Miss Me Not - Prolouge

King of spades just wasn't working out, so here's something new.

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Suicides feel unreal. One didn’t just kill themselves, that only happened in books or in the news. Things like that just didn’t happen to real people. Someone you knew wouldn’t take their own life. The idea of someone you know dying by suicide feels distant, a faraway nightmare, until it actually happens.

Charlemagne August Campbell and I never exchanged a word in our lives. Out of our twelve cousins, we were the quiet ones. Keeping to corners and side rooms, silently ducking our heads into our food so as to not draw attention to ourselves. Coming from a loud, rambunctious family, one would expect that we stuck out like sore thumbs, but we didn’t. Becoming invisible was an ability both of us had mastered at a young age, albeit unintentionally. I always liked to think Charlie had a lot to say despite being so quiet, mainly because that’s the case for me. I also always wanted to talk to him. Being the oldest of us twelve, tall, quiet, and good at art, Charlie was in my eyes easily the coolest person I knew. Now that he’s gone, I wish I had been brave enough to initiate conversation with him. Maybe we would have gotten close.

When I was ten and he was twelve, Charlie sat in the corner of Grandma Becca’s living room, drawing in his sketchbook. Sitting in an armchair nearby, I could see breathtaking pencil sketches of hands and eyes. When asked what he was doing, Charlie informed the family in a mumble that he was practising realism. Relatives piped up around the room about all the disadvantages of art as a career, and the uselessness of having it as a hobby. I looked down and stayed silent, too afraid of being judged as well to speak up. Now that he’s gone, I wish I had voiced my own, positive opinions on his art. Maybe he would have been proud of his work.

When I was thirteen and he was fifteen, Charlie turned up to a family gathering with his ear pierced. His black stainless steel hoop earring had a small chain dangling from it, a charm of the same metal fashioned into the shape of a feather hanging on the end. Throughout that dinner, I kept trying to work up the courage to ask him where he got it, but every criticism thrown at him about it held me back as social anxiety whispered what-ifs into my ear. His parents loudly complained about their son wanting a piercing as Charlie shrunk back in his seat, mortified. Now that he’s gone, I wish I had spoken up and told him I liked it. Maybe that would have made him feel better.

Now that I’m fifteen and he’s seventeen, Charlie’s being carried down to a grave in a casket. People whisper amongst themselves about teen rebellion, hormones, and mood swings. It’s an open casket ceremony, and even in death, Charlie looks sad, lethargic. Like his sorrow followed him into the afterlife. Like he can hear the muttering. I want to criticise the people who threw comment after comment, label after label at him. 

For one last time, I look at Charlie, I look at the critical family members, and say nothing.