My Worst Nightmare

I’m sitting in class, staring blankly at the green speckled desk while my science teacher lectures us on the differences between a plant cell and an animal cell. I am waiting impatiently for the long hand of the clock to reach the three, on a hot Friday afternoon in October. My phone vibrates in my right jeans pocket and I look at the screen. It’s a restricted number. For some reason I decide to answer it.

            “Hello?” I say this in a whispered voice so that my teacher won’t hear me.

            “Megan!” Someone is crying on the other end of the line. I can’t make out quite what she is saying, but I recognize her voice. It’s Crystal, one of my very best friends. “Megan…something happened…dead.” The line keeps breaking up.

            Crystal tends to exaggerate things, so I don’t really take the phone call seriously. I say to her, “I can’t quite hear you, can this wait until after class?”

            “No…Do you want me to scream it? It’s about Gulliver…What class are you in? What’s the room number?” I can tell by her frail voice that something is very wrong.

            “I’m in Room 7…why? What’s going on?” The service is getting a bit better.

            “I’m on my way to get you…Gulliver killed himself last night.”

            The call ends. I freeze. My hands are trembling and my teacher is still talking about “the importance of the chloroplast in the plant cell.” I turn to my two friends, Savannah and Emily, and they ask me what’s wrong.

            “Em…Sav…Something happened…Gulliver..” They both look terrified, and without me saying another word Emily picks up her belongings, grabs Savannah and me by the arm and drags us towards the doorway. Our teacher explodes.

“Excuse me! Where do you think you’re going?”

            Someone sitting in the back of the classroom interjects, “Oh shit, white girl drama…”

            Emily rolls her eyes and says “Ms. White, we just found out something about one of our friends, we need to leave…” Our whole class is now staring at us with big eyes, curious to what was going on, like our suffering somehow pleases them.

            “Well you can’t leave right now. We’re in the middle of a review session for next week’s exam. Don’t be ridiculous! Now, take your seats before I have to call security.”

Emily is infuriated. “We have to leave…you don’t understand…” I know she’ll only let us leave if we tell her the reason. I bring my voice down to a quiet whisper, “…our friend killed himself last night…”

Our classmates are now whispering to each other, wondering what is causing us to make such a big deal of leaving class. Someone raises his hand, “Ms. White, why do they get to leave early?” He asks this as we are walking out the door.

            Ms. White looks up, “Oh, their friend just killed himself, so I gave them permission to leave…but we should get on with the review session. This exam is very important!”

My head feels like it’s about to explode. Are you kidding me right now? I want to throw something at her. I feel stuck; there’s nothing I can do. Emily continues to drag me by the arm until we’re in the hallway.

The door of the classroom shuts behind us, but we can still see our classmates staring at us through the small rectangular window on the door. We’re in a different place now. Crystal sees us and starts running towards us, her big brown eyes puffy and overflowing with tears. She whispers to us, “Gulliver…” We collapse on the floor, crying and not saying a word.  

His name was Gulliver Neville Boland. He would’ve turned fifteen in March 2006, but sadly, his life ended that Friday in October in 2005. He had brown hair, brown eyes, and freckles sprinkled across his light skin. When I think of him, I don’t think of his involvement in Alcoholics Anonymous, or his multiple suicide attempts. Instead, I think of his kindness and big, intoxicating smile. I remember receiving calls from Gulliver a couple years earlier, when he was checked into rehab. He would call me from a payphone, wanting to talk and wondering how I was, when he was the one with the real problems.

We get up from the dirty floor of the G-Building and make our way to the Administration building. During our journey across the courtyard, the bell rings, releasing all the students to their long-awaited weekend. Some friends approach us, questioning us about our swollen eyes and distant expressions. I ignore them, pushing them away. All I can think about was our destination: Conference Room B, where Emily’s mom will be waiting for us, ready to take us away from all of this chaos.

Before I know it, we’re parked outside of Gulliver’s house. We walk through the wooden gate, up the cement walkway to a set of stairs, and into his house. Walking through his house, seeing his bed, his computer, and his favorite dog Max, I half-expect him to walk through the door, alive and well. Emily walks into the kitchen and spot one of his older sisters, Carly, leaning against the doorframe of the back door in her pajamas. The first thing she says to us is, “He’s in a better place now,” and bursts into tears. We turn around to see Gulliver’s mother and his other two sisters standing next to us. His mother’s eyes are puffy and red, yet she still finds the energy to extend her arms for a hug. His youngest sister is standing, half hiding, behind her mom and occasionally peeks out, curious to what was going on. She’s too young to understand… Gulliver’s other older sister can’t bear to look at us. She’s having trouble coping. We make our way to the living room.

