Come Over Anytime

TW: suicide, mental health, homophobia

“The angle subtended by two equal chords..”

“Napoleon was defeated in the Battle of Waterloo in 1815…”

“ 1 Joule of work can be defined as..”

I look up from my notebook, the white pages stained blue with ink. The clock reads 4:03 am. Again.

Through the slits of my curtains I look out at the sky before me. Still dark. In the distance I hear the faint honking of cars.

I’ll have to miss school again.

This is the third time this has happened. In a row.

And it’s all because of her.

6 months earlier

“- And then, she's like “you can come over anytime”, and she gave me her house number- like, dude, what?”

The eyes watching me were incredulous, entertained. As soon as I finished, the group imploded, dappled over with laughter.

“Maybe she’s a lez”, Tam joked, stringing out the last word in a whisper. “ You've got options, huh?"

“Are you hooking her up with someone else while you both are dating?!”, Kiara fake - gasped. “I was rooting for you”. She thumped her fist to her heart, raising her eyebrows in that pathetic way.

Tam turned around to make a retort. “Oh please, I’m only looking for threesome options….”

We were like that, dumb teenage girls with boring, clockwork lives. Our greatest talent was turning the mundane into something completely larger than life. It’s like a gift we had. Gossiping, exaggerating, fabricating - we were masters at our art.

2 weeks ago

The harsh sunlight of the late morning bleeds through my curtains like a sharp knife, demanding that I awake. My eyes are tired and limp from all the studying the night before, my vision is slightly blurry at the edges. I place my hand under the pillow, and feel for my phone.

There it is, cold and metallic. The time is 9: 37 am. Throwing the sheets off of my body, I place my feet into my slippers, heading to the bathroom.

The bathroom is one of my favorite parts of the house. In the morning I can just stare straight at the wall for minutes at a time. I can take as long to brush as I want to, I can shower as much or as little as I like, and no one can know, no one can see.

Once my hair is dried off and the comfortable feeling of a wet towel is on my shoulders, I get to work. To - do : Revise Math Chapter 3. Do test paper 5. Finish assignment.

A sigh escapes me. I’ve been having the same day everyday for weeks now. School, home, study, sleep, repeat. I deserved a break, didn't I?

The sky is impossibly blue and almost singing in its vibrance. One look out the window is all the convincing I need.

I grab my phone, keys and skipping rope and head to the terrace.

My footsteps echo as I run up the stairs. I’m still rather limp, but the prospect of a quiet hour or two with a nice view from upstairs fills me with a bright lightness. I hop up the stairs, not looking where I'm going, enjoying how fast my body can carry me, how out of breath I feel, the first perspirations of sweat on my back.

As I approach the 10th floor, I stop, completely exhausted. One more floor to go. I turn to the grey window, smudged with dust and pigeon droppings.

The idyllic greens and faded houses all merge into my view, obscuring the horizon. I continue looking anyway, at the woman on the terrace making calculated rounds as she walks with a neurotic pace, and the man riding his bicycle who clicks his bell more times than necessary, swaying this way then that. At the back of my neck I feel an odd sensation, but I dismiss it, wanting to enjoy the tranquility of the moment.

I turn around, ready to complete the last lap, and look up.

A figure sat on the topmost stair of the staircase. The face was shrouded by the shadows of the high walls, but the eyes gleamed - these were the eyes whose gaze had been pricking my neck all this while. My senses jolted, the shock rendered me immobile.

Then she spoke.

"I didn't mean to spy on you. I just didn't know what to say".

Her voice was a low hum dripping with honey, with a slightly coarse edge.

"Won't you come?"

Her hand tapped the floor beside her. It took me a moment to realize the gesture was meant for me.

Knees quivering I slowly went up to her, trying to hide the shock that had thrust into my nerves like ink in water.

The first thing that struck me about her was her scent. It was of a vivid perfume - how a dryad’s scent would be, tantalizing, effervescent.

She was pretty. Fair skin, dark hair, grey - green eyes. My heart brimmed with resentment as I contemplated my own mismatched clothes, and thick glasses. Taking my seat I made sure to keep some distance between us.

"So", she turned to look at me. "Hi".

"Hi", I said, barely meeting her eye.

Silence.

" I'm Janelle ", she said.

"That's a very pretty name."

"What's yours?"

I told her.

" What does it mean?"

"Who knows"

"Ha. "

Silence again.

Here she was, going out of her way to make conversation with me, a total stranger, and here I was, pushing her away. God.

