The Suicide Note (Chapters 1-4)

Jun 28, 2008 - 23:26 PM PST

It’s become quite obvious that I’m not the man I used to be, I have no heart, I have no soul, I am but a calloused ghost thickened by a shell of broken dreams. Thoughts of love and happiness have all escaped me I no longer feel joy, nor sorrow, pain, nor suffering; my only emotion is apathy and nothing more. A sour, bitter taste left in my mouth by the life which has preceded my present state, but still I do not feel it. I can only look back on that life with no feeling at all, and just see it as the life of someone else, someone who felt. What I’ve chosen to tell you is most of my life leaving out only those moments most personal to me, which only see the light of my mind, never the light of day. But I tell you those moments are very few.

I was born Sean Cale on March 17, 1964 in the town of Quiet Creek, Massachusetts to Tom and Mary Cale, a teenaged couple that chose to put me up for adoption. I was then sent to an orphanage owned by the Sisters of the Holy Name of Mary. These nuns treated the kids who went there with a discipline that brought us nostalgia of the Roman Empire. The beatings on the back of our hands looked as though we had received forty lashes and developed the stigmata. By the time I was seven, “God damn it,” had become the most popular phrase in my vocabulary just to spite Sister Monica, who’d given me a beating that numbed my body from any pain I had received from any of the other nuns. Even with such a beating, she hadn’t broken me; no one there could they were all full of cowardice hiding behind their rulers and pointers afraid to lay an actual hand on me even if God was on their side. These nuns claimed it was their God given duty to take care of me even if that did include the occasional beating, I however argued that God did not intend for the beatings to be an everyday occurrence which left my body looking like I’d been crawling under barbwire all day.

At the age of ten I was adopted by Brian and Megan Larson. They were a pretty well-off couple in their early thirties. They couldn’t have children of their own, but also didn’t want to adopt too young. They chose me. The couple lived in a nice two-storey house, white with green trim in a town outside of Boston near the sea; Chelsea, Massachusetts. Brian was a dentist and Allison was a stenographer at the courthouse in Boston. When I turned thirteen they decided to send me to a boarding school, a Catholic one. I’d grown pretty sick of Catholicism by now. The though of having to live at another Catholic institution just killed me. My new adoptive parents loved me, they really did, but they wanted me to have a good education, that’s why they sent me to Saint Vincent de Paul Academy. It was a co-ed school that was very strictly segregated unless it was a mealtime or free time.

The nuns were hell just like the ones from the orphanage. Because we were older we “deserved” more severe beatings because “we should have known better.” Being such a rebellious character I received the most beatings out of anyone in the school. But there was nothing I could do about it.


My Savior came in the form of three different people. Margaret (Mag), Tim, and Father Derek. They were my refuge, I was able to tell them each anything I wanted to tell them, I could trust them more than I could trust God. After the brutality I had faced which began to occur now in bi-weekly intervals; these three helped me cope with the beginning of my teenage years within Hell’s confinement. Derek whom I’d been seeing everyday for a confession helped me understand who I was he’d tell me, “To be a rebel for a noble right is one thing, to be a rebel without a cause is another; find a cause Sean and when you find it, fight for it.” To this day I’d only found two causes.

Mag, my first and only love. We’d met in Geography, she sat in front of me and I used to stare at her gorgeous hair all day. She was such I’d tell her anything and everything, but for a year or so we’d only seen each other as nothing more than friends. We attained an unconditional love which would never die. She was the only hope I’d ever possessed which actually meant something. She was a cause. The bi-weekly ravishing began to occur more frequently because Mag and I had become so close that every night I’d sneak out and into her room, to do nothing more than talk. Mag and I could go on all night about nothing in particular. We’d developed a partial insomnia where we’d both be able to go with only about an hour of sleep. I hadn’t been caught at night it was always in the early morning when Sister Patricia would come and awake all the girls, she’d see me on the floor with Mag’s sweater covering me and I’d receive a rude awakening and the girls would stand outside and watch just as the crowd watched Jesus‘ whippings.. Every second spent with her was worth an eternity to my young mind. She gave me something to live for within my torture, within that nunnery.

