This is My Message to You

Yellow

YELLOW

No bigger limbo exists than the summer between high school and college. Though I had a job at a local store and still had a curfew and had to think about packing for the fall, mostly I lived in a cocoon of fun and freedom. Between grad parties and late nights at friends' houses and trips to the beach, I didn't let myself concentrate on the future and focused on enjoying the present.

I saw Connor a couple of times in June and early July, but I don't think I talked to him after graduation. He worked at a restaurant near our street, where my family liked to eat on Friday nights, and sometimes he was our busboy. When my mom would try to start conversation with him, he appeared just as distracted and disinterested as before, doing his job and getting out.

A couple times that summer I dug my soccer ball out of my closet and kicked it around the backyard, though usually that still ended with me sitting in the grass with tears in my eyes as I thought of fourteen years suddenly sliced to a stop. A couple times I would glance over the fence into Connor's yard, wondering if he ever missed soccer like I did and hating him a little that he'd had the choice.

June flew by in a swirl of heat and staying up too late and blowing too much money on ice cream and pizza. Grace encouraged me to start running again, waking up at seven a.m. to go with me through the sleepy neighborhood streets, and slowly I started to get back to where I'd been junior year.

Summer after senior year: no homework, no worries, just fresh air and freedom.

At least, that's how it started.

Sometime in late July, my family went with some friends to a lake house a couple hours away, spending a week on the water canoeing, Jet skiing, and soaking up the sun. We did this every few years, but it had been a while since I'd seen some of our family friends, so I endured the barrage of college- and sports-related questions that ensued. A week of laughter and good company and dinners fresh off the grill is perfect in my world.

And it was perfect. Until the very last night.

Sometime in late July. Like I don't know the exact fucking date. Like it's not imprinted on my memory forever now.

The adults sat inside the house drinking wine and playing board games, while us teenagers hung out on the dock down by the lake, dangling our feet in the water and playing dumb games like Truth or Dare and soaking up the last night there.

I think we must have been out there several hours because I remember watching the sun set and the stars come out, and everything across the lake was so quiet that we could hear the wind in the trees. Sitting on the dock with my toes skimming the water and laughing at some dumb dare – I could stay in that moment forever.

But.

My friend interrupted our Truth or Dare game, her face illuminated by the light of her phone as she asked, "Riley, do you have your phone on you?"

"No," I said; I'd forgotten all about it, actually. "I don't get service up here, so I just left it inside. Why?"

"Grace has been trying to get a hold of you – she says it's urgent."

Knowing Grace, that probably meant that she was trying to decide between a red dress and a pink dress and needed my unhelpful input. Rolling my eyes, I took my friend's phone and texted Grace. She didn't ask any questions, though, just sent one text: Call me.

"I'll be right back," I told my friends and reluctantly got to my feet, walking to the end of the dock and standing among the wildflowers lining the path. I called Grace, half-hoping that this phone wouldn't have enough service either because I just wanted to go back to the dock and hang out with everyone.

"Riley?"

"Yeah, it's me. What's up?"

"Riley –"

Her voice sounded a little funny, and I suspected she was drunk. If so, I was going to bitch her out for it later.

"You okay, Grace?" I asked patiently, my mind still on the dock as I half-listened to the conversation still going on there while Grace mumbled something incoherently. "You're gonna have to speak louder, bud, I can't hear you."

"Riley – Connor is – I just heard it from the guys, I don't know when it happened – oh god – he's gone, Riley. Connor's gone."

I struggled to find footing in her words, wondering why a dull roar began to creep up in my ears. "...What? What do you mean gone?"

"He killed himself, Riley. Connor killed himself."

At certain points in your life, your whole world stands still.

This was one of those moments.

I remember staring up at the dark sky spotted with twinkling stars, the wind in the treetops roaring and shrieking, filling my ears so that I couldn't hear what Grace was saying on the other end. The chatter and laughter at the end of the dock, and the bright lights of the lake house behind me, seemed to zoom away from me into nothing until I stood alone on the edge of the lake, my bare toes curled in cold grass and mosquitos buzzing around my hair.

What did I do? What did I do and feel and say and think?

I don't know.

In movies, a character usually screams or crumples to the ground or bursts into violent tears, and I guess a part of me was doing all three, but silently and so far inside of me that I couldn't feel it happening.

Numb. And still.

I can't say what I did after that. I don't know. Something inside me blocked out the next twenty-four hours and just kept my mind on that dock under the stars with my feet in the water and my heart soaring.

And his eyes. All I could think about was his eyes.