Playlist for the Dead. Michelle Falkoff

He was leaning forward again, hands on his thighs, anxious to hear what I had to say.

      But there was no way I was going to talk about the party, or anything that had happened since. Hayden had been through enough, and so had I. And I was starting to get angry again. “Look, Hayden was pretty miserable. His brother and his friends treated him like shit, he was bombing all his classes, and I don’t know if you’ve had the pleasure of meeting his parents, but they were awful too. And no one here did anything to make it better. There was a time when maybe someone could have helped him, but it’s too late now, so why are you talking to me about it? Why don’t you talk to all of them?” My face was burning now, and I realized I was yelling.

      “I’m sorry we didn’t see what was happening, Sam, and certainly I’ll be talking to some of the people you’ve mentioned. But it’s you and me talking now, and I want you to know that I’m here whenever you need me. I know you’re angry, and I want to help you channel that anger into something productive, rather than something harmful.” He looked like he was going to reach over and touch my arm or something like that, but he must have figured out that I was itching to hit something.

      “What do you want me to do? Take art classes and draw pictures using black crayons? Write short stories about an alternative universe where my best friend didn’t kill himself? What do you want?” I had to calm down. I tried focusing on my breathing. In, out. In, out. Slower each time.

      “I just want you to remember that you have options. Sometimes when people are angry they lash out at other people, and there’s enough violence around here as it is.” His brows were furrowed, and his voice had gotten quiet again, despite my yelling.

      It took me a minute to figure out what he was so worried about. And then I got it. He thought I was going to shoot up the school or something. Hayden had put a song about it on the playlist; I wondered if that meant he’d thought about it himself. I forced myself to stop yelling, to speak almost as quietly as he had. “Look, it’s true that I think there are a lot of people to blame for all of this, but I’m one of them.” For a second, my mind flashed back to the party, to the last words I’d ever said to him. Fuck you, Hayden. Some kind of best friend I was. “And it’s not my job to decide who should pay.”

      Mr. Beaumont exhaled; I hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath. “I’m glad to hear you feel that way, though I’m sorry you feel responsible. Maybe that’s something we could talk about next time.”

      I figured that meant there had to be a next time, so I nodded and took another handful of M&M’s before I left.

      “In the meantime, get some rest,” Mr. Beaumont said. “You look exhausted.”

      No kidding.

      

      I WAITED UNTIL I GOT HOME to look at the envelope Mr. Beaumont had given me, once I’d shut myself up in my room. It was full of pamphlets—on suicide, grieving, depression, anger management. The suicide one was loaded with statistics. Someone died by suicide every fourteen minutes or so, which seemed crazy high to me, and a million people a year attempted it. It was the third leading cause of death for teenagers, and boys did it more often than girls. Girls tended to use it as what the pamphlet called a “cry for help,” though it sounded more like an attention grab to me. They would slit their wrists but cut the wrong way, or take a bunch of pills when they knew someone was likely to find them. Boys were more definitive. Hanging, shooting, jumping off tall things.

      I could just imagine Mr. Beaumont giving a pamphlet like this to Ryan. He’d probably jump all over the fact that Hayden had used a girl’s strategy. Leave it to the bully trifecta to come up with reasons to mock him even after he was gone.

      The lack of sleep was starting to make me dizzy so I lay down on my bed for a while and tried to take a nap. But my head was still spinning from all the different things going on—Hayden being gone, of course, but also Astrid, and the Archmage. Except I was pretty sure I must have dreamed the Archmage. I wasn’t in the habit of falling asleep in my desk chair, but there was a first time for everything. I tried to put it out of my head but just when I thought I was about to drift off there was a knock at the door.

      “Mom, I’m trying to sleep in here.”

      “It’s not Mom.” I opened my eyes. The door opened and Rachel came in my room wearing her usual outfit: a very tiny skirt and so much makeup it looked like she’d spray-painted it on. Funny, when she didn’t have on a fake face she and Mom looked a lot alike—both were tall, with long brown curly hair and big brown eyes. But while Mom looked tired all the time from working, Rachel looked like she worked at one of the makeup counters at the mall. Which was actually her dream job. All that makeup made her look old, though, almost as old as Mom. If she just took off half of the makeup and gave it to Mom, they’d both look great.

      Not that I’d ever say that to either one of them. I wasn’t a complete idiot.

      “You haven’t stepped one foot in my room in at least a year,” I pointed out. “What are you doing here?”

      She looked around at the band posters that covered every inch of the walls not already taken over by my bookshelves. “It hasn’t improved much. Listen, Jimmy’s coming over for dinner and I need you to get your ass downstairs ASAP and make this as painless as possible.”

      “I totally forgot,” I said, and closed my eyes again. “Mom said something this morning. I think I’ll just stay up here.”