Eighteen

CW: language, suicide, religious trauma - please note that this is fictional

“We are unfortunately gathered here today to not mourn, but celebrate, the life of Jillian Fields. She was a loving sister, daughter, niece, and granddaughter. It is a shame that she chose this path of sin.”

The preacher began to open his Bible as a quiet murmur stretched through the church. Great job saying that I chose a path of sin, Pastor David. And to think that I thought he was chill.

I could see my mother sobbing in the front row, her head sinking into my father’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered from… above? Under? I don’t know where I am, really. But I was sorry. Girls like me don’t just kill themselves out of nowhere.

I swear I’m not playing the blame game here. I bet that they are, though.

“I’m the reason that Jill had to leave,” my aunt cried, and I rolled my eyes. I didn’t even really know the woman! My brother was in the middle of a staring contest with his hands, and he might’ve been winning. My sisters didn’t really understand the concept of death, much less suicide, so they were coloring in a unicorn coloring book.

Dying was quick, actually. But it did really hurt when I took my last breath, knowing that it would be my last.

Suddenly, in the middle of Pastor David reading from the Bible, which I didn’t really know if I believed in, but I can’t say that aloud, somebody burst through the church doors.

Anna-Marie. That son of a- Hey, we’re in a church. I need to watch my mouth.

“Where’s Jillian?” she screamed, tears plummeting down her face. That shocked me and everybody else in the church.

The whole building went dead silent. The only sound was the crayons held in my little sisters’ hands scratching against the paper. Anna-Marie wasn’t really a crier. No, she’d never cried. Or at least, I’d never seen her cry. Does it even count that I’m seeing her right now? I’m dead, right? Yes, I’m dead.

“No, no, no, she’s dead isn’t she?” Anna-Marie screeched, taking halted breaths. The pastor shifted uncomfortably and nodded towards the direction of the urn where my ashes lay. You could hear a pin drop. In fact, I could see my mom dropping a tissue or something, and I heard it.

“This is all my fault! All my fault, and she’s fucking dead!” she howled, not minding that she was in a church.

“Ma’am, we understand that this must be a very disheartening time for you, but please consider the surroundings,” Pastor David spoke softly into his microphone, and she continued screaming, grabbing the sides of her head and rocking back and forth. I wanted to hug her. But wait, I’m dead. I’m fucking dead. Oh well.

“Consider my fucking surroundings? Sir, I’m considering my surroundings all right. She’s having a funeral and her goddamn ashes are in that pot, for heaven’s sake!” Anna-Marie screamed, her voice becoming more high-pitched as the sentence grew. I almost laughed, but then remembered the situation.

Anna-Marie sat herself in the back pew, rocking back and forth even more, practically curling up into a ball.

The pastor read from Psalms 34:18.

The LORD is near to the brokenhearted, and saves the crushed in spirit.

This was my favorite Bible quote, because my faith was conflicted.

Sometimes I believed, others not.

Do you know how offensive it is to say that you are a Christian when you’re really not?

Anna-Marie had texted me that when we had another one of our paragraph-texting-level fights, around last November.

It’s complicated, I had texted through tears. The screen was all blurry, and the letters were everywhere.

How can it be complicated? she’d asked, oblivious. She was wonderful, but oblivious to the pain that she caused.

I don’t fucking know, I’d replied, getting angry. I was an asshole of a friend, and she was making it almost obvious.

No, Jill, you’re not a bad friend, my mom had said, soothing me with her arm around me as mascara that I had perfectly applied on earlier in the morning streaking down my face. Well, I wish I could take her opinion, but I can’t. My brain turns it. It’s actually so exhausting. Is that why I pulled the trigger?

The whole church makes me go numb, even though I’m dead. I guess we don’t stop feeling.

I didn’t want my funeral to be in a church. I wanted it to be somewhere, in a bigger space, with room to breathe. I specifically wrote that in my note.

And don’t go putting me in a church, please.

Surely, they didn’t read that line.

Suddenly, I want to be back on solid ground. I can’t tell if I’m floating or sinking, and I just want solid ground.

This is all because I decided that my problems needed to end. My stupid little temporary problems.

“I’m sorry,” I yelled to the church, but no sound came out. I’m fucking dead, anyway.

Then, tears came to my eyes as my mother stood up.

“This is not professional. I’m going to excuse myself from the situation,” she said as she walked out, high heels clopping on the floor.

She didn’t look like a griever. She looked like she had come to any other church service. Pretty black dress, even though I had said in my letter to not wear black, high heels that broke the silence, which was just getting comfortable, and fake tears riding down her face.

I’m an asshole to be thinking of my mother like this. She never hurt me.

She never hurt me.

She never hurt me.

They never did find out about half of my life. The boy I liked? My friends knew, my friends’ parents knew, hell, even my teacher knew, but they never did. I could never open up about that. The fact that I was bi? Oh my god, no. My parents were definitely LGBT+ friendly, but they would never accept me. My family wasn’t conservative, but we went to church. Our church was conservative, but as my father said, that didn’t matter. We were all praising Him in the same way. But we weren’t.

Then, it hit me.

All the quotes I had written, all of the heart monitors beeping I’d gotten used to in my brain, all of the flat lines I would draw in the blank margins…

They only care because I’m dead.