Tim, on the other hand, my best mate. He was in my algebra class and he sat next to me. We used to joke around all the time. We got to know each other pretty well mostly because we roomed with each other too. I wouldn’t do as much to talk to him as I would with Mag simply because I wasn’t attracted to him. I’d finally realized I was attracted to Mag. It was through Tim that I was able to realize my affection for Mag. When I’d told Tim how I’d felt for her, he was ecstatic we plotted on how to get her to fall for me. But with Tim’s help it seemed as though Mag had already fallen for me. She confided in Tim that she had affections for me as well.

Father Derek was my haven from all those evil nuns whom had tried to pillage my back with their wooden whips. I’d confess to him everyday, but it wasn’t always for my sins, it was also simply to talk about life, Father Derek was the wisest man I’d ever met. He’d taught me so many things about life, especially how to treat Margaret. I saw him as my own father, not just as a father figure. It was he that I could confide in because I believed he had the confidence of God.

Chapter Two

Every Friday in the fall after a football game, the school hosted a dance either on a sort of makeshift dance floor outside or inside the auditorium if it was raining. Most nights I danced a little bit with Mag, but mostly I spent my time with my friends and we’d just hang out and cause a little trouble for the chaperones who were nuns and priests. The was one dance though that was particularly great, it was in my sophomore year.

Friday October 13, 1977, I remember that nights as clear as ever and I’ll never forget it. That night changed my life forever as did many other nights in my life, but I believe this is the one that sparked the way my life should turn out. It was out monthly “dance” and it was reaching about 9 o’clock. I’d been dancing with Margaret for nearly two hours non-stop. The moon was so beautiful that night, but not nearly as beautiful as her. She’d worn her hair jet black hair differently that night it was down, but with subtle curls that fell upon her head like beautiful petals on a flower, her deep brown eyes were more brilliant than the light the moon, the stars, and the sun could ever produce as one. “Indian Summer,” by The Doors had come on and she wrapped her arms around my shoulders and I placed my hands on her waist and we’d begun to dance. She stared into my dark brown eyes the whole time and mouthed the words, “I love you the best, better than all the rest,” quoting the song, just once but I knew it was directed toward me. As the song ended she kissed my lips softly and walked off the dance floor to her girl friends and sat with them the rest of the night and I sat with Tim, Christopher, and Matthew the rest of the night.

Later that night while we were in her room I climbed into bed with Mag out of the blue and kissed her lightly on the lips and asked her, “be my girl?”

She slowly kissed me back and whispered, “yes.” She held me there for the rest of the night and would not let me free from her bed or from her grasp. In the morning, I’d received a beating equivalent to what Jesus had received in the scourging at the pillar. Sister Monica yanked me from the loving grasp of Margaret’s arms and onto the hard floor where she assaulted my back with a yard stick, a pointer from her chalk board, and then with a metal strip which came from behind the door. She left my back a deep crimson red and a burning sensation that was nothing compared to how much I burned for Mag. This burning for her would continue to be the greatest pleasure in my life, for the longest while.

That night so long ago was by far the greatest night of my life and the occurrence had been at such a young age; I knew it would never be equaled. Now that she was mine I’d no longer spent the nights with her as frequently it was just as she had been there in my bed each night next to me. A perpetual aura of love surrounded me throughout each moment I was not with her and that aura was intensified with each sight of her beautiful face, each touch of her soft skin, each kiss of her desirable lips, each stare into each other’s eyes, and each word spoken to each other. My tone was so very different with her and always had been it’d never changed, I’d always loved Mag from the beginning. My tone of voice was a lulled, voice filled with a flame ignited by love.



