Brooke

Hello. My name is Brian.

It’s been almost a month since my friend killed herself.

On the day I heard of her death, I was devastated. I was unable to focus on anything for the entire day. I cried all during French class. Only a few people tried to help me, and they did help. They helped me feel okay. That weekend I made sure to talk with everyone in our group of mutual friends. We were all a family.
Her death gave me a new belief in god. I started praying to her every night, and it helped me cope. I was able to talk to her, tell her that I hoped she was happy in heaven with her family. The others didn’t think much of my religious awakening. One of them, though, actively encouraged it, saying that it was good for me to get structure in my life.
But I wasn’t praying to god. I didn’t care about god. I was praying to my late friend. I had never believed in spirituality before, but I was opening my soul to her. I was letting her see into me. I was telling and showing her that I still loved her and cared about her. I could feel her warmth, her love, filling me, making me happy. Every night I did this.

Until one night I stopped.

Now, I didn’t decide to stop. I was just too tired one night to pray. I lay down in bed and fell right asleep.
This was a week ago.
The next day, she visited me during class. I was sitting at my desk, when there was a knock on the classroom door. A student went to open it, and when he did, there was an extreme chill in the room. Like, the temperature briefly went to -10 chill, and I was wearing two coats. Nobody else seemed to have felt it. But, more importantly, there was nobody at the door. Confused, the boy closed the door, and I’m sure he assumed someone was playing a prank, but I knew better. I knew she had come to visit me.
I felt a cold presence beside me, just next to my desk. As the teacher droned on about whatever calculus-related topic of the day, I was concerned that the temperature within me - not around me, but my internal body temperature - was plummeting.
And then I heard the voice. It was just below my hearing ability, but I heard her voice. She said the same thing, over and over. “I miss you.” Hearing her voice again hurt enough, but… we weren’t particularly close, so I don’t see why she’d choose to visit me. But that wasn’t the end of it. When the bell rang and I went to my next class, she followed me. I could feel her cold trailing behind me, and I could clearly see that nobody else could. And she stayed with me in that class, and the next and the next and the next, until at the end of the day. And, just as the last class of the day ended, I felt one final frostbite, on my cheek, and very faintly I heard her say “I love you.”

I dreamt of her that night, and it was the first dream I had since she died. I was outside of a great wall, with a single gate. I would go up to the gate, and it would open. Beyond, there was an endless road, bordered with houses, and I would start running down this lane, looking for a specific house, and after a few minutes, I’d find it. It looks like every other house in this walled off community: A two-story house with a white picket fence and a red door. I’d hop the fence, walk up to the door, and ring the doorbell. After a very brief wait, the door would open and, standing in the doorway would be her, my friend, as beautiful as ever. She invited me in, and the house was modestly furnished. She led me to her parlor, the coffee table with tea set out upon it. She would pour us both a cup of tea, and we sat there, talking. When my alarm woke me up in the morning,  I was more depressed than I was when I first heard she died. But what stuck with me more were the final words she said to me in the dream: “Visit again soon.”
I went to school as normal, but she visited me again, shadowing me the whole day as she had before, leaving at the end of my day in the same way, with a cold kiss on the cheek. When I went to bed that night, I dreamt the same dream again, except that time she introduced me to her family, and we all had tea and chatted.
This cycle continued for the next week. Today, though, it was… worse. I prayed to her last night, and opened my soul to her a bit more. Now… I can hear her more. Sometimes I even feel her touching me, less cold than before, and when I was about to leave school, rather than her regular kiss on the cheek she gave me a hug, and I felt our souls intertwining.

I fear for what I may dream tonight.

(The next day)

I was right to be afraid of my dreams.

Rather than start out on the outside of the gate, I was already in the house, in a guest room, waking up from some form of slumber. I went downstairs to see who was home, and the only one there was my friend. She was brewing tea, and for the first time I am able to completely recall our conversation, as though I was able to control myself in this dream.

“Where am I?” I asked.
“Where do you think?” She replied, her voice as kind as I remembered.
“I don’t know. I keep feeling like you’re following me around, in my daily life. But you’re dead.”
She giggled. “Maybe I am. Following you, I mean.”
“But why? Why not Callum? He hasn’t been able to find another girl since you.”
“Because, he’d never come here on his own, to stay with me. But I know you would.”

Now, this confused me, and she obviously noticed my confusion. So, she took the kettle to the parlor and poured us some tea.

“Do you not remember visiting us for the past week?” She asked.
“I only remember my dreams.”
“Do you really think that those were dreams?”
“What else would they be?”

She was also visibly confused by my question.

“Brian… you’ve been visiting me for the past week. Do you really not know where you are?”
“No,” I said, “I don’t.”

She took a deep breath.
“You’re in heaven.”

At that point, I knew it had to be a dream. I got up, and started to walk away, but she grabbed my arm and held me back. I realised, then, that it may explain everything that happened since I stopped praying, so I sat back down.

“Start from the beginning, Brooke.”

She told me that, after she died, all of the prayers about her were to god. All except mine. I was the only one who talked to her, opened my soul just to her. When I stopped praying, she got lonely, since I was the only one who talked to her from the living world. So, to satisfy herself, she decided to start visiting me in the world, seeing how I lived, and trying to talk to me. When I went to sleep, she brought me in to visit her in the afterlife, which is what I had been doing for the past week. Every day she would visit me, and every night I would visit her.
When I prayed to her again, she was delighted that I opened my soul to her, and she decided to put a bit of her soul into me so that we could communicate better, which explained why I felt her more yesterday, and explains why I remember my… visitation from last night.
After she finished her explanation, she began to clean up, telling me I was about to wake up. Surely enough, a few seconds later I did wake up to my regular alarm, and was more depressed than before. Today, she was with me the whole day, no longer a source of cold but of warmth. I talked with her all day. Where I was sad from not having anyone in my daily life, I was happy that she was there.

I can’t wait until tonight.

(The next day)

This is my last day alive.

Just like yesterday, I woke up in her guest room, and went downstairs to talk to Brooke. Not only was she there, but so was her family. Her mom was the first to greet me, with a warm hug and fresh tea. Brooke was next with a kiss on the cheek, then her sister and father with hugs. I decided it would be prudent to set the table, and did so for the four of them. Upon seeing that I had excluded myself from the setting, Brooke looked at me curiously and asked why I had done so.
“Well,” I replied, “I only really have time to stay for Tea and light conversation.”
“Why don’t you stay with us, then?”
“What do you mean?”
“Stay with us. Forever.”
It took me a few seconds to realize what she meant, and at first I was appalled by her suggestion. But as I looked around at her family, all beaming at me, I realized that, out of all the possible decisions I could make, she suggested the best one.
“Be right back,” I told them all, and I woke myself up.

I have the noose tied, and ready to be used. I wanted to share my story, before I go, so that everyone knows that what I did was out of love, not out of depression or pain.

I’ll see you soon, Brooke.

-Brian Tavish