Blood

         When Alisha threatened to take her own life, I was worried. Not that she was a person to do something like that… At least not the Ali I had known; but she had changed so much this past year that it was impossible to be sure... I thought that as Carrie, ex-best friend, I knew enough about her to be positive she wouldn't do that...



         It had started with a slow downhill run and was now moving so fast that it was out of, I suspected, even Alisha's control. It began when her house burned down at the beginning of the school year and she'd had to move to the shelter. It continued when James dumped her for Tonya Phillips and she had, in retaliation, gone out with Derek Winters, kept on gaining speed when he turned out abusive and she wouldn't leave him. When he forced her to hang out with his druggie friends and she wouldn't let anybody stop her. When she started showing up with needle marks on her arm and black eyes on her head. What got everyone was that she wouldn’t let anyone help her. Even Alisha was entitled to a few mistakes, but to not let anyone help…
         She was the perfect model student. Always a 3.9 or 4.0 GPA, straight A's in all her classes, Teacher’s Pet; you know the type. She wasn’t really pretty or popular, she was too smart for that, but her friends were many. I used to be her best one. We were a perfect team, she used to joke. I was the beauty and Alisha was the brains. Together, we couldn't fail. I sometimes wondered who her best friend had been after she stopped hanging out with our group. It definitely wasn’t me. Derek didn’t want her associating with the likes of me.
         On second thought, the downhill roll started when her parents split up in middle of last year. It was a shock to both Alisha and her mom; and when their beloved Victorian house burned down right after the divorce was finalized, her mother never really recovered. It was like without Alisha's dad she couldn't do anything. As far as I knew, she still hadn't gotten a job, or done much of anything. All they had done was move from one shelter to the next all over town. The rumors that Gina was a whore were all too frequent.
         Alisha had never recovered either. Often I wondered, when I was in a analytical mood, if Alisha had gone out with Derek because she thought she didn't deserve anyone better. If she thought that in the end she wasn’t anything better than her mother.
         Alisha and I barely even talked at all by the end of the year. We were so different after a while that we just couldn't relate...
         We had been so happy at the start of the year that our lockers had been right next to each other. After a while I dreaded it, came early so I wouldn't have to see her; wouldn't have to see what she had done with herself in such a short period of time. If I came early I wouldn't have to see the new needle marks, the stoned, blood-shot eyes, the new bruises that never seemed to heal. Sure, I felt guilty. But what was there left to do? It wasn't like her mother, or anyone else, cared. And I had tried all I could, but even the school counselors and CPS had given the same response I got from everyone else. ‘There’s nothing else we can do’ was the standard line. So I tried on my own, but nothing worked. Alisha went on her course of destruction unchecked, and wouldn't let anyone, even her best friend, stop her.

