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Thalia @ Pictures in the Words

I'm Thalia! I run a book blog called Pictures in the Words and I hope to be an editor for YA fiction. I'm a GoodReads refugee!

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Pre-Review

Hold Still - Nina LaCour

I snuck this read in between my other obligations. It's been sitting on my shelf, staring at me, daring me to read it.

 

And I did. And there's some things that I need to talk about in order for anyone to understand my feelings toward this book. But there are people I know IRL who follow my blog and read the reviews there, and I'm not quite ready for all of this to be floating out in the open. So...I guess my semi-secret BL page is the way to go.

 

Warning: This post could be triggering for those who struggle with self-harm or graphic images of suicide.

 

There are some days you will remember for the rest of your life.

 

March 15, 2011

I had just made a video with the song "In My Veins" by Andrew Belle. My best friend was ignoring me, and I was in so much pain over it that I didn't know what to do anymore. My online best friend let several of her friends attack me relentlessly on tumblr for using this song, and she stopped talking to me for the next two years.

 

My best friend in real life hugged me for the last time. She said, We need to talk. We'll talk.

 

* * * * *

 

I typed a long paragraph just now, trying to provide backstory. There are a lot of reasons for why I felt the way I did. I could probably make tapes about it like Hannah in Thirteen Reasons Why, although my tapes wouldn't be about people. They would be all the little things I hated about myself, that I continue to hate. All the reasons I found against myself, all the reasons I thought nobody should ever, ever love me. All the reasons I didn't deserve it.

 

I hate talking about my ex-best friend, because she never meant for any of this to happen to me. I know she only did what she thought would make her happy, but also hurt me as little as possible. I hate talking about it, because she was only the last domino, and I don't want anybody to blame her for what happened to me because of that domino. It wasn't her fault that she was the only thing keeping me together, and losing her meant the last person I had who loved because they wanted to didn't find a reason to hold onto me anymore. So...why would anyone else? She said we would talk. But my last shards are a well-worded email telling me why I'm a beautiful person, but I'm not worth it to keep being friends with.

 

Losing a best friend is harder than a break up. I never asked to be the only one. I would have been happy being part of a sea of friends with her. But it wasn't worth it to hold on, even a little bit. And the reasons she let me go were all the reasons I was terrified of in the beginning. And my fears were sealed.

 

I got worse. Much, much worse. I don't like thinking about it, or talking about it. I don't like admitting how bad I let it get. I let it. There was nothing chemically wrong with me. I let it effect more than it should have, and I'm so sorry that I lost two and a half years of my life to that. The only reason I ever started reviewing is because I started reading more as a way to escape what I felt in real life. For the rest of my life, everything I have will be owed to that dark time. And I hate that for as many reasons as I'm grateful for it. I made a new best friend, and I loved her to death, but I was so scared that she would let me go, too. That she would soon realize how much I kept her from and leave me. And then, when I began to believe that she did love me, I was too scared to tell her how I felt. I didn't want to scare her. I didn't want her to feel responsible if something happened.

 

* * * * *

 

February 29, 2012

It snowed. Only a little, though. My school was stupid and had the firedrill that day, because they'd put off the February drill until the last day of the month. My history teacher was pretty pissed off. He turned to the fire bell and yelled, "BUT WE'RE STUDYING FOR THE AP TEST." A girl with beautiful blonde hair had just been signing letters to me from across the room. She kept messing up her P's and K's, and I kept thinking, She and I haven't laughed this hard in awhile. I accidentally met the eyes of my ex-best friend and I couldn't breathe. We were out in the snow for a long time.

 

I went home at the end of the day, like always.

I didn't know it then, but sometime that night, some people got calls. My ex-best friend got a call. Everything shattered.

 

March 1st, 2012

I woke up at three in the morning in a panic. I dreamed there was a snowstorm and that my best friend was walking to school in the snow. She'd gotten hit by a car and they couldn't find her body in the snow. Her mother called and cried into the phone, She's dead! She's dead, my baby is dead. I texted my best friend when I woke up. She wouldn't answer until later, but I still needed to know she was safe.