"So", I started, my knees towards her. "Why are you here?"

It sounded like why are you here, and I was afraid she'd take it the wrong way. But instead she just hugged her knees, and looked out a moment, before saying, "I hate people".

"You do?"

A nod. "I hate them."

"Oh". I said. Should I ask a question now, about why she hated people, or should I mind my own business?

"It's just - " she sighed. "It's just that you can't expect anything from other people, you know? They'll always find a way to put you down."

I could relate. I'd spent a full year hoping that a friend would invite me to her house one day, when I called her over every other week, helped her with homework, listened to her problems. Called her my "best friend".

On my birthday I found out she thought I was like a "little mouse" and talked about me constantly behind my back. From her highness herself. Yeah. People were like that.

"Hmm".

Were one - word responses the only thing in my dictionary? I wish Tam was here. She'd put some sort of pseudo - tantric positive spin on it and have you rolling on the floor by the end. I wasn't like that.

"You're not much of a talker, are you?"

Great.

" Yeah, no, not really. I prefer to listen."

"You feel like no one really cares about what you have to say".

I stared at her blankly.

What do I say?

That yes, true, how did you know, tell me about you, ok I care, now here are all my insecurities, sit here and listen as I pour my heart out to you, someone I just met 2 minutes ago?

And for what? For what? So you can forget about me the next second?

"It's ok. I feel like that too".

My ears pricked up. That was the first time I'd ever known that my thoughts were someone else's too.

It was as if an impossibly thin golden string tied us together.. How soft, how light the string was. Yet how heavy was the burden of another person on the other side.

Panic seized me. The string would wrap itself around me and inch, slowly first, and then rapidly, to my throat, and then I would die an agonizing death as the giant of the person of the other side held up my lifeless body like a puppet, grinning maliciously at the sight of my powerlessness.

The string was like a tumor, you had to remove it before it infected you, before everything spiraled deep into the pit of chaos.

"Hmm".

Janelle looked at her watch. I caught a glimpse of something inexpressible in her eyes.

" Well, I guess I better leave, huh? Tuition classes and all that"

Lies. She's bored. Can't blame her though, can I?

"Ok". I nodded quietly.

She got up, then looked back at me.

" I live at A - 119. Come over any time - if you need someone. A friend".

She left just like that, hurrying away, with one last look that was never returned.

She didn't even give me time to respond. If she'd lingered a second longer she'd have seen the tears at the edge of my eyes, threatening to spill out. Come over if you need a friend.

Pathetic.

Skipping rope plans abandoned, I got up and stomped off to the lift, pushed the door open, and studied furiously, from morning till dusk.

That night I stayed up until the early hours of the dawn, thinking about her. Come over anytime - if you need someone.

I don't need your sympathy.

I wrote down how I felt, listened to sad music, leaned on my side. Nothing.

The tears just wouldn't come out.

2 weeks later

Lunch is a bleak affair. The stinky, claustrophobic classroom, the four of us huddled together, boxes in our laps, chatting about god knows what. It was just like any other day, really. Maybe that's why it keeps replaying in my head, over and over.

Kiara was telling us about her newest boyfriend, his name was Matthew, I remember because I had a cousin named Matthew and we joked about Kiara potentially becoming a member of my family, to which I responded that I would emancipate myself and go get myself a rich billionaire, and Tam responding with a high - five and some witty comment. The usual.

Those few minutes come to me in sharp, crystal clear detail - I remember what Tam got for lunch ( " ooh, gooey white crescent moons! (macaroni)), what Sam said about her new haircut ("Did you want to look like a jellyfish?").

It was when Kiara started talking about how 'creepy and stalker - y ' her ex was being that I chimed in with my own anecdote.

"Oh, yeah, that reminds me, I met this girl a couple of weeks ago. She started talking to me like, out of the blue. Like can't you see I'm here alone so I want to be alone? "

I looked around at the faces around me, looking for signs that I should continue. They were listening, more carefully than usual, because it was me, because this was one of the few times I'd said anything about my life.

"Like, she continues talking and being like really invasive and at the end I think she got the hint. So she gives me one last look, and then, she's like “you can come over anytime”, and she gave me her house number- like, dude, what?”

"the hell?"

"Maybe she's a lez......"

6 months later

As I trudged through my math homework, the door of my room opened a crack, and a face peered in, tentatively. My mother often did this, to check up on me, so I wasn't concerned. The value of the slant height was more important than the person standing behind the door, as it always was, in moments like this.