         I hadn’t heard from Alisha in months when I got the email she sent me. I was so surprised I almost deleted it as junk mail before I realized who it was. But then I realized no spam robot was going to send a message titled: ‘my life’
         It was brief, like she had written it in a hurry, when she wasn't supposed to. I surmised that Derek controlled her computer time too. I could almost hear her soft voice, edged with a sense of urgency and panic, echoing to me through the screen.
         "Carrie:
         "I’m just writing to say that im sorry for everything. Sorry for ignoring you and for not letting u help me. it’s going to be over soon though. All the drugs and pain and all the shit. I’m going to heaven soon away fromit all. if god'll take me. i love u, and thank you so much for trying to help me when no one else would. Good-bye….
         "your friend, Alisha."
         I guess that my first reaction to her letter wasn’t quite typical of what a person’s would be under these circumstances, since it went something like WHAT THE FUCK???
         My second was any other person’s first: OMIGOD NO!!!
         And my third I distinctly remember being DEAR LORD SAVE US ALL. If Alisha is threatening to take her own life, this world is over.
         I had no number or way to contact her. (I had tried once or twice and apparently everyone that crashed at the Winter’s residence knew that she wasn’t to talk to me.) If I went to Derek's house there was no way I would be able to see her. If she was there and still alive. I had an instinctive feeling that she hadn't told anybody else, nor wanted to. So what to do? She wouldn't answer her email again, and not only did I not know where her mother was, I knew that Gina wouldn't give a shit. My parents wouldn't take me seriously enough to do anything until tomorrow if she wasn't at school. They had now grouped Alisha in the sector of kids they secretly wanted off the ends of the Earth and would probaly be glad to be rid of her, no joke.
         For whatever fucked-up reason I gave myself, I didn't do anything that night but think and worry. I raced through option after option, ranging from completely outrageous — going up to the house and confronting Derek, and Ali, right that instant — to more reasonable ones like calling the CPS office or the Suicide Hotline. But I didn’t do any of it. I went to bed and tossd and turned until I forced my brain to shut down and sleep. Couldn’t be tired for the big Trig test tomorrow. Who cares if my best friend just sent me a suicide note….
         I dreamed of Alisha, lying in a bathtub full of blood and holding a razor. There was another note on the mirror and blood splattered everywhere, like she slipped and sprayed blood all over the bathroom or something. I woke in a cold sweat, reflecting that I still knew her well enough to know that that would be her suicide choice. Blood was almost an obsession with her…..
         Why didn’t I do more that night? I guess I thought that I knew her well enough to think that she wouldn't follow through on it. I hoped that if she’d bothered to send out a warning she’d know that I would come try and help her again. Wasn’t it proven that most kids that threaten suicide WANT help? I mean, didn’t she know I was going to do everything I could?
         But she wasn't at school the next day.
         Derek was though. When I had seen him without Ali was when I had decided to skip and go pay Ali a visit. If he was there then Alisha must still be ok. Even Derek wouldn’t leave his girl-friend bleeding to death or dead somewhere. He was a druggie, not a murderer. So I had cut after 1st period, and taken Mom's beat-up old Subaru over to Apple St. For some reason, going over there for the reason I was, the name of the street seemed ironic. I never could figure out why afterward, just that in my state of mind it had seemed too happy for the mission I was going to attempt…
         I was shocked by the state the house was in when I had pulled up in front of it. The grass had reached practically to my knees, and there was a row of rosebushes that no one had trimmed in what looked like years surrounding the house, like the briars around Sleeping Beauty’s castle. (The Ali I knew was a neat freak and never would have stood for it.) There had been something eerily beautiful in it all, but something sinister as well. I hadn’t been able to figure it out until I’d realized there was no sound. No music, no TV, no birds….nothing. Feeling apprehensive, I’d walked up to the door of Derek’s house and knocked. No one answered.
         I peered through the window, knocked again. Still nothing disturbed the silence but my voice, and so I walked in and went upstairs. It turned out to be the exact same floor plan as in her old house, and so I made a beeline for what would have been her room in her old house. I called her name as loudly as I could, hoping I didn’t find a drugged-out zombie when I reached my destination. Granted, that wouldn’t have been worse than what I feared, but it wouldn’t be pleasant.
         But she wasn't there. I called again. Screamed her name louder than I had ever screamed before in my life. And then I began to panic.
         I tore down the hall, checking rooms, searching for any sign that Alisha was still alive. That my worst nightmare wasn’t going to come true before my very eyes. That Derek hadn't buried her in the backyard already. (My earlier thoughts about him vanished. My state of mind had been that Derek was so messed up that he'd let her rot in the bathtub. Or wherever she was.)
         I found Alicia where I thought she'd be, where I’d hoped against hope she WOULDN’T be. The bathroom wasn't streaked with blood like in my dream, and there was no final note. But Alisha was there just the same.
         There was a slight trickle of blood running from her wrists, and I think it was the sight of all the blood that really got me.Up till then I had believed that maybe it wasn't real. That she hadn't meant what she had written. That this was the dream outside a dream and I would wake up to my alarm when I got close enough to see her face. But it hit me when I saw the blood. This was all real. I had only prayed I hadnt been too late…..
         I knelt down next to her. She was still breathing; though with the blood she'd lost I gave her up for gone even as I ran downstairs to find the phone. I still can’t remember what I was thinking as I stood there with tears streaming down my face, eyes so blurred that I could barely see to dial 911. I had had one purpose and one purpose only, to make sure that Alicia would be ok….
         It was only in the hospital emergency room that my thoughts caught up to me. They ran around in circles, chasing each other. One after another, over and over, making me want to run until I couldn't feel, couldn't think, couldn't remember the sight of my best friend lying in a bathtub full of bloody water. I wanted to scream at everyone: at the world, at my school, at her mom and dad. At Derek, at everyone that had walked past her in school not caring if she lived or died.
         But most of all I wanted to scream at myself. At the parts of myself telling me that it was all my fault, that if I had gotten there just a little sooner, paid a little more attention…No, I thought, it wasn't my fault. How as I supposed to know she meant now, that she had enough strength to carry it out?
         But mostly I just thought of how I should have, could have, would have saved her, and mostly, the pools of blood.