Madison James: Seagulls

My best friend killed herself. Jumped off a bridge on the 13th. Just like that.

She rang me beforehand, she sounded happy, too happy; said she was looking out over the water and that we should book a holiday somewhere sunny soon.

“You know last year we planned to go to Italy- well I think we should do it now. I want to see the Trevi fountain. We’ll get a little apartment, one with a balcony. We need some sunshine.”

She hadn’t been right for a long time, years really, and these last few months had been the worst. I knew what was about to happen as soon as I answered the phone. It was the tone of her voice. She sounded at peace, for the first time I could recall since we were 13, truly content. And the way she laughed, I knew right away that she’d made her decision. I got an Uber there as quickly as I could, tracked her snap maps and called an ambulance on the way, but I was too late. Fucking bus lanes. I stayed on the phone as it happened. She didn’t talk. I didn’t stop talking.

Therapists always make you do this thing where you have to name 5 different colours you can see and it’s meant to calm you down. I hate those kinds of suggestions normally but waiting for that Uber to wrestle through the traffic, I was hopeless. It was all I could do. So, I started to look around. They say to look for red, blue, yellow, green and white. Not black. They have some kind of adversity to anything that could be even remotely symbolic of darkness.

I found white on the dice hanging from the rear-view mirror, gambling her fate at every set of lights. One more zebra crossing and she’d be dead, one more roll of that dice and it was over. Green was the road sign directing us to the bridge, the words in big, a name that hadn’t meant anything to me before but would now mean everything. I mentally checked it off. For blue, I picked the sea, I could see it in the distance, where the bridge was, where she was. Avery spoke on the phone at that point. I knew I’d been talking the entire time, but I wasn’t entirely sure what I’d said. It was just pure fight or flight mode. Trying to play it normal, trying not to startle her. One wrong move, one second of silence and she’d be gone. Her voice came through, muffled and quiet:

“There’s so many seagulls here.”

We pulled up to the bridge. I found yellow as I got out of the car, the rear number plate of the ambulance. I felt like I was watching the whole thing unfold from somewhere else. This was a different person’s story. Not mine. Not ours. It couldn’t be ours. Her phone was on the pavement, still on call to me; her lock screen of the two of us staring back. They told me not to look over the edge. I’m not sure who it was- it might have been a police officer or a paramedic- it was someone with an air of authority and a high-vis jacket. They told me to get straight back in the car. They told me whatever I did, do not look over the edge. I should have listened. I wish I’d listened. But I didn’t. I looked.

She hadn’t hit the water, she was on a sand bank instead. Her body mangled in a way that didn’t seem possible- a rag doll dropped from a baby’s hand. Limbs bent at angles that bones shouldn’t allow. One arm was flung out to the side, like she’d tried to catch herself mid-fall but the ground had been merciless. Her legs were crumpled beneath her, one shoe missing and bobbing up and down in the water, drifting further and further away. I kept thinking about how small she looked, like the life had been sucked out of her and leaving nothing but this hollow, broken shell of a human being. Something that only minutes ago had been chatting to me on the phone now pitilessly spread out beneath a dual carriageway. The moments before replayed in my head. Doubt, fear, pain, guilt. Had she tried to say more to me? Could I have gotten there quicker? Was there something I should have said? Had she screamed as she fell?

And I think the worst part of it all was that as I looked over the edge to see my best friend, lying pale and crumpled, with blood draining out from her lifeless, little body; my first thought was to cross the colour red off my mental checklist.

I went to her house the next day, sat awkwardly with her family as we grieved. Her mum made tea. That’s what people do, isn’t it? When the world caves in, when the air is thick with shock and emptiness, they make tea. She moved like a ghost in her own kitchen, opening cupboards on autopilot, filling the kettle without looking, hands shaking just enough for the water to slosh over the edge. No one drank it. Her dad sat in his armchair, the same armchair he’d always sat in, like nothing had changed. His face was blank, hollow, staring at the black TV screen, his knuckles white from gripping the armrest too tight. I went to her bedroom.

