The day after the first time Ophelia attempted suicide, I returned to elementary school in a haze. I knew what it meant to Ophelia to attempt suicide, but what did this act mean in relation to me? What did it mean about my family? What would it mean to other people? Upon arriving on this last question I realized that I most certainly didn't want anyone to find out about it. Strange that even at such a young age we know that suicide is socially unacceptable. We have some strange societal agreement to just keep quiet about all that suffering, to keep calm and weather on. I knew at my core from the way my parents had reacted that this was something we were to be ashamed of, despite not truly understanding Ophelias’ motivations for the act itself. So when Anastasia asked me what happened the next dayI made her swear not to tell anyone, she was one of the only people I'd tell until I was an adult.

Unfortunately for me someone had leaked this sensitive information because right before recess, I was called to the principal’s office. Great, I thought. Now what could possibly be the matter? Ophelia was at home with Rowan right now, what could possibly have gone wrong? My thoughts imediately turned to accusations against my parents. How could they have let something else happen to her? Then my thoughts rambled off into questions myself. Had I done something to give our terrible family secret away?

I made my way to the principal’s office as slowly as possible so I could enjoy the silence of the campus. Everyone was in class so it felt like a ghost town, just me and the sky out there. I took extra time to admire the faded pink cement and the steps leading down towards the first level of the school. The outdoor amphitheater looked out of place and oddly massive without any students around to fill up the now empty space; I had only ever really seen it at fully capacity. You know what I mean, only ever really noticed it's existence while it was in use. I made my way past the large wrought iron gates that were painted that same shade of painted pink and made a right towards the front office. I placed my hand on the handle and pulled the door open gradually, hoping I wouldn’t immediately alert the receptionist to my presence. I sauntered up to the counter, which was tall enough that I had troubles seeing over it, and greeted the receptionist.

“Hello, I’m here to see the principal.” I said standing at attention and waiting for either punishment or direction.

“Take a seat. He’ll be with you shortly.” she responded with pity in her eyes.

I waited for a few minutes until our principal walked out to greet me. He was always my favorite principal, not that I met many of my other principals. However, I had the pleasure or displeasure of frequenting his office throughout my academic career for multiple reasons, which I may or may not recount to you at some point. Mr. Benedictus was a tall man but not as tall as my father was. He had black hair that was starting to grey at the sides and a salt and pepper broom mustache that hung just above his upper lip. He also wore rounded black glasses, which completed his face, I can't quite imagine him without them.

“Hello, Roslyn.” he greeted me.

“Hello, Mr. B.” I responded quietly.

“Let’s take a walk to my office.” he said gesturing back towards the back office with his nameplate on the door.

While I didn’t want to go back to his office, he had a warming presence that was hard to refuse. He seemed more caring than Rowen, and I felt relatively disarmed by that kindness. His desk was peppered with memorabilia of his wife and daughters, one of which was absolutely stunning and sported a Miss “Insert state here” sash. Mr. B. was one of those people that you could see evene when he was disappointed in you, he was desparately trying to understand you.

Mr. B. sat down behind his desk in a swivel chair and I took my usual seat beside another empty seat staring back at him from behind his oak desk. Beyond him was a window that looked out onto the school grounds; I spent most of time trying to stare out into the distance rather than making eye contact with Mr. B.. I wanted to be strong, so I wouldn’t cry in front of him. In fact, I never cried in front of anyone until my mid-20s because I didn't want to feel weak or vulnerable. It was a decision I made that day, in Mr. B's office.

“I heard about what happened with your sister the other day.”

Here it comes I thought. All the questions that I'd been running over in my mind for the past 24 hours. Why would she ever want to do a thing like that? How is your home life? Blah blah blah, but instead he asked me an entirely different and unexpected question.

“How are you doing?”

No one had asked me that yet and I honestly didn’t know the answer. I'd spent so much time trying to analyze what was going on with everyone else around me that I' completely forgotten to feel any which way about the whole situation.

Mr. B. would be one of the only people to ever asked me how I felt about these events, so I should've thought harder before I answered. Instead, I replied with, “I’m fine, I guess.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” he questioned me.

“No.”

“It’s okay, I won’t tell anyone about we talked about.” I could sense that he was trying to get a feel for how worried he should be about me. Would this be a trend in the family?

By this time it had dawned on me that one of parents had obviously called the school, or else why would I be here right now? I started having a conversation in my own head during the pause in conversation. It's a pretty fat chance that you won't tell anyone what we talk about in here, Mr. B.! You sure, not even your wife or your clearly perfect daughters? You'll just go home to them and thank God that you've never had to live through suicide as a family, I yelled at him in my mind.

After the anger cleared out, I finally reponded, “I know… I just don’t know what to say.”

“You can say anything you’re feeling about it”, he said looking at me and then looking down at his large hands, which were clasped together on his desk.

After several moments of silence I realized that Mr. B was not going to settle for an “I don’t know” in this situation. So I took a minute to myself and thought about what I was really feeling. Something I'd avoid doing for the better part of my life, I took a look and I didn't really like what I saw.