 

I woke up again later, with my mother sitting on the bed. There was a sea of white outside the window, and the numbers on the clock didn't make any sense. My mother said gently, There's no school today. Geez, I was so happy. There's something about school being cancelled that will never stop being exciting. But I didn't understand why my mom was there. And then suddenly, my mom said all at once, Did you know a girl named Dana?

 

Dana? I saw Dana yesterday. She was signing her letters wrong. Her hair reflected the sunlight when we were outside. I could hear her slightly raspy laugh still echoing in my ears.

 

Yeah, I know Dana.

 

My moms eyes filled with tears. Sweetie, I don't know what happened. I just saw A*** post on Facebook. Dana...she died sometime last night.

 

I don't remember all of what I said. I think I told her she was crazy. Dana can't be dead. It's impossible. I remember how impossible it was. I burst into tears. My mother held me while I screamed that it couldn't possibly be true.

 

I remember staying home and scrolling through the memorial messages on Facebook. The thing you have to understand about Dana is how loved she was. She was a straight-A student, in line to be valedictorian when we graduated. She played every single sport. Everyone loved her. She was brilliant and nerdy and she loved everyone. And a life without Dana hardly felt like a life at all.

 

Scrolling through, I slowly pieced together what happened.

Dana killed herself.

 

I texted my best friend. I said, Did you hear about Dana?

No...what happened?

She died yesterday. They think it was suicide.

 

I don't remember what she said back. But for as long as I live, I'll always regret not going to her house to tell her in person, or at least calling her. I texted. What a cowardly thing to do.

 

I made a video. I didn't know what else to do.

Hey Lucy, I remember your name.

I always wanted to use that song in a video and have it mean something. I can't seem to forgive myself for ever feeling that way.

 

March 2nd, 2012

I had to go back to school. I didn't want to. I kicked and screamed, but my parents said it would be good for me. I didn't believe them. But every moment of that day is seared into my memory.

 

Going to sign language first period. Hearing my teacher, who never knew Dana, start to choke up reading the letter from administration that said Please don't start any rumors and If you're ever feeling like you don't want to live anymore... and my teacher lost it. I was one of five kids in that class who even knew Dana. I've never cried in class before. I don't like showing weakness. I don't like being that person. Grief counselors were available in the library, but I didn't want to go, no matter what. But tears burned the backs of my eyes and a girl I barely knew mouthed to me across a desk, Are you okay?

 

For the first time in my life, I said no.

 

I went to chemisty. A class I had with Dana. A class I had with my ex-best friend. A class I had with my actual best friend. I sat numbly in my chair, trying to feel nothing. My ex-best friend came into the room and was immediately surrounded by their friends. She'd turned away from me and found Dana. Dana was like a sister to her. My replacement. I felt like I needed to say something, but I couldn't bring myself to walk over to her.

My best friend walked into the room. She choked out a sob when she saw me and fell on our desk. Her hand was warm as it clutched mine, and for the first time in my life, I started to sob in class. I didn't care who saw. My best friend's head was on my shoulder and her hand was holding onto mine, and the moment I saw her, I immediately thought, Thank God it wasn't you.

 

When she walked through the door and I glimpsed her and she was already crying, that was the first thing that filled my mind. I feel so guilty for thinking that, so selfish, but in that moment, I imagined for the first time what life would be like without my best friend. The girl I spent all my time with, the girl I laughed with, the girl I ate lunch with, the girl I could vent to and who vented to me. The girl I spent my weekends with, the girl who, even though she's Native American and I'm about as white as you can get, people would ask if we were sisters. The girl who cries with me when we watch Phantom of the Opera and can actually rival me in Lord of the Rings trivial pursuit, and in that single moment, I was flooded with all the guilt, all the reasons why I couldn't possibly leave her. I realized how selfish, how single-minded it was of me to not consider what it might do to her if it had been me. We don't have a group of friends. We have each other and a couple other girls we hang out with sometimes. I imagined sitting in that room, knowing that she wouldn't walk through the door ever again, the way Dana's best friends were probably doing right then. How nothing in the world would ever console me if my best friend had killed herself without any warning, and left me alone in this vast, dark world without her.

