Page 160 of The Baby Bargain
Mirror selfies of her outfits. The same trendy style she always wore. High waist shorts, crop tops, sneakers, dark makeup.
The semi-colon tattoo on her wrist.
Ariel's finger hovers over the square image. "I… uh… I looked it up."
"Yeah?"
"It's really beautiful, actually." She bites her lip. "The semi-colon project."
"Project semi-colon."
"Oh." Her eyes flit to me. It must be bad, because her frown deepens. "You know about it?"
I nodof course. There's way too much to say. Things I should tell her. But I have to start somewhere.
"She kind of lays it out. Uh…" She doesn't wait for my permission. She opens the image. Reads the caption. "Forgive yourself. It's the hardest thing you'll ever have to do. But it's worth it."
I don't need to see the date to know.
Two years since she—
Since I—
My stomach drops. I can't go back to that memory. It steals all my oxygen.
It hits me all at once—
The feeling of her limp body in my arms.
The dial tone that lasted too fucking long.
The 911 operator telling me it would be okay.
The look on her mom's face when she got to the ICU.
"She tried to… I looked it up. You're supposed to say attempted suicide. So it's more clinical. There are all these rules about how you're supposed to talk about it. So you don't cause a contagion." Ariel swallows hard. "It's kind of ridiculous. You're not supposed to talk about it, because it might give people ideas. So how are you supposed to move on? Or admit it happened? Or heal? If you have to dance around the details?" She catches herself rambling. Clears her throat. "Sorry… I… I don't know what to say."
"She did."
"How… uh, you're not supposed to ask that. But I… I promise I'm not at risk." She leans back in her chair. Sets her hands in her lap. "If I'm overstepping…"
"She bought drugs from a friend."
"Oh." Ariel bites her lip. "Do you blame them?"
"No. He didn't know why she wanted them. And she'd have figured something out either way. She was…" Where do I start? Grace was—Grace is full of fire and light. But she's just as full of darkness. "She has bipolar too."
"Shit." She presses her lips together. "That must have been a lot."
"Sometimes." It's there, the semi-colon on her wrist. The one she added after we broke up. "When she was serious about treatment, she was… maybe not happy or easy, but okay."
Ariel nods.
"I thought… I don't know. I guess, when I was younger, I thought I could save her."
"Like you wanted to save your mom?"
I can't help but laugh.
