My Dearest Friend

My Dearest Friend,

I made for you this clock, a timepiece that depicts everything that goes through my mind when I think of you. I remember your red, smiling lips, chapped in the fall and, in the summer, pale and nearly white (you always stayed inside; school and work were the only things that could tear you from your sanctuary). I only saw you outside, and I saw the way your eyes shone and the way you laughed. Inside your home, I did not know you. You never invited me inside and I never thought of asking. This was my mistake. I'd been foolish; my politeness won over my concern and you paid the price, because all that happened in your seemingly peaceful sanctuary were horrors and hurts and pains. Your stepfather, your selfish mother--all villains. If only you'd told me. If only I'd asked to come inside. If only I'd done this and so many other things, I could have stopped you at 9:55.

This is what I remember most: 9:55. The digital numbers on my watch shone in the darkness of my car. I'd come to pick you up. We were watching a movie together that night, and I was excited--you'd never agreed to go anywhere with me after dark before. Your house seemed unnaturally silent, but the lights inside were switched on, burning bright yellow through the windows. The silhouette of falling leaves drifted occasionally across the yellow patches of light. It was fall again; again, your lips would be chapped, red and raw and smiling when you came out to greet me. The spiky points of your iron fence were glinting in the dark, standing erect and deadly in the cold air like a dozen gigantic forks clinging to the sides of the house.

At 9:55, your house was still and quiet--only the leaves moved: swaying and sashaying to the ground. The next minute, a window opened on the second floor. You stepped onto the roof of the veranda and waved to me, a slow, languid wave, like one you would give to say farewell. I smiled and waved back, oblivious as to what you were about to do. I wondered if you were sneaking out, if your parents had forbidden you to go out.

But you weren't sneaking out to go with me, to escape for a few hours into the scenes of a horror film. No, you were escaping your own deep-seated horrors.

I saw you jump at 9:57. Saw your body pierced, bludgeoned by the pointed spires of your deadly fence. I saw your body jerk, and a moment later I saw you die. I saw your body still and lifeless, your legs and arms swaying with the falling leaves.

I remember 9:55. Before the horror, and before the death. Before the time I discovered your misery. 9:55 was all that mattered. I didn't care about how you jumped or when. 9:55 was the only moment I could have saved you. I could have rushed in and stopped you, could have seen what you'd been hiding from me. But, then again, I still wouldn't have. I'd have no reason to rush in, no reason to grab hold of you.

Your suicide note, clutched tightly in your cooling palm (taped there almost comically), explained everything. You'd addressed it to me--only me. At times, I still hate you for it, for making me feel guilty. Dead leaves were stuck in your hair, and I pulled them out, kept them, the last reminders of your lost smile and laughing face.

I used them on this clock. They were exactly twelve in all. Perhaps the fates were mocking me, singsong: "If only you had more tiiime... If only you had more tiiime..." Your feet were sturdy, like the stumps of this clock--small and cute, but strong. It was your arms that were weak and fragile, too timid to fight back. Like the hands of this frozen clock, your body is frozen, your life on hold forever.

We spent so much time outside, wasted it all with smiles and laughter. You could have spoken, talked to me of your life, but we both ignored it all.

My friend, I made for you this clock because sometimes I wish we could start over, even from 9:55. If only we'd had more time.

Your Friend