 

And I absolutely hated myself for ever thinking it would be okay to do that to her. To do that to anyone.

 

And she held my hand and I can sometimes still feel the weight of her head on my shoulder when I think about it. And when I got up to get some tissues, this kid who always laughs with us put his hand on my shoulder and gave me this really sad, understanding look. And even though my face was a mess, and even though I was really embarassed about losing it this way in front of everyone, the warmth and weight of his hand on my shoulder, in the center of my shoulderblades, and how in that moment, something transformed between us and between everyone who ever knew her, because he understood and I've never felt that sort of emotional connection with anyone. He, who always made jokes and ate the cell cake I made the year before in biology--he had his hand on my shoulder and was trying to comfort me in some small way. And I realized that there's no reason to be ashamed of missing her. We all missed her.

 

My history/English block. That class was a big family, and I hugged so many people, and one of my friends said We'll be okay. She'd want us to be okay and I remember that so clearly, and sitting at a table, and our teachers pacing around us, trying to keep it all together. But there were seventy of us in that class, and we were a family within the junior class of our high school, and Dana was the star student, and they arranged our desks into circles and let us sit wherever we wanted so at least we wouldn't have to stare at her empty seat. Not like in chemistry, where Dana's seat loomed directly in front of me. She would never turn around and make a nerdy chem joke to me ever again. She would never "compete" with another of the kids in class for the best test grade. She would never.

 

My choir teacher had us sing. He didn't know Dana. It was weird to see how some teachers handled it versus others. Some, like my ASL, chem, and humanities teachers let us do what we wanted. They had assignments if we felt like taking the distraction. My choir teacher dealt with it by giving us somewhere to release our grief. We worked on the powerful songs, the really emotional ones. Those of us who knew her cried through the music, and the ones who didn't stood beside us and offered what little strength they could. Later in the year, we had a "Spring Sing" weekend and a guest director came to help us prepare for the State competition, and he pulled this shy girl out and sat her down in front of everyone and asked us what we loved about her, and then we all cried some more, because we loved each other and I never realized how much my classmates meant to me. I took each of them for granted, just because they were there. And for the first time in my life, I realized that somehow, in this vast existence, I might mean something to each of them.

 

* * * * *

Losing Dana changed my life in so many ways. Those three days are engraved into my mind more than any other moment of my life. I can remember nothing more clearly than what I've talked about here. And I bring it up like this because there's something that everyone needs to understand about me when I go looking for books like this. More than anything, I want to find an author who will finally capture what it means to go through this, because so so many of them treat it so flippantly, or don't address what it does to those left behind at all. When I read Alexandra Adornetto's Halo, I was so angry about the student suicide in the book. It wasn't "really" a suicide because the girl was being controlled by the bad guy, but...gosh, everyone except the main character thought the girl had slit her own throat in the girls' bathroom. The main character saw and felt it from the girl's point of view. And I was so sick that I nearly ran to the bathroom and threw up.

 

I don't know how Dana did it. I don't know why. Sometimes, I think it might be easier to know--to stop having images of every possible way running through my head. But then again, I don't know if I could bear imagining her the way she really did it--to know what she looked like. Because maybe she shot herself in the head, or maybe she slit her wrists and bled to death in the bathtub, like Ingrid did in this story. Or like a character in Crewel that made me feel so ill that I couldn't pick the book up again for days. But maybe she took pills and went to sleep and just didn't wake up, and maybe it wasn't violent at all, but peaceful, but I'll never know and that really haunts me. Because I want the image of Dana sleeping in her bed, but one of her blonde hair streaked with red still runs into my head and drives me crazy. I have nightmares where I'm the one who found her and I'll wake up screaming.

