The Visit

Note: Contains some strong themes, including suicide. Please take care when reading.

“Fuck!” Natalie screamed at her bedroom door as she hit it hopelessly with the side of her clenched fist.

“You really shouldn’t cuss,” the girl sitting on her bed commented softly.

“Who the fuck are you?” Natalie demanded.

“You may call me Lauren, if you must call me by a name.”

“And you’re sitting on my bed... why, exactly?”

“Because you needed me to be,” Lauren answered, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“I don’t need you, I don’t need anybody.”

“I beg to differ,” a young male voice disputed from her computer desk.

“What the fuck! Who are you people?” Natalie demanded.

“You may call me Nathan. We are here to help you.”

“I don’t need help. I want you both out right this second.” She pointed at her bedroom door.

A young hand touched tugged on her jeans. Natalie looked down to see a young girl staring up at her with wet eyes. “But Natty, we can’t leave. You called us here.” Her voice sounded like a child’s, but the little girl clearly had more wisdom than she should.

“What do you mean I called you?”

Lauren offered her hand to the girl. “Nicole, come here.”

Nicole took Lauren’s hand and curled herself against Lauren’s body.

“We really are sorry to surprise you like this. But this is how you called us,” Nathan opened a desk drawer and lifted a spiral bound notebook. He opened it to one of her more recently written journal entries. “I don’t think I can do this anymore,” he read. “I’ve lost my best friend, and it was my fault. I should have been there to stop her. She killed herself last night. She was found this morning in the bathtub with the word ‘Broken’ carved into her arm.”

Tears spilled from Natlie’s eyes at the last few words. “She called me that night,” she sobbed. “She told me that she would not see me at school the next day. She told me that she didn’t want to bother anybody there. She told me that she wasn’t going to be the problem any more. I should have put two and two together. She was my best friend!” Her legs were shaking, so she used the door to support her as she slid to the floor with her knees held tight to her chest.
“I told her I’d talk to her in the morning, but morning was too late.”

Nicole pulled herself away from Lauren and put her small hand on Natalie’s knee. “It’s not your fault she was sad.”

Nathan flipped a few pages in the diary and read aloud from a new entry. “I am not good enough. I can’t get the grades my parents expect. I can’t force myself to smile for my friends, I couldn’t even stop my best friend from committing suicide.”

“I wasn’t smart enough. I wasn’t observant enough. I wasn’t supportive enough. I wasn’t perfect enough.”

Lauren watched as Natalie wiped her face with her sleeve. It was pointless though, because another wave of tears arrived seconds later.

Nathan flipped a few more pages to that morning’s entry. “I’m ready. Tomorrow, when I get home from school, I am going to kill myself. I have already written my goodbye note. I’m going to do it the same way Beth did. I even bought the razor on my way home from school yesterday. This will be my last entry.”

Lauren picked up Natalie’s backpack and pulled a small box of razors out of the side pocket. She tossed them into the trash without a word.

He turned to the next page. “Dear family, I’m sorry I left you like this, without any warning. I wish I could ask you for help, I wish I could ask anybody for help, but nobody would understand. I want you to give my computer to Sarah, and I beg that you will deliver the envelope in the top drawer of my desk to Sean. I want him to know it’s not his fault. Other than that, I don’t have anything to give, but I can at least make sure they don’t have to deal with me anymore. I love you, and I’m sorry.”

He laid her journal on the desk, still open to her goodbye letter. “I wish I could ask you for help. I wish I could ask anybody for help, but nobody would understand.” Lauren repeated. She was on her knees in front of Natalie. She used one finger to lift her chin and looked Natalie directly in the eyes. “We understand. We are here to help.”

“We are always here to help, whenever you need us,” Nicole’s child voice seemed to echo in the room.

There was a soft silence between the four of them, with Nathan, Lauren, and Nicole all looking at her compassionately. Natalie closed her eyes and enjoyed the serene feeling.

The silence was suddenly broken by a sharp knock on the door. “Dinner in five,” her mom called through the door.

“I’ll be right out,” Natalie promised. Then she noticed that she no longer felt the touches of the girls, her eyes flickered open to find her room empty.

“It was all a dream,” she whispered sadly. She forced herself to stand up and she noticed her diary was still on the desk, open to the goodbye letter. When she went to close it, she noticed a message written under her own:

The note was only a single word, “Always.” but it was signed by Nathan, Lauren, and Nicole.