Wake Up


Lavender Ted walked through the doors of her school and into the hallway for the first time in a week and a half. Nothing was different, but nothing was the same. The lockers were still coated in grey paint, but she could see all the chips and cracks in it. The kids that filled the hall still talked and laughed, but now they did with a little too much enthusiasm. The fluorescent light bulbs overhead still shined, but were either dead, or shining just a little too brightly. The heels of her favorite pair of boots still clicked against the linoleum floor, but now the sound was grating. It all made her want to claw her ears out and cover her eyes and fade away.

It was her first time back to school since her best friend James had died in the war. No one would tell her what happened to him, just that he was gone. It kept her awake at night, staring at the ceiling, thinking of all the terrible ways he could have passed. And whenever she finally did shut her eyes and drift off, those scenarios played in her dreams like morbid movies. She could see the flash of a bomb exploding, or hear the screams of a dying boy. It was unbearable.

Because of it, Lavender’s nights were mostly sleepless until her mother got a doctor to prescribe her heavy sleeping pills. Now her nights were soundless, dark, and empty, but blessedly devoid of death.

Because of her sleeping pills she had slept for a solid ten hours the night before, but she still woke up feeling tired. She barely had the energy to take off her pajamas and slide leggings and a sweatshirt on. She didn’t look in the mirror while she brushed her teeth or when she pulled her hair back into a ponytail. She kept her eyes cast downward and shuffled down the stairs to the kitchen where her mom was waiting to drive her to school. Neither of them spoke as they walked out the door and into the car. Lavender slid big bulky black headphones over her ears, sat down and buckled up. She pumped the volume up as high as it would go. It was so loud it made her ears ache, but she closed her eyes anyway and leaned back against the headrest. The music was loud, angry and heart breaking and the words were her words: everything she wished she could say, that she knew she never would.

The twenty minute car ride passed entirely too quickly for her. They came up the last big hill of the drive and Lavender could see her school in the distance. She started shaking and clenched her eyes and fists closed, focusing on her music. Her nails dug into the soft skin of her palm, leaving angry white half-moons imprinted there.

Her eyes were still closed when she felt the car come to a stop. She didn’t move for a few seconds. Then she slowly peeled her eyes open to the sight of students flooding into the big white main building.

“If you don’t go now, you’re going to be late,” her mom whispered. Without saying anything, Lavender swung her backpack onto her back and climbed out of the car, closing the door quietly behind her. Headphones still in with her head lowered, Lavender trudged through the big door and into the hallway. The enthusiastic laughter of the students around her assaulted her ears, reaching them despite the loud music she played. She pushed the headphones closer in to her ears, pressing her hands against them and holding them there, but it didn’t help. It was too much and she began to feel sick to her stomach. The laughter surrounded her from all directions. She thought she could feel peoples’ eyes on her, but when she looked up kids were still huddled in their groups talking, completely oblivious to her presence. She bowed her head again and increased her pace, barreling toward the nearest bathroom.

Lavender walked in and spun around quickly, shutting and locking the door behind her. She leaned against the white tile wall and her hands slid through her hair as she slid to the ground. She hugged her legs to her chest and played with the frayed edges of her boots. She waited for tears to come, but her eyes were dry. Too dry. She blinked a few times and rubbed her eyes. She hauled herself to the sink. A wet brown paper towel was plastered to the counter beside it, but she ignored it as she reached to turn on the faucet. She waited a few seconds for the water to warm up but it didn’t. She held her hand under the running water for a few more seconds and sighed before splashing the chilly water on her face. She dried it off with a fresh paper towel then tossed it next to the one already discarded on the counter.

She heard the bell ring. There was a sudden increase in noise with the of scuffling feet and the slamming of lockers, but it soon came to a stop. Lavender didn’t bother to move, she knew that she wasn’t going to class today. Or perhaps ever again. She was seventeen now, more than old enough to drop out. For a minute or so she entertained the thought of just quitting. She could sink into her bed and let the blankets swallow her alive. She could just sleep and sleep. Forever.

But that was too easy. She couldn’t throw her life away when she still had one and James didn’t. It would be an insult to his memory. But she couldn’t stay there in that school. There were too many things there that reminded her of him. The waste bin next to the stairs that they used to throw garbage into from across the hall, hollering every time they made a basket. The worn leather couch that they took naps on during lunch because they’d stayed up too late the previous night talking on the phone in bed. The way the clock in the main entry way was just an inch too far to the right of the hallway, something James had pointed out to her when they were visiting the school for the first time, right when they had first met.

All the little things rushed together like a river, and there Lavender was, trying to stay afloat. But there were too many waves and it would only be so long before she sunk down into the freezing water.

She blinked, realizing that she had been staring at herself in the mirror, right into her own eyes for what felt like hours, although it had to have only been a few minutes. She shook her head to regain her focus and splashed a little more cold water on her face. She unlocked the door and slowly pushed it open. The hallway was empty except for a few discarded papers on the ground. Lavender kicked them to the side with the toe of her boot as she exited the bathroom and continued on to the entryway. The air outside was bitingly cold and the sun was blindingly bright, but she told herself that she didn’t mind. She shoved her hands in her pockets and began the very, very long walk home.