We spend what seems like years sitting on the cold leather couch in the living room. Everything and everyone is silent and still. The silence somehow feels comfortable, yet irritates me. The time passes slowly. I still have an urge to scream, or break something. However, instead of this irritation stemming from my anger, it now comes from a feeling of powerlessness; I have no control over the fact that Gulliver is gone forever.

Crystal, Emily, Savannah and I sit in Gulliver’s house just talking.  Emily cries, remembering all of the times they had together when they were little. Savannah talks about a time when he visited us at school after getting out of rehab, “He was dressed in baggy jeans and a white tee. He tried to look ‘cool’ but he was still the dorky little boy we all knew.” He couldn’t help but be himself, and he wasn’t ashamed of who he was. We continued these stories and spent the night at Emily’s house, which was only a block away. We fell asleep listening to each other trying to talk through the shock we had felt earlier that day.

            In the morning, we didn’t want to get out of bed and face the truth. My body felt heavy, and I couldn’t find the energy to get up. We lay there for a couple hours, just staring at the ceiling, not saying a word. We were all lost in our own thoughts, wondering how this could’ve happened, thinking of ways we could’ve prevented it. Should I have done something differently? I asked myself this question every couple of seconds, but couldn’t find an answer. Crystal and I exchange glances. She knows exactly what I’m thinking: it’s somehow my fault. She jumps up from the bed and yells at us to get up, “We have to go to the memorial service. There’s not even a question in it. So get your lazy, depressed selves out of bed.” She is good at repressing her emotions and not letting others see her vulnerable side.

Every excuse not to go ran through my mind: I don’t have any nice black clothes. I have too much work to do. My parents won’t let me. I have chores. I couldn’t face it, and I didn’t want to. I thought about the last time I talked to him. We had gotten in an argument over instant messenger, and I couldn’t shake this feeling of guilt. If I had only been a better friend, maybe he’d still be here. If only I had kept in touch when he changed schools. I didn’t know what to do. I felt so empty and confused. I just wanted to stay in bed, wrapped in this warm comforter forever.

Crystal began to get angry, “Megan! Get out of bed.” She and Emily came over to me and dragged me out of bed. If they hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been able to move.

            We drove to the graveyard in Oakland and started to make our way up the steep hill where the long, black hearse was parked. When we reached the top, Emily grabbed my hand. We looked at each other, and then at the huge hole in the ground where Gulliver was to be buried. I stood still, not talking, barely breathing. Emily and I made our rounds, giving his extended family our condolences. We stood back in our place and listened to the many speeches that followed. I couldn’t hear a single word that anyone said to me. I just stood, blankly staring at this hole in the ground directly in front of me. No, no, no, no, no. This isn’t happening. This is just a horrible dream. Sounds of sobbing filled my ears as a few men lifted the casket out of the hearse. It was small and wooden, reminding us of how tragic the death of this 14-year-old boy really was. At this moment, a cascade of tears started flowing, I could no longer hold them back. Emily looked at me and squeezed my hand tight. She whispered to me, “It’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay.” As much as I was hurting, it was nice to know I wasn’t alone, and that I had someone with me, holding my hand.

When my crying calmed down, I looked up and saw Gulliver’s little sister, who was staring at her mom. It was so sad to see this little girl, who didn’t yet understand the severity of the situation, watching her mom cry and not being able to help. As a matter of fact, everyone I saw was crying. There was one exception: a girl standing across the grave from us, staring at the ground. Her name was Elyse. I didn’t know her, but I had heard of her. She went to school with Gulliver for a while, and I knew he was very fond of her. She stood there alone with her hands clasped in front of her body. Her honey blonde hair was tied up in a half-ponytail and her hazel eyes were dry with no signs of running mascara. It bothered me that she was so detached from the event going on in front of her. Why is she even here? I wondered how somebody could be so calm, while everybody around her was devastated.

“…And now is the time when we pray, in hopes that Gulliver is in a better place…” I snapped back to reality. We all stood, with our heads down and eyes closed, saying goodbye and praying for him. Crystal handed me a tissue, and she and Emily took my hands as we approached the grave together. Savannah and some others joined us. We each picked up a handful of dirt and tossed it into the grave, covering Gulliver’s casket little by little. We stood in a circle and looked at each other, trying our hardest not to start crying again. Don’t cry. Be strong. These thoughts replayed in my head a million times. I hoped that if I could convince myself I was okay, I wouldn’t have to shed another tear. But it wasn’t that easy. Just like we had done in the hallway, the four of us collapsed on the grass, in tears.

We sat next to Gulliver’s grave hoping that somehow we could rewind the past couple of days and prevent this from happening. In our hearts, we knew he was happier wherever he was, but we couldn’t accept it and let go yet. We could only sit holding onto one another and being there for one another, hoping someday it would all make sense.