It’s a strange feeling- walking around someone’s room after they’re dead. I spent far too long staring at a ‘paint your own pottery’ plate on the side. I remembered how Avery and I, at six or seven, rushed home, overly eager to present our masterpieces to our parents. We’d painted them on a school trip and spent far too long contemplating exactly which shades of pink and purple we wanted. They’d given us drumstick lollies and she accidentally ate some of the wrapper. And now this plate sat here, her smudged fingerprint on the back, as a reminder of a time where her biggest worry was stripes or polka dots. She went pink and stripy, I went purple and dotted. She always chose pink. I looked at a polaroid blue-tacked to her wall- a picture of her and I last year, on her 18th birthday. It hit me that she won’t see another birthday. I don’t understand how someone can be there and then not. Her half empty cup of coffee sat on her bedside table, lipstick stains on the mug. I could still smell her perfume and cigarette smoke in the air. Her calendar was on the wall, now hanging in the past. Her book on the desk, bookmarked, only three quarters read. Her watch, still ticking. I thought about all the things we’d planned. The road trips. The festivals. The stupid pact we made when we were fifteen to live together in some crappy flat in the city, drink cheap wine, and complain about our lives until we were old and grey. We were supposed to grow old and grey. Old and grey, together. That was the deal.

“There’s so many seagulls here.”

Fuck. Those words haunted me. She said it with such amusement, the words dripping off her tongue like syrup. Like this was such a sweet subject matter. Like we were just out on one of our usual walks, making fun of the birds stealing people’s chips. I threw up in her ensuite. I took an Uber home. I knew the bus route, knew it would have to pass over the bridge, and I couldn’t face it. I made the Uber go the long way, winding through cottages and country lanes just to avoid it. I wondered if there was any blood left on the sand.

My parents made me see a therapist after it all, after the funeral. I’d seen plenty of therapists before and I hated their shit, but they said I had to give it another try because I still couldn’t face the bridge. I’d missed weeks of college because the school bus went that way. I was even having dreams about it and once, when I was going to the dentist, I realised half way on the bus ride it would have to cross the bridge and I had a panic attack. I screamed at the driver and begged him to stop. He chucked me off just before it and I walked a 7 mile detour instead. I kept avoiding every place that had a memory of her in it. It wasn’t the places that hurt, not really. It was the empty spaces she left behind. The pick-and-mix aisle where she’d pick out all the blue M&Ms. Screen 2 of the cinema, particularly the back row. The corner shop at the end of my street where she’d buy a single lollipop and make it last the entire walk home. Every part of our town had become off limits. I swear I saw her in my house once. She was in the second-hand hoodie she stole from me, curled up on the couch with a cigarette dangling between her fingers. I needed to get rid of that hoodie. I needed to wash the ashtray she left behind. But I couldn’t. I tried pretending it didn’t bother me. That my world shrinking smaller and smaller was just a coincidence, nothing to do with Avery. But I knew. I knew because every time I walked out my front door, I had to think ‘Which way won’t hurt today?’ And I hated Avery for that, how she’d boiled my life down to nothing but grief. I hated her for being dead. For making me carry this, alone, like some cruel inheritance I never asked for. I hated myself more for thinking that. So most of the time, I just stayed inside, in my four walls washed out with resentment, avoiding any place where I had to cross the bridge to get there. That’s how I ended up in therapy. Again.

Therapists always do this thing where they say ‘thank you’ and your name after every fucking sentence. That’s what they have to do- thank you for your time and repeat your name. It’s meant to make you feel heard and important and encourage you to speak up. It doesn’t, it just annoys me. “Thank you Emma.” “Thank you Emma.” I could ask to slit their wrists open and all they’d say is “Thank you, Emma” with a deadpan face and a notebook.

“Thank you for coming today Emma.”

Fuck, here we go again, I thought to myself. We went through the same old motions, she asked me what happened, how I was feeling, blah blah blah. She gripped a book in her hands and felt so certain this silly little textbook was going to solve all of my problems. Absolutely positive that by the time we worked our way to the final page, it would all be fine, but I was under no illusion that a 129 page hardcover was going to make this better. A book with a cover picture of a hot bath and a cup of tea was not going to resurrect my best friend. She had this look on her face too, like she was trying so hard to be the perfect mix of professional and approachable. Head tilted slightly, eyebrows raised just enough to seem concerned but not too concerned. Like she was trying to balance on this tightrope of empathy without actually stepping into the shit-show with me. I could practically hear her ticking the checklist off in her head: Maintain eye contact, nod at appropriate intervals, mirror body language, say thank you.

“So, Emma, do you want to talk about Avery today?”

I almost laughed. As if I hadn’t been thinking about Avery every second of every day since it happened. As if Avery was just some chapter in my life that I could open and close on command. As if talking about her here, in this beige office that smelled like eucalyptus and disappointment, was going to magically untangle the knot in my chest.

“No, not really.”

“Can you tell me what happened to Avery, Emma?”