When she got there the house was empty and unlit. She was an only child and her dad was away on a business trip in New York. She didn’t mind the quiet or the solitude. She and her father had never gotten along anyway. She threw her backpack under the table in her kitchen and opened their refrigerator. It lit up the dark kitchen, filling it with a quiet humming noise. It was filled with food, but Lavender couldn’t do anything but just stare at it. She was hungry, her stomach rumbled, but for some reason the thought of filling it was nauseating. She pulled out a water bottle from the side shelf of the fridge and shut the door. She nestled the bottle under her arm while she swung her backpack back on and headed for the stairs. She held the railing as she trudged up the staircase and into her bedroom. She sat down on her bed and pulled her backpack in it with her. She pulled her laptop out of it. Its blue cover was cracked on its upper left corner from where Lavender dropped it when her mom told her about James. She ran her fingers over the crack and then whipped the screen open. She pulled up a list of high schools in her area online with a sigh.

The last thing she wanted to do was go back to school, but she couldn’t stay home all day. She could hardly stand spending ten minutes with her parents now, let alone having to spend entire days with them. She needed somewhere to go, something to do with her life, and people to spend it with. She needed to smile. She hadn’t for three weeks, four days and one hour. She turned to face the mirror and used her fingers to push the corners of her mouth into a grimace. It felt wrong. Despite her closed-mouth grin, her flat grey steel eyes still stared, haunted, almost through the mirror. She dropped her hands back down to her sides and her mouth slipped back into a flat line. She stared into the mirror for a few more seconds, bringing her hands back to her face, squeezing and pinching it, like she was making sure that the face she saw in the mirror was her own. To make sure that she was still there, that she still existed. Then she turned away and returned to her computer.

She sat back down on her bed and pulled the laptop on to her lap. When it rested against her knee through her leggings she gasped and quickly lifted it back up. The bottom of the computer was burning like the body of a tea kettle when it’s whistling. She hesitated, then lowered it back on to her thigh. The heat stung, but she left it sitting there. The burning increased and she pressed it harder against her leg. The heat began to fade, so Lavender quickly pulled her leggings off and gingerly set the laptop back down on her bare flesh. She gritted her teeth but didn’t squirm. The pain was intense, but it was something. Something besides grief, something she could control. She wondered if that was what James had felt in his final moments. That searing, biting heat. She wondered if it had consumed him.

Lavender wondered if his world ended in fire. She wondered if he had died in a fiery explosion, the burning heat she was now inflicting on herself spreading throughout him until his heart, soul and body were reduced to ash. Or perhaps the world had ended for him in the opposite extreme. She pictured him being shot and the blood dripping out of him like snow melting, slowly and then all at once, until his body was ice.

The burning sensation from her computer was subsiding as Lavender searched for the poem that now pervaded her thoughts.

Lavender found it, but begged to differ. Ice would not suffice for the end. It crept slowly, making you lose feeling and control as it fought you and easily won. It left your body numb and stiff, but your mind stayed awake, and the fear it was put through was almost as petrifying as the cold. She shivered.

Ice was cruel, but fire was bright, and warm, and passionate. It caressed your skin as it engulfed you. Its fingers singed and stung you as they stroked your skin, but you could still feel. There was a bright light before the flame of your own life was snuffed out and there was darkness.

Lavender tried to clear her mind and leaned back in her bed until her head was resting against her pillow. She wanted to sleep but all she could do was stare at her ceiling. It was white, and she traced all the minuscule cracks and imperfections in the paint with her eyes. There was one long big crack that ran across the entire distance of her ceiling from when workers pounded too hard on the roof. A profusion of tiny cracks branched out from it. She tried to count them but gave up after fifty. Either five minutes or five hours later her mom got home and went up stairs to Lavender’s room. Lavender pretended to be asleep and shut her eyes until she heard her mother leave and softly close the door behind her. She slowly let the breath she didn’t know she was holding leak out loudly. The door opened again.

Her mother stepped back into her room. Neither of them said anything for a while. Lavender stared at the ceiling, and her mom stared at the carpet. Lavender broke the silence.

“How did it happen?”

“How did what happen?”?


“You know what.”

“You don’t need to kn—”

“Yes, I really do.”

“They found him in a bathtub.”

“A bathtub?”

“I really don’t want to talk about this.”?

“I do.”

“Lav—”?

“Please. I need to know.”

“He slit his wrists, Lavender. Two days before he could come home. I’m sorry.”

Lavender blinked. Her mind had come up with a million and one scenarios during all of her sleepless nights and this had not been one of them. She always imagined some nameless enemy hiding in the shadows to be the one responsible for his death. The idea that James had been his own unseen enemy was almost unfathomable. It wasn’t the shadows the evil was hiding in, it was his mind. She wondered how he could have possibly been so sad. When he was with her he always had a smile on his face. She could picture him leaning back against the mountain of pillows in his bed, a lazy grin stretched across his face as he absentmindedly strummed his guitar and hummed. She wondered what he had thought about while he let his mind wander like that. And she wondered what the war had done to him to leave him so broken. She would never know.

“If you kill yourself, can you still get into Heaven?”

“What?”?

“Did James still get into Heaven?”


Her mother paused before saying, “Of course dear. I’m sure when you pass away all wrinkled and grey-haired he’ll be there waiting for you. Don’t worry.” And with that, Lavender’s mother walked out of the room and shut the door quietly behind her.

The next time she opened it Lavender wasn’t in bed. After calling her name with no response, she found her in the bathtub. She was submerged in bitterly cold water with an empty bottle of her sleeping pills discarded on the floor. Next to it lay a wet and mushy piece of paper with four words scrawled on it.



I’m on my way.