Chapter Three:
The Suicide Note

Now a year later Mag and I were nearly inseparable, our hands, our lips, or our eyes were never not touching. It was heaven I tell you, heaven…

My new heaven was soon brought to a sour and abrupt end one night. It was quite a haunting a ghoulish night, which curbed all my thoughts to come. I was in my room nearly asleep having just come back from Mag’s room. It was about two thirty in the morning and I began to hear a strange hissing noise that was becoming quite a nuisance, keeping my eyes wide open. It was a slow perpetual hiss as thought I was stuck in deep thought in the middle of a crowded room. I was able to drown out the sound for the most part, but still a hiss of chatter from the people around permeated through my thought.

Annoyed, I got up and made my way to the door, opened it to the hall that was consumed by darkness, except for a single candle that sat at the foot of a statue of Mary. It was quite an eerie candle that burned out each night and was replaced by the janitorial staff each morning.

Now the hissing had grown to what seemed a slight decibel louder, but coming from the left side of the hall; away from the light. I made my way toward the noise, barefoot and in my pajamas. I walked a little ways, but realized that the hissing noise had faded slightly just as I passed one door, the door of James Morrow.

James was a nice guy once you talked to him, but he was also quite the introvert. In every class he would say not one word and every meal he sat at the same table with the same boy, Alfred Castle who’d shared the same interests and the same introverted lifestyle with James. They always talked to each other in low almost whispering voices, but it was a rarity that they’d talked to anyone else.

I walked into the room and noticed an empty bed with two pillow askew and a blanket left in wrinkles covering half the bed. To the right of the bed, the nearest piece of furniture to the door was a bed-side table and on top of it was a lamp with a dark green shade, so I walked up to the table and turned on the lamp. I looked around the room and noticed the closet on the other side of the room left ajar. I made my way to the closet nearly tripping over James’s suitcase and opened the closet door and turned on a light to see a disturbing image before me.

James had fashioned a noose out of a rope that the janitor had lazily left outside of the cafeteria wall near the playground. One day James had picked it up when he thought no one was looking, but I’d seen him out of the corner of my eye, but thought nothing of it at the time. Now he was hanging in his closet with the rope around his neck and his lifeless green eyes partially open piercing my own and a small trickle of blood coming from the left side of his mouth. I stepped slowly closer unsure of what to do and closed his eyes. I thought for a second and immediately thought to go get Father Derek.

As I turned on my heel I noticed a piece of paper taped to the inside of the closet door it read:
“Look in the bed-side table.”

I walked out of the closet with the note still in my hand and opened the drawer of the bed-side table and found an envelope inside. I sat on the bed with the envelope in my hand and took out the two papers inside and unfolded them.
The seemed as though they were crumpled up before and had once been wet with what I could only assume were tears. They read:

“To the privileged person who reads this,

My life, up until this point has led me to massive amounts of depression which have ceasing periods of mild happiness. A life without friends is the life I led, my one and only friend and I have not talked nearly two weeks. I‘ve always been too short, too strange, too much to myself. I‘d never been able to have fun with any others because I could never grasp the concept of their fun. Every time I looked into the mirror I only saw an image of someone so unpleasant. I was able to teach myself to disappear. My visions of myself were something I‘ve always abhorred.

Anytime anybody invited me anywhere, it was only to laugh at how strange I was. I‘d figured out the many times that I‘d heard people talking behind my back at the get-togethers. They talked behind my back snickering, staring, and laughing so loud about the rude comments that were always pushing me further and further into my depression. Their cruelty that pushed me into lonesomeness and to my state of reclusion, inside my room night and day, lying on my bed, doing absolutely nothing with absolutely no one. Forced to make my friends within my own mind, with my own self and false figments of friends. Who they were is who I feared I would become if I were to get older.

Anytime I’d been invited everywhere I used to falsely believe that these people actually liked me. That I actually fit in with them hoping that they would accept me. I believed that they actually wanted me to have fun with them. The times I had gone I hoped that I would possibly be the life of the party, but all my dreams about those nights were crushed when I heard the comments of those people. Of all people.

