TW - mention of a suicide note.
Chapter 9
-Chester-
I was technically born a day before Jeremiah - at 11.30pm, and then at 1am the next morning, Jeremiah was born. So although we have different birthdays, we kind of celebrate sharing one birthday, but for two days instead.
It’s fun, and it’s what we’ve always done.
Rather wonderfully, my dad’s flight got cancelled so he couldn’t make the trip over to this state in time, so that was one fewer thing to worry about. And our older sister Amelia and her husband Ben managed to come stay with us for our traditional overnight party on the night Jeremiah and I were born.
Amelia moved in with Ben quite a while ago, so we don’t see her much, but she’s really sweet and we get on with her and Ben well. Amelia is also a therapist, which is cool because she always gives us little bits of advice on self-care. Not mini therapy sessions, but just…advice.
“How is your therapy going at the moment?” Mom asks Amelia over dinner, and she smiles brightly. “It’s really good - I just got another client, and I’ve been doing house visits each day. He’s a sweet kid, clearly very overdue therapy but I’m sure we’ll be able to work through everything together,” she says optimistically.
“Chester, Jeremiah - how is school?” Amelia asks after a while, and Jeremiah instantly starts talking enthusiastically about his friends, basketball and music - his favourite lesson is music, after gym of course - and although he’s not the best at the piano, he’s been working really hard on it recently and improving a lot.
“I am a little sad though - thought I’d made a new friend, he’s such a cool guy and he just transferred here from England, how cool is that?! But we haven’t seen him in ages, it’s like he totally vanished,” Jeremiah says forlornly, sighing heavily, “maybe he really did think we were bullying him because of that thing with his hearing aid.”
Amelia sits up straighter, gripping her glass tightly. “Oh right - Mom mentioned that to me the other day. I’m sure it’s not that though, maybe he just has some…personal, issues, at the moment,” she says carefully, and I narrow my eyes slightly, trying to figure out what she means.
Mom looks as baffled as I do, glancing over at Amelia and raising an eyebrow. “I told you about that? My memory is so hopeless these days,” she laughs, taking another sip of her wine. Amelia smiles, but I can’t help think that she looks a little guilty. No idea what that’s about, anyway.
The rest of mine and Jeremiah’s birthday passes smoothly, and we both go to bed happy. We may have skipped classes on my birthday, since it was a Friday and Jeremiah’s was on the Saturday - but Mom wasn’t angry about it and Jeremiah and I made sure we got our friends to send us their notes and the homework tasks.
And then on Monday, as Jeremiah and I are walking into school, I spot something unexpected. A car in the parking lot - not that unusual, but the moment Avi steps out of the car, saying something to the driver and then walking in the direction of the school, I know that I have to take my chance.
Jeremiah follows my eyes, and he grabs my arm. “Shit! It’s Hendy! You should finally give him his jacket back,” my brother suggests, and I do feel a little guilty about hanging onto it for almost two weeks in the end and wearing it practically every day, to boot. We quickly hurry after Avi, and it’s only when we follow him all the way to his locker that I realise his wrist is in a cast.
“Yo, Hendricks! What happened to your wrist?” Jeremiah asks instantly, leaning against the locker next to Avi’s. Avi slowly turns to look at us, and something about his expression surprises me. Before, it was always kind of…neutral, never giving anything away. But now…there’s a complex mess of emotions in his eyes, but I can actually see that he’s feeling a lot. Whatever happened to him in that week he had off…I don’t know if it was good or bad, but it had a large impact on him.
“I fractured it,” Avi eventually answers, grabbing some books from his locker and shoving them inside his bag.
“How though?” Jeremiah pushes, and Avi shrugs. “Dunno. Just tried clicking my wrist and I guess I used too much force.”
“Enough force to fracture it?! The fuck man, are you super strong or something?!” Jeremiah slaps Avi on the back, and the taller guy just shrugs again, holding his wrist to him carefully. Jeremiah has to leave us shortly after, because once again Avi and I have biology.
I expect Avi to just nap through the lesson like usual, but unexpectedly, he actually pulls out a textbook, opening it to the right page. He doesn’t take any notes, but he does seem like he’s paying attention already, so that’s new.