I didn’t need to. She knew. It was in the news, a 20 seconds segment in the local show. I chose a good picture. I didn’t want her haunting me. I chose one that she’d posted on Instagram; one I’d taken on a trip we went on one summer to Paris. She was glowing. The warmth of the sunlight on her skin, her hair down and wavy and painted gold in the light, she looked so alive. So young - like she had so much life ahead of her. I’d teased her at the time, told her it was a good job she was so beautiful because her brain was shit - that she’d get a job purely on pretty privilege.

The therapist waited eagerly. I shook my head. We sat there in silence for a bit. I could feel her waiting me out, thinking any minute now I’d crack and tell her everything. I wasn’t going to. I stared at the clock instead, watching the second hand drag itself around, wishing it would move faster.

‘Emma, can you tell me something about Avery; anything at all Emma?’

God, where to start. I could say her favourite colour was brown because it was a mixture of every colour and she could never choose just one. I could say how she liked pizza but without the cheese; how she always wore bracelets on her left hand because she had a scar on the right one and it rubbed; how she drank coffee like it was going out of fashion; how she had to listen to Nora Jones every night to fall asleep or how I still can’t convince myself that she wanted to die. But instead, I said nothing. She offered me a pamphlet. It had a smiley cloud on the front. I wanted to bite it.

“It helps to think of happy memories Emma. Anything about her that makes you smile Emma?”

“You have got to be taking the fucking piss now.”

It exploded out of me. So bitter, so spiteful, every word slicing at my tongue as I said it.

“How many fucking times are you going to say my name?!”

“Sorry Emma.”

“Fuck me.”

I walked out. I kept walking- until my brain was delirious and I’d finally accepted that maybe the therapy had helped. Not in the way it was meant to, not with intention or grace, but she had just annoyed me that much that I finally felt something - albeit pissed, but that was better than empty and somehow the bridge didn’t feel quite as daunting. I walked right past the corner shop, past the cinema, all the way to the bridge. Without thought, muttering to myself that it would be okay. Cars kept passing by, so naive, so ignorant, so blissfully unaware that in this exact spot, two months ago, my best friend killed herself.

It was windy on the bridge but I didn’t feel scared. I couldn’t stop myself from peering over the side. When I looked over the edge, for a second, I could picture her there. Her body fucking mangled on the sand bank. Her mouth. Her eyes. The tide slowly coming to take her away. To take her away from here, away from me. I looked hard to see any traces of blood on the ground, but there was nothing. I almost wanted to see it, some kind of mark that she had been there, that she was here once. But no, the water had swept it away. I kept picturing what her final thoughts were, what was going through her mind as she jumped. Was she scared? What was the breaking point?

I felt myself spiralling again and reluctantly took on the therapist’s advice - think of the happy memories. My phone buzzed. A camera roll flashback, another picture of Avery and I. And then, before I could stop myself, I leant far over the edge, the metal rail gripped in my palm, the wind whipped through my hair. And I screamed. A raw, ugly sound that ripped through me, cutting through months of silence. I screamed again, louder this time, until I finally, finally, felt something other than numb.

“You bitch Avery! I miss you!”

My eyes filled up with tears: happiness, sadness, everything in between. I felt something other than empty. I thought about what she’d said, “We need some sun,” and she was right. I searched up Italy on my phone. A little apartment with a balcony. Then I found myself googling flights. Just to see. Just to know it was possible. I could picture it so vividly - us sitting out there in the evening, cheap wine in hand, the warm air sticking to our skin as we watched the sun sink into the hills. We’d be talking about nothing, about everything. The kind of endless conversations that only happen when you truly know someone, when silence isn’t awkward but comfortable. The kind of nights we were supposed to have more of. My finger hovered over the screen and before I truly thought about it, I booked it. I’d see the Trevi Fountain for her.

I looked around and I saw blue in a fishing boat with peeling paint; yellow in the golden haze of the late afternoon sun; green in the fields to my left; white in the seafoam swirling against the rocks. And red? I saw red in the plane ticket on my phone - the logo of the airline.

I asked her for a sign that it was the right choice, that I wasn’t betraying her by going. Pathetic I know. But I needed some kind of reassurance that it was okay. I expected a feather or a gust of wind or something- anything. There was nothing.

There were a lot of seagulls around though, she was right.

About the Author:

Madison James is a 21- year-old writer and journalist based in the UK. Her work leans toward the sad and lyrical, but she laughs a lot in real life. When she’s not writing, she’s likely travelling, people-watching, or continuing to fill her camera roll with pictures of coffee. This is her first submission to The Alcott Youth Magazine.