Sure I was nice when people did talk to me, but only with people whose sincerity I could sense. Most people didn‘t have the necessary sincerity to deserve my respect, so most of the time I just blew them off and spoke to them as little as possible. I‘d learned to avoid conversation so I wouldn’t have to deal with these people. These people far outnumbered the sincere.

These people left me lonely, dirty, with a feeling of such hatred for all of humanity. They made me stereotype and generalize the whole human race as a bunch of pig-headed, brutal people who lived to put those who were different down. In their hatred mine was born, it was a hate that was brought from a great disdain for those who showed hatred to those who were not like themselves.

I am not killing myself it was they are the murderers who brought me to my end and who brought my life to where it had come this day. They brought out my intense depression through their ignorance for the atypical. Their bullying their hatred for the unusual brought my intense depression.

The alienation brought me so far that the only person I was ever able to love was my own mother. She really cared for me and she saw my downtrodden expression every single day and always cared for me, but because of the way they treated me I was never able to open up to her. The took advantage of my sensitivity, my vulnerability, all of my kindness, but they did give me my strength to even make it this far.

They drove me into solitude and into my room night after night weekend after weekend, in my room and in my mind. Imagining what actual fun would be like. They all rejected me and very few accepted me. Inside my room inside my mind I would always imagine every conceivable concept, I always thought of a best friend imagined a girl friend who’d embrace me in her arms and accept me for who I was. All of my strangeness she’d accept me and still love me because she’d be the one I loved. I imagined her lips on mine each night by touching my fingers to her face. How’d I’d believe that she was the most beautiful girl in the world, when there was no one even there, no one ever there to hold me to kiss me to assure me that life would be all right.

My father had died when I was six years old and I was completely devastated, I’d loved him. He and my mother were so very sincere and loving. They had for me an unconditional love. My father was my hero, he was so unlike everyone else, but still fit in. I wanted to be him.

Before I’d come here but a year ago my mother joined my father after a fatal car accident. When she left me all happiness I’d ever had left me as well. Then I’d come here to this damned boarding school a place for rejects, but even they were here. The people who put me where I was. Only couple of good things were here, One which I’d brought with me. My record player and all my records and also Alfred Castle my only true friend. Alfred and I though stopped talking because of a stupid quarrel, but when I tried to apologize he just shunned me.

The records which were really the only things I could ever relate to had been destroyed by them. Robert Acres, the worst of them all had destroyed them, I know for a fact it was him because I’d caught him coming out of my room when I was just down the hall. I came in to see if he’d done anything to destroy my room, but it had seemingly been as how I’d left it. The next day though I walked into my room and looked to play one of my Beatles records, but when I slipped it out of the sleeve it had been cracked in half. I was pretty upset at first thinking that I was the one who’d done it until I pulled out another record and saw that it was in the same condition. The rest were all the same. When everyone was sleep at about one in the morning I went to the cafeteria and into the kitchen and found a knife. I took it to my room for a while then walked out the hall and as quietly as possible stuck it through Robert’s door to give him a hint. I hope that bastard got it through his head not to mess with people anymore, especially people who don’t deserve it.

Before I said goodbye to you and to the rest of them I want to tell you what has irked me so much that I would do something like this. Humanity and the fear of becoming just like the rest of them. There is hardly any innocence in childhood most of it is just a malicious sense of fun. Of course there is a certain innocence, but beyond that all it is, is what society’s impressed on children because they look to be just like adults. That is why most kids do drugs, smoke or drink because society says it’s ‘hip’ but it really isn’t’ And when other kids aren’t ‘hip’ because they’re not part of the flock they get looked down upon. So every trace of innocence and every trace of love has been lost for humanity. All of it. It has been polluted by the corruption of the adult mind. It’s just quite sickening, too sickening. I’ve got to end it before I get too close, I can’t take any chance to becoming something that I hate so very much. It is death within life. To be such a horrible person would make me hate myself and carry such a disdain throughout my life.

Humanity’s done this to me. All the years of depression because I’ve lost hope at ever fitting in and letting society not get to me. To live is the worst thing that anyone can do, to live is to further the corruption, to further that which is the worst thing ever created; humanity. ‘Life is suffering.”

