“
I was a little scared of her. Even when she said she’d been harming herself there was still a little bit of Claire in her, some of the humor and charm, as though depression was something she could slip out of when she needed to engage with the world. When she needed to protect me from seeing it. But now she was clearly gone. I wondered if it really had to do with David or Trent or any of the men, or if the two just coincided. This seemed so much greater than men.
“You’re going to be okay,” I said. But I wasn’t convincing.
“I’m gutted. I really just don’t see the point of going on living,” she said. “It just seems so insane. Like, why would you?”
“I don’t know,” I said, because truthfully I didn’t. “I’m probably not the best person to talk you out of suicide.”
I was trying to make her laugh but she didn’t.
Suicide was one of those things that, having been suicidal, in retrospect, I felt like I could talk about without being judgmental. But at the same time, there was no rational reason I could give her to live. Could I say that I was glad I lived? The thing was, I hadn’t really known I was suicidal until I woke up with the doughnuts. Also, even if things were better now, were they ever permanently better? Who was I to put that pressure on her to stay alive?
But what kind of person didn’t try to talk their friend out of killing herself? I didn’t want to tell her that she had to live for her children. I knew she felt bad enough about them already. I could have told her what an amazing and fun and funny personality she was, but I knew that right now it all felt to her like just a performance. Her charming personality was only more heaviness—another mask she was going to have to pick up again to prove she hadn’t lost it in the depression. The only reason to put it on again was out of fear that she might never get it back. Otherwise, there was no real reason to have to put on a heavy costume every day. It was too tiring.
”
”