Chapter 1: Suicide Girl

To be honest with you, at times I do wish that I was dead. Every inch and consummately dead. Dead like those two boys, Kyle and Zane, whose deaths I am responsible for. I didn't mean to do it. I just did it unwillingly and forcedly. That is what always happens when I break the rules. That is how things always end up whenever I become a little bit stupid and stubborn and yielding and careless. Awful and dire.

Kyle died on Valentine's Day two years ago. He died before my very own eyes and those of everyone around, helpless and remediless. His death was so galling and frightful.

Zane died in his car, having driven me home from the party that we had just attended. He gave up the ghost right in his seat, with I myself keeping a hand on his once-warm-but-now-suddenly-cold-cheek, and it was after we had kissed vehemently and intensely.

In all my life, it was these two boys whom I had dated and fell in love with. There were no other. And there would be other, it seemed. Kyle and Zane. I had loved them more than anything else. More than my own breath and existence itself.

I sighed to myself as I thought about all this, seated down on my enormous bed, my feet tucked and crossed over each other, my hands wielding a sharply knife which I would soon use to root out my life. It had been enough already. Eighteen years of living hell so far. Eighteen years of torture and torment and endless actual nightmares and agony and anguish. I would put an end to everything now—without delay.

I still remembered the day I came across Kyle Hudson. I was a self-conscious and shrinking sixteen year old back then. Guiltless and inoffensive and lawful. I ran into him while wandering about Blanco West- High School's extensive corridors, lost and gone out of track. Without foreseeing it, I hit into this tall and blond and overly enormous boy. He was well-built with the perfect muscles and a lovely male visage that any female would effortlessly fall for. Everything about his appearance was just plain damn ... sterling!

"I'm sorry," I grumbled an immediate apology, shame-faced and angry with myself.

"There is no need to; I am equally to blame as well; I wasn't minding where I was going."

Kyle had a lovely and sugary-like voice. One that you would like to be all ears to all day long; one that you would fall in love with just on the phone without ever bothering to find out the appearance of the individual it belonged to.

After helping me gather up my scattered books, I had paced away, leaving him standing there before the lockers on his own, and when I spun back to look at him he was still gazing and marveling at me. Little did I know that he was the guy whom I would share the microscope with in the laboratory during the Biology session. My God, he looked so graceful, spell- binding even! Even though his attire was modest and simple—blue jeans and a yellow shirt and a white coat—with that spiked up hair of his taken into account, he looked ... totally divine!

That was the moment I fell in love with him. Not on our first encounter. Though later on he did admit it to me that he fell in love with me the first time he unexpectedly laid eyes on me.

School was just awesome and mind-blowing with Kyle around. Every day I was in Biology, seated there next to him with him looking and making eyes at me throughout the whole span that we stayed in class, I felt like I was in seventh heaven. Many times the professor would notice him and pass comment on how absorbed some of his students were starting to fall in love—not mentioning out names, but speaking in a manner that made it obvious by peeking in Kyle's direction as he spoke—but still, Kyle did not ever quit making sheep's eyes at me.

It took him eight straight weeks to eventually ask me out. All this while, we were just friends that met and chatted and cracked jokes and laughed together during Biology. Whenever the two of us had a word or two and laughed and giggled what's more, everyone's attention

would move and abide on us until we were over with whatever affair it was that we were carrying out.

This was how it went the day Kyle expressed his feelings to me:

After Biology, he ran to catch up with me in the protracted corridor, yelping out, "Corinne! Corinne Kerr!"

I turned over to him, seizing my books, which I had planned to lay by and then lock them up in my locker. "Yes, Kyle."

He came to a final halt before me, breathing and sighing heavily. "What will you be doing tonight? My friend's brother—Claudio I mean—is having a party. Claudio himself would like you there. I let him know that we are best friends. What do you say?"

I mused about it for a little bit while. "Sure. They say never say never. I will attend that party."

"Thank you so much. One more thing. Look your very best. I beg you. I want to dance with you tonight."

Smiling joyously, I replied, "I probably will."

It was while we were dancing that very night when Kyle had began. "Corinne."

I looked up at him warmly. "Yes, Kyle."

"What would be your response if I told you that I love you?"

I giggled in absurd excitement. "My response? It would be that you are joking."

He looked hurt in some way. "Corinne, I love you."

"Is that a joke? Another one from you?"

"I am not joking, Corinne." We stopped dancing right that moment and looked at each other quietly and gravely.

"Kyle ... I ... I..."

"I do mean what I say, Corinne."

His eyes showed it. "I can tell," I observed.

"And what is your saying? I want to hear it straight from you. Do you love me or not?"

"I do, Kyle."

"You do?" He was suddenly happy and buoyant.

"Yes, I do!"

Squirming and yelling out in joy, he cuddled and squeezed me tightly to himself. I could hardly breath. In any case, he did not kill me. No, he did not.