That was the end of the front side of the second page. After reading this it really made me have a disgust for myself and for all of humanity. I now temporarily hated life. People sickened me. I flipped the page over and on the back it said, “Goodbye to the sincere and to those who truly care, -James Morrow”

The second sheet of paper had the most tear marks on it. I added a couple of my own just thinking that anyone had to go through such an immense sense of depression killed me inside. I still remember the morning after the knife was found on Robert Acre’s door, everyone was really scared. I was disturbed that God could let this happen.

I spent a few more minutes on the bed before I realized that James’s body was still in the closet so I got back up and went to Father Derek’s room at the end of the hall next to the statue of Mary and next to the candle. I knocked on the door until I heard a whisper, “Who‘s there?”

“It‘s me Sean,” I replied.

“Why are you up at this hour?” Father Derek responded.

“I need you to come with me Father, something‘s gone wrong with another student. I need your help.”

“Alright give me a couple seconds I need to get my slippers.” I waited outside the room and the door opened shortly. “So what happened? Who is it?”

I just replied, “Follow me. It‘s too hard to say right now.”

“Alright.” Father Derek said noticing I was quite shaken up by the tone in my voice and the way I was slightly hunched over.

We both walked into James’s room and I pointed to the closet and he looked inside and released a gasp. I handed him the letter and he read it over once and he too began to tear. Then he said, “Wait here I‘ll be right back.” He walked out of the room and return in about a minute with a knife and motioned me into the closet. He handed me the knife and said, “cut” as he grabbed James’s body and I worked at the middle of the rope. As I was cutting I looked up and found the source of the hissing noise. James had tied the rope to a gas pipe. Where he’d tied it was near the part where two pipes were screwed together and with the weight of James’s body had now bent slightly releasing small amounts of gas into the air.

When I’d gone into the closet the first time I hadn’t noticed the sound because of the shock of seeing James. We laid James’s body on the bed and while we were carrying him I saw in the dim light a series of lacerations on his arms; I guessed they were from the knife that was on Acre’s door. We stood there as Father Derek was thinking what to do and I walked in front of the closet and just stared inside when I noticed the wooden bar on which James’s clothes were hanging was broken in the middle and the clothes were sloping inward. I think James had tried to hang himself on it but wasn’t too successful.

Father Derek finally whispered, “Come with me.” So I walked out of the room and he came after me closing the door behind him. We walked down the hall and into his room. He picked up the telephone and dialed for the operator. He asked for the nearest hospital, Quiet Creek Memorial Hospital. They finally answered after about thirty seconds and he told them what had happened and he asked if they could send an ambulance or a vehicle to pick up the body. They said there would be an ambulance arriving in the next thirty minutes. Father Derek requested that there be no sirens so to not wake anyone and startle them.

We walked to the main entrance of the boarding school where the two sections of dormitories met on the east wing was the girls’ dormitories and on the west was the one we were in the boys’. We sat outside on a bench and waited in complete silence until the ambulance showed up. It was the only time Father Derek and I ever shared a period of silence longer than a minute. I sat there looking at the stars, nothing coming to mind, but James. I got up and walked around a bit kind of sick of the silence. I walked to the other side of the parking lot and looked at the entire school, both wings of the dormitories and then catching the glimpse that I could of the school wing and cafeteria behind them. The ambulance pulled up and two men stepped out. opened the back doors of the truck and pulled out a stretcher. Father Derek walked up to them and told them what had happened and they followed him into the dorms and I waited outside. They returned now with James’s body and slid it into the ambulance truck. Father Derek thanked them and told them to give him a call in the morning handing them a small piece of paper.

The ambulance drove off and I followed Father Derek into the hallway after he’d locked up. He’d walked with me up to the door of my room and said, “Sean, get some sleep, but don‘t go to class tomorrow I‘ll talk with your teachers and inform them of the news. Don‘t come out of your room until twenty minutes before lunch, at that time come and see me.”