But today something was different in her gaze, something was different in the way she let herself in, the way her eyes darted across the room, then flickered to me. Did I notice? Yes. But did I acknowledge? No. I did not ask Mom, what's the matter, are you ok, you look so pale. No, I sat there, mum as a statue, my drudged 'speak only when spoken to' policy intact.

My mother, normally affectionate and talkative, came over to me and squeezed my shoulders, her silence alien and unsettling. I wanted to push her off of me - to say what's the matter with you, get off.

But what did I do? Just sit there, expressionless, in my discomfort, waiting for her to speak.

"Don't go to the terrace" she muttered, almost dazed. "Look at me".

As I looked up to her I saw that her face was completely tear stained. Her eyes were bloodshot, her skin was rough where it had been soft before.

My heart now started to race, I could hear its heavy, frantic thuds in my ears, its ascension in my throat, it's breathing in my pulse.

"Promise".

"Yeah, I promise".

Let's get this over quickly and you can be on your way.

"Good girl".

I tore my eyes away, and she hurried off, forgetting to close the door properly. A torrent of wind from my window slammed it shut with a resounding bang.

therefore the slant height is equal to...

Next day

The harsh heat of the afternoon sun burned my skin through the glass pane, The bus twisted and turned like a long yellow snake, passing the all too familiar crossing, the faded old buildings, the suburbs and shopping centers that were everyone's weekend haunts.

Sam was unusually still. Usually we'd be talking about the newest songs we'd discovered with empty promises of remembering to forward what we talked about. No one minded, though, it wasn't like we were close.

Why was she quiet? I didn't care, not my business. But she kept looking out the window somberly, looking just like my mother the night before, like she was about to cry.

Maybe she read my thoughts somehow, because she turned around to me and said something, however what she said made no sense to me at all.

"You're holding up really well"

holding up?

"Holding up?"

"Yeah. You're strong".

strong for what? holding up for what?

" The hell are you talking about?"

Sam's eyes widened. "You don't know?"

of course not. Why else would I ask, dumbass.

"No, what is it?"

"A girl in our apartment - she jumped off the terrace yesterday. From A block."

Normal people would gasp in shock at this. Normal people - like my mom, or Sam, would cry, or would be in a contemplative mood. Normal people would express disbelief, sadness, shock, curiosity.

I said, "Oh, I see. RIP"

What I thought was - A - 119. No, it can't be. No, I'm sure it was B or C or something, I must've misheard. I must've forgotten. It was so long ago anyway. . No, it can't be, it's a mistake It can't be, it can't be, it can't-

Today 6:53 pm

Sam: Apparently the girl's from A - 119. Name's Jane or Janelle or something, not sure. Police say that murder is overruled, she didn't talk to anyone here.

You 6:57 pm

damn

The amount of strength it took to type those four letters, one word. 'damn'.

A girl leapt off a building.

'damn'.

A girl you knew.

'damn'.

A girl who wanted to be friends.

'damn'.

A girl you ghosted.

'damn'.

A girl who you made fun of and forgot instead.

To win brownie points with your friends.

'damn'.

And yet, did the tears, come, ladies and gentlemen?

No, no they did not. No, they remained obstinately in their place, as did the rest of the features of my face, as I stared at my computer screen in the dark with the same immobile mask that had now stuck onto my skin permanently.

She came.

Every night, she's there. She holds the string - our golden string in her hands. It glows in the dark, enticingly, and she holds it out to me. I go forward, and then she speaks to me, in her low hum.

"Put it on"

No.

I shake my head.

"No, I can't"

" Why? "

The tears start streaming down my face, fast and frenzied. My head throbs with fear.

" WHY?"

She brings the string closer to her face, and in its dim light I see a horrible, bloodied beast staring back.

"You did this"

"I'm sorry", my voice quivers, salt tears in my mouth. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry"

" Come to me"

"No. No, I can't"

"COME."

She tries to grab my hand, but I pull out just in time as I run out of my room, locking myself into the bathroom.

Every nerve in my body convulsing with mad panic, I turn to the mirror.

She's there.

"You can't run forever", she says, smirking. "Come to me."

"No, no I can't. I CAN'T, I CAN'T-"

My necks snaps. She has hung me by the golden string.

***

Everyday I awake to a wet face and a pulsing heart.

Every night she comes to me, asleep, awake, everywhere.

She taunts me, her bloodied hand is outstretched.

I owe her this once, she rattles

So what if it's my death.

"Come over anytime"

I'm coming, Janelle. This time.

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