Trigger Warning: This essay deals with the sensitive topic of suicide and contains adult language. The content may not be suitable for all readers. Disclaimer: Names and identifying characteristics have been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals in this excerpt.

I've struggled with depression as far back as I can remember. Growing up in New Jersey in the 1980s probably didn't help much with that. Or maybe it was the fact that we moved every few years. In either case, it was New Jersey that we kept coming back to. So naturally, I went through my teenage years with big hair and a foul mouth. 

I spent a good hour on my hair every morning before school. I'd stand in front of the bathroom mirror at 5:30am cursing as I tortured it with the curling iron. I would hear the light crackle as the hot iron singed my hair and watch as the tiny whips of gray smoke dissipated in the air around me. But still, I forged on.

Once such morning, my father walked across the tan carpet of our upstairs hallway on his way to work. He glanced over at me as he passed by the bathroom and chuckled. "Having a bad hair day?"

"Very funny!" I said, totally unamused. But he laughed his way down the stairs anyway, leaving me in a cloud of hairspray.

Kids were rough in New Jersey and one thing I dreaded more than anything else about school was riding the school bus. I got onto the bus that winter morning in my puffy pink parka ski jacket feeling groggy, but proud of how I looked. I had finally teased my hair to exactly the height I had wanted.

Before I took a seat in the middle of the bus, I glanced towards the back and saw that the popular boys were sitting in the last two rows, having claimed those seats as the 'cool people only' area. Among them was Jeffrey, a young teen who had landed in the foster care system and had just moved into our next door neighbors' house. Our neighbors, the Holstead's, were foster parents who had two biological children, four adopted children, and over a handful of rotating foster kids. Their house was run with the strictness of a military camp and my sister and I were always a bit leery of spending too much time there, afraid we'd inadvertently break a rule and end up getting punished.

I met Jeffrey shortly after he arrived. He had crossed the backyard to our house, climbed our deck steps and appeared at our sliding glass door. I was in the middle of watching an episode of General Hospital and was about to stuff my mouth with my fifth Nestle Toll House chocolate chip cookie when I heard him knock. I looked up surprised to see him, embarrassed almost. He was cute with his curly black hair and rosy cheeks, and my heart raced as I got up to open the door, wiping cookie crumbs off my face with the back of my hand. For a brief second as I placed my hand on the wooden door handle, the thought entered my mind that maybe, just maybe, he'd come to see me. I slid open the door and felt the cold rush in from behind it.

"Hey, what's up?" he said. "I'm Jeffrey, I just moved in next door. My foster mom needs a cup of sugar. She sent me over to see if you guys have any." He held up a measuring cup as proof of his assigned task.

"Oh. Sure, no problem," I said, trying to hide my disappointment. "Just a sec." I left him at the door while I rummaged around in the kitchen for the sugar. A minute later, I returned with the filled measuring cup and handed it back to him. "Here you go," I said. "And welcome to the neighborhood, by the way."

He paused for a moment and then his lips curled into a soft smile, "Thanks a lot. You're really nice." Or maybe what he really said was that it was nice of me. In either case, his voice sounded heavy like he was holding back tears. As if he wasn't used to people being nice to him.

That's why on that particular morning on the bus, I was surprised to see Jeffrey sitting in the back with the popular boys. He's definitely not going to find kindness hanging out with them, I thought. I shook my head in disbelief and I took my seat. I set my backpack on my lap, trying not to take up any more space than necessary. Behind me, I heard the boys in the back getting rowdy and then the bus driver shouting at them to 'sit their asses down and shut up'.

And that's when I felt it. Something landed in my hair followed by the raucous laughter of the boys behind me. I reached up to pull out whatever had landed there. My fingers touched something soft and slimy and I recoiled, disgusted. But I knew that whatever it was, I needed to get it out. It could be anything. The boys were howling with laughter now. 

I reached back again and tugged hard at the ball of slime trying to get it out as quickly as possible, but it clung stingily to my hair. By the time I was able to pull it out, it had left a sickening trail of gooeyness in my hair. I looked down to examine this thing, to know what I would need to do later to properly get the rest of it out of my hair. It was a big wad of notebook paper that looked like it had been sucked on, then covered with snot and topped off with Elmer's Glue. I flung it onto the floor, revolted, and wiped by fingers unsuccessfully on the side of the black, polyurethane seat. I sat frozen and humiliated, but too chicken shit to do anything. In my fantasy mind, however, I turned around, gave the boys the finger and told them to go fuck themselves. 

Within minutes, Jeffrey had appeared at my side. "Oh man, I am so sorry. I didn't mean for that to hit you. I'm really so sorry," he said. 

I looked into his green eyes and felt his sincerity reach across the space between us and I believed him. I believed him that he was sorry. Mostly because no one had ever apologized to me like that before. I'd been slapped in the ass by boys, been told I was ugly, and had heard the word "moo" shouted at me. But never had anyone ever taken responsibility for their cruel actions. "It's ok," I told Jeffrey. "Don't worry about it. It was an accident."

"I'm so very sorry," he said again and I thought maybe he was about to cry.

*

Several months later, Jeffrey committed suicide. He had been extra kind to me since that day on the bus, making me like him even more. And then he disappeared from school and from our neighbor's house. Rumor had it, he'd ended up in a juvenile detention center. But I couldn't imagine that he'd have done something so bad as to wind up in a place like that. 

"I need to tell you something," my mother said, with a voice that says that the 'something' in question is not a good thing. "Mrs. Holstead called this morning, apparently Jeffrey killed himself in the detention center last night."

"What?" I said in shock and disbelief. "Why? How?"

"He hung himself, that's all I know," she said, shaking her head. If my parents did know anything more about it, they never told me. So, I was left to my own horrible imagination, picturing him hanging from his twisted bedsheets, feet dangling inches from the floor.

The high school administration let all of us out of class early the next day to walk to the nearby church where the funeral would take place. There were crowds of students lining up to get in, solemn faced and dressed in black. Once we were all assembled, they wheeled the coffin in, closed casket for reasons no one needed to be reminded of.

I watched as the coffin was pushed passed me and towards the front of the church. I felt my throat tightened with the sharpest ache of grief I'd never known. And my heart shattered knowing that I hadn't been able to reach through the open sliding glass door to save him, to remind him of the sweetness of sugar.