“Yes Father, goodnight.” I replied.

“Goodnight Sean,” he said as he turned and made his way back to his room toward the eerie candle which had now burnt out.

Chapter IV:
The Aftermath


The next day I didn’t wake up till about 1:30, well after lunch, but I immediately went to Father Derek’s room and knocked on the door. I waited about two minutes with no response. I went back to my room and got out some clothes and my bathroom kit and walked across the hall to the bathrooms. I turned on the water for the shower, undressed, and got in closing the curtain behind me. I was in about twenty minutes when the water turned cold and I had just washed my face so I hurried out, grabbed my towel and dried off. I walked up to the sinks across from the shower stalls and brushed my teeth with my green towel wrapped around my waist.

Upon entering my room I saw a note taped to my door and thought, “oh great, another note taped to a door.” I picked it up and read it:
“Sean, come to the cafeteria once you‘re ready.
-Father Derek”
I threw the note into the waste basket next to the door and walked to my dresser and pulled out some clothes to wear and quickly dressed. Once I was all dressed I made my way out of the dormitories and to the hallway that joined the dorms, cafeteria, and the school. I stood there for a second in a daze trying to remember where I was going until I looked over to the cafeteria, and almost robotically began to walk. I opened the door and saw Father Derek sitting at a table by himself with two plates one in front of him one across the table. I took the seat across from Father and said, “good morning.”

He looked over his newspaper at me and replied, “good morning Sean, I trust that you got enough sleep. Go ahead and eat the plate I saved for you”

“I sure did.” I replied as I picked up the ham sandwich and took a bite. I had nearly forgotten about the event which had occurred the night before until Father Derek brought it up again.

“Look Sean, what you witnessed last night was a terrible tragedy and should never have been witnessed by anyone at all. James had a terrible, terrible life that can only be described as a life full of contempt for everyone and everything around him that he saw as unfamiliar. The unfamiliarity caused him to do what he did. He rejected it and saw it as an evil force bent on putting him further down than he already was. Sean never, and I mean never, ever think about doing the same thing James did. It is a horrible thought and a horrible action to commit. God gave you life to enjoy and even in your darkest times you must look ahead toward light, even if you can‘t see the light you must know that it is there, because it really is. As much as you don‘t want to believe it Sean, I too have been forsaken in my darkest hours. Jesus himself was forsaken. All that happens will eventually lead to a better time. Remember this Sean,” said Father Derek as he put his coffee cup down and folded his newspaper.

“Father Derek I will never do such a thing I promise you.”

Once we finished at the table we walked back to my room where we found that school had been let out and everyone was in their own dorm room doing homework. Father Derek looked at me and said, “Do you think you‘re okay to go to your classes tomorrow?”

I opened the door to my room and replied with a slight chuckle, “I was fine to go today.” Father Derek grinned and headed toward his room.
I walked into my room and sat on the chair in the back corner nearest the window and emptied my pockets. In my right pocket was nothing, but in the left I had the note from the night before. I read it through once more finding the same contempt which James had within me once again, then I placed it inside a box which I’d had my whole life. That box held my life and the possessions I held most dear. Only Margaret and Tim had seen the contents of the box, but they’d only seen it once.

I got up and walked out of my room and turned left to go to Tim’s room which was next to mine. Tim saw me and said, “Hey man, where‘ve you been all day? We all thought you were sick. And Mag, she was worried about you.” Tim said jokingly.

“I wasn‘t feeling up to going to class today. Father Derek said he‘d clear it up with all the teachers and have my make up work in an hour.” I replied solemnly, now thinking about what had happened and about James even more.

“Alright man. Are you okay though? You don‘t look so fantastic.”

“I‘ll be fine.”

“Are you sure? You don‘t wanna talk about it or anything?”

“Not at the moment, but I won‘t leave you in the dark forever. Just wait ‘til I‘m ready. Yeah?”

“Yeah, okay.” Tim paused, “Did you hear about that James Morrow guy? They said he was taken to a nuthouse in the middle of the night.”