“I guess I’m mad… I’m embarrassed, confused, and sad for Ophelia... But mostly, I'm just hurt.” I said as I felt a tear rush to escape from my one of my eyes. Luckily, the other eye remained stalwart as I tilted my head to the side to let gravity take that one tear off the side of my cheek more quickly. Something, I still do to this day. If I'm crying, I just want the experience to end as quickly as possible.

I just continued to stare out that window, thinking if I did it for a little longer and didn’t focus on what I was actually feeling I could make the crying stop. Then my hurt started to turn to anger. Anger was one of the worst and best emotions. Best because it made you feel right, if you're angry you'd always have the upper hand, no one could see the real feelings underneath. That was the moment when the wall I'd already begun building for my family started to have a mortar and a foundation. Screw a wall, I'd started building an encampment to hide in. They'd never make it through to me again, and I justified it by letting myself believe they'd done it to themselves. My friends would be my family now, they were all I'd ever need.

Mr. B.'s voice snapped me out of my internal dialogue, with a calm reassurance, “It’s okay to feel all of those things,” he said, “and it’s okay to cry. You know that, right?” he asked as he handed me a tissue.

Clearly I didn't know or believe that it was okay to cry, but I wasn’t about to tell him that. “I know.” I placated him as I grabbed the tissue he handed me and proceeded to bunch it up and rip it apart throughout the rest of our conversation.

“Did you know that both of you girls were some of my favorite students? I wish that I could fill the school with kids like you. You’re both very bright, funny, caring girls and there aren’t enough people like you in the world.”

What was he playing at? No one ever told me or Ophelia that we were one of a kind. We had very few jobs in this world, go to school, do our homework, get good grades, and not cause any trouble. I wasn't prepared to be told that I was more than an accumulation of my performance in those areas, and I couldn’t keep the tears back anymore. They started to just well up and stream down my face uncontrollably. Why would he say something like that? We weren’t special. Rowen left us at school, Genevieve was ashamed of Ophelias’ attempt on her own life, other students relentlessly teased us, and I felt invisible most of the time. If anything we were just ordinary like everyone else, and it was cruel of him to say anything to the contrary. I wasn’t crying because I was sad for my family, I was crying because I desperately wanted to believe what Mr. B. was saying. And in that moment, I couldn't help thinking, what an unkind thing to do to someone?

“Well, if you need anyone to talk to there’s always the guidance counselor, Mrs. Kuntz or me too. I’m always available.”

Looking back on it what I really needed was a hug. Our family wasn’t big on physical contact, so I’m sure that when my parents picked Ophelia up from the hospital they didn’t even hug her. They didn’t hug me when they saw me later that day. There were no physical condolences to be dealt with because we weren’t that type of family. What I needed in this moment, in the principal’s office was a hug. I needed that compression to snap my nervous system back to reality and make the crying stop. I’m sure that my mother felt the same way. Like she just needed someone to wrap their arms around her waist and tell her that things were going to be okay, even if they weren’t. No wonder she had kept muttering this phrase to herself repeatedly in the car on the way home last night. But we weren't the type of people to let anyone know that we needed them. In fact, our family didn't start hugging each other until I met my husband, who comes from a hugging family. Even then it took several years for us to join in on the trend.

This was the end to Mr. B and I's conversation for the most part. I cried for a little bit longer in silence and Mr. B kindly asked if I needed to go home because I couldn’t make the crying stop. I politely declined and once I had silenced the crying for the most part Mr. B walked me back to class. I'd never been walked back from the principals’ office before, especially not by the principal himself. Generally, they let you walk back in shame and contemplate what it is that you'd done. As we reached the stairs to the second level of the school, I looked up from the ground and told Mr. B. that I could head back to class by myself, but he informed me he wasn’t sure if our class was at second recess or not. He walked me back to class and sure enough everyone was at recess so he had to hand me off to my teacher, Mrs. Kelley. From there, Mrs. Kelley had to escort me to the recess yard.

Before we left Mr. B and Mrs. Kelley had a chat outside and I knew without a doubt he was telling her all about my screwed up life. Mrs. Kelley and I walked in silence for most of the way until she couldn't hold it in anymore. It came out like word vomit,

“I heard about what happened with your sister. You’re very brave do you know that?” she asked.

No, I wasn’t. I was just a bystander. I wasn’t being brave. I was honestly trying to repress that anything had even happened at all. If anything I was trying to build a wall and hide my feelings from everyone for the rest of my life, it's the exact opposite of what being brave is. I was just trying to survive.

“No, I’m not.” I responded.

“Yes, you really are.” She said.

And with that I took my leave of her. Just because you endure a hardship doesn’t make you brave, it makes you human.

Ophelias’ life had also drastically changed since the incident. She returned to school and it seemed to me like she was famous. Everyone knew her or at least knew of her. Somehow as she moved from her 8th grade tragedies into the 9th grade she'd become a rare beauty to others. She'd risen from the ashes of nerdom and into a new and strange creature that everyone drew nearer to. She'd bared her soul for the world to see and they'd responded with adoration, but this wasn't how I coped with survival. I was the opposite, I shut down and hid everything from everyone, including myself. It was the only way to make it through and to forge the path ahead. It seemed the old addage was right there were two types of girls; however, in our case they were open wounds or closed books, and we couldn't have been farther from one another.