Van Was Here

Sometimes, she avoided taking group photos because the thought of anyone crying over them after she died made her feel like shit. She was going to do it that year, probably. She didn’t want anyone staring at those pictures and thinking they could have stopped her. That would be torture, and entirely unfair.

Van’s friends always complained about it. They thought she was being self-conscious again, on-top of ridiculous. They thought maybe she had an eating disorder. She definitely did, but that wasn’t why she didn’t like pictures.

She would think about their future children looking at those pictures, pointing to her and asking, “Who’s that, Mommy?” And then, “What happened to her?”

It would be a question no one could answer, because no one would really understand what had happened. She was careful never to show any signs of what she was thinking. That made her feel shitty too, because she knew she had friends and she could ask for help; but then they would try to stop her, and she needed them to know that there was nothing they could have done.

She needed to take responsibility for herself.

She didn’t plan on leaving a long letter, when she did it. That would be almost as bad as the pictures, she felt. Besides, every draft she ever wrote sounded irrational, even to her. There was no way to really explain why she wanted to do it. So, she planned to leave only four words: I loved you too. Then they would know that this had never had anything to do with her feeling lonely or unloved. She wanted them to know that the feelings were mutual—she just…couldn’t love herself.

She was the only one who could have stopped it.

Such were the thoughts casually running through her mind on the morning she and her three closest friends piled into Mere’s jeep and headed for Sedona for a girls’ weekend.

They drove with all the windows down and the music blasting. Mere refused to let anyone else drive. She’d said that Tom would have a fit if she’d let anyone not on their car insurance behind the wheel. So, Tini had to sit in front because she got carsick easily and Mere didn’t slow down on curves. Van hardly ever felt carsick, but that wasn’t the case that morning as the jeep careened wildly through the mountains. She took a bite from one of the brownies Kassi had made to calm her nerves.

She was already way too high.

Kassi seemed unbothered, which made total sense because she’d known Mere the longest. She’d had the most practice at being in a vehicle with her behind the wheel. Mere and Kassi were friends first. Then, Tini made three. And, not long after Tini came along, the trio adopted Van.

She hoped, in the end, that they wouldn’t regret it. She didn't.