oh.’

He glanced at his wife, but she was looking anywhere except at me. He had no choice but to plough on alone, with grim determination.

‘She told us something had happened on the Tuesday. She wanted us to know that... well. Point is, we know what happened that day. Between the two of you.’

I met his eyes steadily. I wanted to see if he would look away.

‘Did you tell the police when they asked?’

He held my gaze, and behind Poppy’s warm brown eyes there was thinly veiled contempt. I knew the answer already.

‘No. No, we didn’t.’

‘Neither did I.’

He jolted a little in surprise. His wife, too, looked up at me suddenly. The hint of relief in her eyes disgusted me.

‘Again, I’m sorry for your loss.’

I walked away quickly this time, my eyes burning and my throat constricting so much I could not breathe.

Linda has put the suicide down to undiagnosed depression. When she brings it up, I tend to murmur non-committally. In our last session, she asked me if I wanted to have a role in the mental health awareness foundation her parents have set up in her name. I made some noises about how busy I was preparing for my final year of university, until she got the hint and dropped it.

The truth is, I’m not going back for my last year. My friends don’t trust me anymore, and I can’t keep returning to the place I met Poppy.

On that Tuesday, when she told me she thought she loved me and that she was scared, I laughed. I couldn’t help it, though I regretted it immediately when her forehead creased and she tried to pull her hand out of mine. I told her that I’d known I loved her since we’d first bumped into each other as terrified eighteen year-old girls who were scared of their own shadows. 

Next year, on the anniversary of Poppy’s death, her parents will hold some sort of fundraising event for their new charity in her name. They might even appear on the local news, tearfully reminding people to be kind and understanding. The paper will publish Poppy’s smiling face again, reporting the latest statistics on the proportion of young people who feel lonely and commit suicide. The university will hold a memorial for the rest of Poppy’s friends who stayed to complete their final year, and maybe one of them will call me and I’ll tell them the truth. 

But next year, I will remember something else. 

I will remember worried eyes and a mouth set in an anxious line. I will remember the brush of lips against mine, so scarce I will always wonder if I imagined it. I will remember the wind picking up and catching dark curls in its playful grasp, and remember thinking: 'I love her, and she loves me too.'

Next year, I will remember Tuesday.