Grabbing my own notes, as well as those expert ones I found abandoned on a locker, I flick through the pages, practically knowing them by heart already. I tried to find the owner of the notes, but no one came forward to claim them when I posted about it on the student portal thing, so I’m keeping them. Everything is so comprehensively explained but while still being understandable, so I’ve been rereading everything in the notebook like it’s the bloody bible.
Avi watches me with an odd expression as I highlight parts of the notes, adding my own words to them in places as the teacher rambles on. I’m learning far more by reading these notes than I do in any of the actual biology lessons - I love the teacher but her teaching style doesn’t work for me at all.
Flicking through the notes to find the new topic the teacher said we’re moving to, I realise it’s not covered in this set of notes so I grab the second notebook. I haven’t had the time to go through this one completely yet, but it seems as miraculous as the first one.
Flipping through the pages, I stop as a piece of paper slips from between two pages and falls into my lap. Picking it up carefully, I read through it in utter shock before slipping it into my pocket.
That was a suicide note, I’m pretty sure, left between the pages of these notes.
Now I have to find the owner of them, in case they’re in real danger. The note was unfinished, like the person gave up halfway through writing it, but it was disturbing either way.
Going back to trying to find the right section in the notes, it begins to dawn on me that these notes are incomplete. When I glance over at Avi, I realise he’s given up on reading the textbook and has gone back to napping, but at least he looks peaceful. Turning my attention back to the notes, I notice how messy the writing gets, hurried and with much less care and effort than the older pages. And halfway through an explanation on the endocrine system, the notes just stop. And there’s nothing after that either, for the entire rest of the notebook.
It kind of freaks me out, to be honest. It feels like I just witnessed a perfect student who was passionate about science fall out of love with the subject and stop caring, and then stop trying altogether.
I don’t get it - if they were so good at the subject, why give up on it completely? Why abandon the notes on top of a locker that doesn’t even belong to anyone at the moment? How long were the notes there for? The dates on some of the pages go back two years ago, but I swear the books weren’t left on the locker all that time. They were barely even dusty, the day I found them.
The lesson eventually ends, and I do the one thing I can think of - I go to the teacher and express my concern over how I found an unfinished suicide note inside the books, and she takes them to talk to the other teachers and try and find the student some help.
Walking back to my seat to grab my bag, I realise with a start that Avi is waiting at the door for me. Smiling slightly, I get my things and follow him out the classroom.
“Why’d you give back the notes? Seemed like you were keen on using them.”
Ah, so he’d seen me talking to the teacher. Makes sense, based on how he was waiting at the door for me.
“I um. I found a really disturbing note in them, and I’m worried about the student who wrote it. I thought it was better that I give it to the teacher and she can see if she recognises the handwriting or something, I don’t know. I’m just really worried about whoever wrote them,” I whisper, pulling the jacket more closely around my torso before remembering that I need to actually give Avi his jacket back.
Stopping abruptly, I start pulling off his jacket, before handing it back to him. Or trying to, anyway. “You’re not wearing a jacket underneath. You’ll be cold. Just keep it an extra day, and wear something else tomorrow,” he says after a while, picking my bag up off the floor for me and chivvying me on through the hall.
“Really? You don’t mind? It’s so nice, where’d you get it from?” I ask, glad that I can keep it an extra day. I really want to get one, but I don’t know what brand it is.
“My mum got a denim jacket and altered it for my dad, because he got cold easily,” Avi says slowly, looking away from me and speeding up his pace. He never seems comfortable any time his parents come up in conversation, which makes sense - I think he lives with his dad and stepmom, and doesn’t seem to get on well with his stepmom, Joyce.
“Wow, she must be really talented,” I say, hoping that those few words won’t somehow upset Avi. I still haven’t quite figured out how to interact with him properly. Avi just nods, before realising he’s followed me all the way to my art class.
“Um, we don’t have art together,” I point out, smiling. Avi nods again, looking a little embarrassed as he starts walking back in the other direction. Smiling to myself, I appreciate Avi’s little gestures. He’s trying to be friends, and it’s nice that he waited for me at the door, and didn’t run off at any point during our lesson together.
I think he’s really working hard with something. His feelings, perhaps. And I’ll help him in any way that I can.
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