Well, maybe not only, but everybody started caring a whole lot more when I pulled the trigger.

I thought of Jesus. They only loved Him because He was dead.

How did He feel?

Well, He was practically God, so He probably was okay with it all.

But He wasn’t a regular human, that’s the thing.

The church is still sitting in silence as my aunt comes up to read.

“My sweet, sweet Jillian, what caused you to choose this path?” she spoke as she sniffed her tears. I didn’t even know the woman.

I don’t know why I chose this path, I wanted to scream, something just happened, and I wanted to die so badly.

Even though I’m dead, I think a tear rolls down my cheek.

Anna-Marie walked up slowly to the vase carrying my body, now in ashes, and grabbed it.

She examined the pot for a few seconds, and then burst out running. Everybody in the church stayed still for a little while, and then realization dawned on them. My father was the first one to run off after Anna-Marie, who was long gone. She ran cross country, and she was fast.

“Everyone, everyone, please stay calm and seated while we continue with the eulogies!” Pastor David boomed into the microphone, with an edge to his voice. He probably thought that this was just another dead girl’s funeral. A young, never-to-become-eighteen-year-old dead girl.

I would never be eighteen.

Chasing after Anna-Marie was easier than I thought it would be, because I could float/sink, and not have to run on solid ground, even though I would rather be running on solid ground.

In my note, I had written where I wanted my ashes to be spread.

Spread me near the beach, AM, you know who you are.

She ran like lightning towards the beach, which was less than a mile away. As she ran, I could see her whispering something under her breath.

I leaned in, listening to what she was saying as her blue dress swayed with the wind as her feet thundered on the quiet ground.

She’s fucking dead, she whispered over and over again. Tears were sprouting from her eyes.

She’s never gonna be eighteen, she said, slowing to a jog as the ocean came into the distance.

Now I was crying too, even though I’m dead.

She walked along the sand-dotted pier, the waves crashing along the shoreline. Our relationship might have been confusing, or one-sided at times, but I wanted her to know so badly in the moment that it wasn’t her fault.

The last thing I said to her was I love you.

We were texting the night that I did it, and she was making me laugh with the videos she was sending me. It almost made me not want to do it, but I still did.

Aw, I gotta go, I’d texted her, my throat tightening.

Aw, okay! She’d replied.

I love you. I had texted her for one more final time. She had read the message, but hadn’t responded. I’m gonna miss you, AM. Read, no response. I love you. Read. I didn’t have time to see if there was a response. I closed my phone and set up the notes.

Then, I walked into my bathroom and never came out.

I found myself longing to be with her again. She was alone, and it was all because of me.

She waded out into the ocean enough so that her thigh-length dress wouldn’t get wet.

“Jill, if you can hear me, I miss you. I love you. I know I didn’t say it back, but I’m saying it now.” Tears dotted her eyes as she opened the vase, wind blowing her hair in all different directions. Her hair was beautiful, auburn with honey highlights. Mine was a lighter brown, but we were matched with the honey highlights.

“So, you should know a few things. For one, Joseph confessed after you died, which was absolutely perfect timing, but he said that he’d liked you since 6th grade, so there’s that. Second, your mom is a bitch, and I don’t know why you didn’t realize it before. Third, everybody misses you. Seriously. Whenever one of the boys brings up a time that you fought them for the right answer, everybody laughs and then goes quiet. Without you at school, it just isn’t the same. Fourth, I have your letter right here in my pocket. So here I am, doing the most right thing I could do right now, spreading you where you actually wanted to be. Sorry about the outburst in the church, I know you didn’t like churches,”

Her eyes went glossy, and then she dumped the vase into the ocean, some of me floating out into the salty air, the air which I breathed every summer, the air which I would never breathe again.

“I can hear you,” I said into the air, standing in front of her.

“Jill?” she said, her eyes going wide.

“It’s me, Anna-Marie,”

“I-How? How is this humanly possible?”

“It’s not, but just go with it, okay?”

“Okay,”

“So, Joseph confessed? Hashtag worth it, all those days of endless butterflies,”

“Yes, oh my gosh! Wait, if I can hear you, can I hug you?”

“I don’t know,”

“Just try,”

“Okay…”

She reached out to touch my hand, and then nearly fell through, getting the tips of her dress damp.

“Oh,” she murmured, frowning, “I guess we can’t touch.”

“Yeah,” I replied, “but you can still hear me, so that’s great,”

“Yeah, it is,”

She got a faraway look in her eyes, and then smiled sadly at me.

“I’m really, really sorry for doing this,” I whispered, the wind whooshing around us.

“I know, Jill,” Anna-Marie breathed, her smile slowly fading.

“Tell me later how eighteen feels,” I lulled, feeling the sinking/floating feeling coming back.

“Okay, I will, and Jill, please don’t leave me, please-” she was cut off by the sudden absence of me.

The tears dripped steadily down my face now as she wandered off by the pier, back towards her house. I couldn’t find my father, or mother, and I didn’t want to go back to the church, where everybody was continuing to read their Bibles like normal, just another dead girl’s funeral.

What I said lingered in my head for a really long time. I guess that can happen when you’re dead, but who knows?

Tell me what it’s like to be eighteen.