 

I'm so sorry about this post. I have no idea why I'm even typing this all. Just that I suddenly need to get it all out, and this book is the first one that made me remember every single detail from those days in the aftermath, and I stayed up late into the night crying because even though it's been a year and a half, I still miss Dana so much. And I can't stop the guilt, that for even a moment I ever wished that my ex-best friend would know what it's like to have someone you love leave you, and that Dana had to die for me to realize how precious life is and what leaving does to everyone left behind, and how very loved you are even though people don't always find a reason to tell you. And I look for these books, even though they trigger me in so many ways, because I've yet to find that perfect one that tells you what it does to people. How anyone copes in the aftermath of tragedy.

 

Because in these books, it's usually one person who feels effected by it. Nina LaCour wrote in her Q&A that she lost a classmates to suicide in high school, and she described sitting with everyone, wondering what had happened. How it could have happened. But in this book, yet again, it seems like our main character is the only one who cares. The only one dealing with it.

 

And that's just not true.

 

I wasn't good friends with Dana. I talked to her on occasion and had classes with her, but I wasn't her best friend. She was somewhat popular, but my entire school felt the shock and horror of her death. Every class, every person, we were all so...terrified and horrified and scared and our eyes seemed to be screaming HOW DID THIS HAPPEN HOW COULD THIS POSSIBLY HAPPEN and what these books need to convey to teens who are contemplating taking their own life is that they will be missed more than they can possibly comprehend. I am so sick of these books making it seem like they don't matter, like it will only make a couple people kind of sad and everyone else will be insensitive jerks about it, and IT'S NOT TRUE. Why aren't we telling teens that they are loved and cherished and cared for even when it feels like nobody is there for them? Why aren't more people sending that message? Someone needs to write a book about what it's like to go through this and what it does to those who are left to pick up the pieces. We are all shaken. We are all shattered. And part of us will never be put back together because she's not here and she's supposed to be here.

 

I don't even know what the point of writing all that was. It had a purpose, but I don't remember anymore. This has taken so much out of me, and I was supposed to go somewhere with my mom when I started, but then I ended up breaking down in the car and sobbing and she had to hold me while I cried about Dana and my guilt and my grief and everything and I've never said any of the things I told her tonight out loud before, and I'm not sure if anyone but me will get anything out of reading this except for me.

 

Books like this effect me on a level I can't explain. They make me sad and angry and re-examine everything and cry and break down and stuff things in my mouth so I can scream as loud as I can without waking anybody up. They bring back everything I want to forget, but I keep looking for them because I just need to see that someone else out in the world still knows what it feels like. That's why Dead Poets Society is one of my favorite movies. Because they get it. Losing that one person who you thought would be the last to take that cold, dark plunge.

 

And this book...I still don't know how I feel about it. I don't know what to rate it. I hate it because Taylor asked Caitlin how Ingrid did it, and I hate it because Caitlin kept seeing Ingrid in the bathtub with her wrists slit, and I hate it because the druggies on the soccer field kept saying awful things like, It takes balls to slash your wrists like that and That was really brave, you have to cut through the tendon and most people pass out before that and I'm not brave enough to do it that way because suicide is not brave and why are people trying to send that message to teenagers even a little bit. Don't enough people die? My friend's ex-girlfriend threw herself in front of a train and my friend was hit by a car the day she graduated and died a week later before she could even wake up and there are so many awful tragedies and so much death and loss and the last thing we need in this screwed up world is to tell anyone that slitting your wrists deep enough to die is brave.

 

Because I read books like that before. And they made me feel like I could really do it. That it would be understandable if I did. That they would miss for a little while and then forget me. And that would be okay.

 

And I read books like that after and they make me so angry and I cry hot tears because I want to scream from the rooftops that no matter who you are, you will be missed and you are loved, and I'm sorry for what you're going through, but you are more valuable than you can possibly imagine.

 

This book didn't send that message.

And that really disappoints me.