“Yeah I heard about him, but that‘s not what happened.” I paused for a couple seconds, “I‘ll talk to you later. Okay? I‘ll tell you why I‘m not feeling so fantastic too.”

“Yeah man. Just feel better.”

I left the room and kept walking down the hall to the area which adjoined the two hallways of dormitories. I walked into the girls’ hallway and up to Mag’s room it was the third door on the right. The door was open, but I knocked anyway. She immediately got up and ran to me hugged me and kissed me cheek. I kissed her on the cheek and said, “Hi.”

She right away noticed my emotions weren’t how they normally were and asked, “Did you want to talk about anything? Get your mind off of something?”

“Yeah, please? I want to talk to you about something that happened really early this morning.”

“Okay sweetie, let me just put my books away and we can go outside and talk where it‘s more private.” She said as she placed her books on the table in front of the window and grabbed my hand softly. “Let‘s go.”

We started walking and we made small talk, I asked her how her day was and she asked how mine was. Then we were in the grass field where only a few people were, but they were at least twenty yards away. “So about last night?” Margaret asked anxiously.

“Oh right,” I’d almost forgot, “Well you see after I‘d left your room I made it back to mine fine and all, but I was trying to go to sleep when I heard this hissing noise. It was really bugging me and it went on for about half an hour and I couldn‘t sleep so I went to go investigate. I walked through the hallway in the dark until I got to James Morrow‘s room, which is where I had determined the noise to be coming from. I turned on his small lamp that he had and saw the closet was slightly open so I walked inside.” I grabbed her hand. “James hanged himself last night. I found a suicide note and everything. The noise I heard was the pipe he had tied the noose to, it sorta broke in the middle and was leaking a small amount of gas into the air. Father Derek figured I was too shaken up to go to class today so that‘s why I wasn‘t there.”

Margaret just stood across from me with a look of complete disbelief. She was speechless and so was I, I wasn’t sure what to say after that so we just stood there until I kissed her forehead softly and she began to tear. She held onto me so tight and kissed her cheek and wiped her tears. In a somber voice she asked, “Why?”

I held onto her tighter and said, “It‘s all in the note if you want to read it. I still have it. It‘s just a horrible thing to imagine though. Come by my room after dinner. Okay?” She nodded her head and I kissed her forehead and grabbed her hand as we started walking back into the dorms. I walked her to her room and said that I would see her in a little bit at the cafeteria and I left back to Tim’s room. Margaret seemed an easier person to tell things like that to than Tim. I think I just felt closer to her than any other person, but Tim was sure up there. I got back into his room and saw that he was finished with his homework so we took a walk back down to the field and we started messing around then I suddenly stopped and said, “Tim I need to tell you something.”

“Is there something wrong with you and Mag?” Tim asked right away.

“No there‘s nothing wrong with Mag and I, this has nothing to do with her. But promise me you won‘t tell anyone.”

“I swear, not a soul.”

“Alright. This is about James Mo-…”

“ James Morrow? That guy? Didn‘t he go crazy?”

“No he didn‘t relax Tim and let me finish please.” I said impatiently.
“Sorry, continue.”

“Well last night I went back to my room having just come back from Margaret’s room. I couldn’t sleep because there was this hissing noise, so I went to investigate and found that it was coming from James Morrow’s room. I walked inside and turned on the light, but saw no one in the bed. The closet was open so I went inside and saw James, he’d hanged himself.” I paused a while and Tim was in complete awe. “I went to Father Derek and we called an ambulance to pick him up. He was dead. But he left a note that I still have. I just needed to tell you and Mag, I really couldn‘t let this go, it would never be off my mind.”

“What did the note say?” Tim asked quietly.

“Come by my room after dinner and you Mag and I will come out here to read it. I don‘t want to take any chances with anyone hearing about this. It‘s pretty sickening what he describes in it though.”

“What‘s sickening?”

“You‘ll see Tim, just wait ‘til dinner please.”