sasha

My bedroom door crashed open, the sound pulling me out of vivid dreams and into the harsh sunlight of Sunday morning. A woman in a pink turban stood at my door, short and roly-poly in a white robe. Through the sleep in my eyes, I could see she was speaking but the fog over my brain still had not lifted, and her words sounded like a tape recorder running out of batteries. My mind took a moment to register that this woman was my mother, in her dressing gown with a towel around her head.
“Lee? Lee, get up, someone’s on the phone for you.” She said irritably, and I realised she was still angry about the night before when I had come home at 2am, “Under the influence,” was the term used by the police who had so kindly given me a lift home. My tongue felt furry, as if I had slept with my mouth open the whole night, which seemed quite possible. I sat up, rubbed my eyes and groaned at the sudden nauseous feeling that overwhelmed me. I took a moment to regain composure then wandered into the kitchen, still in yesterday’s clothes.
“Mmmyeah?” I mumbled as I picked up the phone from where it lay on the kitchen bench. My voice was like gravel and I quickly cleared my throat before I tried again, “Hello?”
“Lee? It’s Sasha.”
“Hey, how are you?” I asked, recognising the familiar softness of her voice.
There was silence, and then she sighed.
Sasha had been my best friend for over 6 years, ever since we’d played together in the same Under 10’s basketball team. She was the only person who wasn’t yelling at me to do this or that: to run faster, to pass quicker, to shoot when I was way out in the middle of nowhere. Her jet-black hair and mischievous green eyes had drawn me to her immediately and her don’t-give-a-shit manner had stayed with her through the years we had known each other, often getting her into trouble with figures of authority: teachers, parents, police, anyone who challenged the way she saw the world. She was what my mother, lover of all psychological jargon and ready to label anyone who was not in her realm of ‘normal’, would call oppositional defiant: whatever anybody said, she would go out of her way to do the opposite.
Sasha’s mum hated me with a passion, constantly reminding me of the bad influence I was. She blamed me for Sasha’s drug use, out of control outbursts and rudeness towards her, but in actual fact, Ms. Smyth was a bigger junkie than everyone we knew put together, shoving more heroin into her repeatedly assaulted veins than Kurt Cobain. And the odd times I actually allowed into her house, she put Sasha down with a practised brutality; picking at everything and anything she could find. This was Sasha’s excuse every time a new shrink asked her why she used the cocktail of drugs that had become a part of daily life.
“My mother never loved me!” She would cry in a mockingly dramatic tone, typical for the show off that she was, and they would sigh and write her off as just another teenager looking for attention.
Truth was, her mother had never showed any signs of love, only that of hate and repulsion: that she was in her way, in her house, in her life. Sasha was constantly told she was a mistake, that she never wanted a child, she was a drunken accident, and as far as her mother was concerned, was better off dead. I asked her how she felt about it at times, because I worried that one day she would snap, unable to cope with the continuous verbal abuse that was her mother’s only form of communication. But she brushed it aside, always telling me “I’d never let that junkie bitch bring me down!” She kept her head up despite everything and was always the life of the party, a fighter, only surrendering to the world of narcotics.
She stayed quiet after her sigh.
“Sasha? You okay?” I asked, a mild panic rising in my chest. Her usual phone call began with a bouncy hello and a good story, but today she sounded subdued.
“Yeah, yeah. It’s just...nah forget it. What are you doing today?” I decided to leave the subject, she was never one to ask for sympathy, therefore never willing to explain what was going on inside her.
“I’m meeting up with Jay, we’re going to go get stoned out by the abandoned warehouse down in Reservoir.”
“Oh,” She said quietly. “Okay.”
I heard her sigh again.
“I just called to see how you were.” She said, and I took that to mean how my head was doing after last night’s battle against the fine line of obscenely drunk and alcohol poisoning.
“I’m just fine.” I said. I rarely got hangovers, which was quite lucky considering the amount of binge drinking involved in my weekends.
“Okay then, have fun.”
“Alright, see you tomorrow.”
“Yeah bye.” She answered quietly.
I hung up the phone and went for a shower, turning the water on as hot as I could stand it. I found some clean clothes and called Jay, who told me he’d be at my house in 20 minutes, seeing as I was too young for the luxury of a licence at 15.
Around 4:30 I arrived home, dumping my bag next to the front door just as the shrill sound of the telephone sounded. My mum was at tennis, so I rushed to the kitchen to grab the receiver.
“Hello?” I said, a bit breathless, my voice slow and hazy from the countless bongs earlier in the day.
“Lee.” A voice I recognised, the tight lipped and unforgiving tone of Ms. Smyth.
“Yes?” I said politely. In truth, she scared me. I always did my best to show her what an upstanding and dependable friend I was, yet my efforts were in vain. Every time she saw me she seemed even less impressed than the previous times, cold and hard, with no signs of friendliness ever showing through. I’d always had the feeling she was slightly insane, too many drugs and bad nights with unknown men had to kick you in the arse at some point, but I had never mentioned it to Sasha. I had no idea why she was calling me, and I felt my stomach tighten for no apparent reason.
“I think you should come over. Sasha wants to show you something.”
“Umm...okay.”
“Good. See you soon.” Then she slammed the phone down in my ear and I was left with an angry beeping noise. I was confused. Never, in all the time Sasha and I had known each other, had her mother ever called me, let alone invited me over. And I began to wonder why it was her mother calling, instead of her. However, I was also intrigued; what did she want to show me?
I made my way to her house quickly, my head foggy and my attempts to walk to in a straight line getting me nowhere. Sasha house was only a few streets from mine so I arrived within ten minutes, nervous and interested at the same time.
Ms. Smyth opened the door and looked me up and down as she always did, a disgusted expression on her face. She seemed calm and I put that down to the copious level of opium running through her blood. I tried to keep my eyes focused on her face but found it hard.
“She’s in her room.” She said shortly. She followed me down the familiar hall where I walked through the kitchen and out pass the bathroom to Sasha’s room. The door was closed and I was alarmed by Ms. Smyth’s behaviour. She was smiled at me and nodded to the handle as I looked at her. A feeling of dread ran through my chest, but I pushed it away, sure it was only paranoia caused by the cannabis.
With a shaky hand I slowly opened the door, unsure why I should be reluctant to go into my best friend’s room. With Ms. Smyth behind me I quietly stepped into the room and looked around. A bed to my right, with an antique nightstand next to it. Opposite that on the far wall was her desk, covered with clothes instead of the customary books and stationary. Her CD player, TV and play station sat across from the desk, various CD’s scattered around out of their cases. Posters covered every inch of the room and the floor was a mess of her school uniform, her basketball singlets and shorts, assorted shoes, pillows and papers. Every detail was familiar and comfortable, only something felt so very wrong. A coldness I couldn’t fathom had entered the room. Last my eyes flicked to her cupboard, a large chunk of wooden mass, and Sasha hanging from it by a belt she had nailed to one of the doors, then fixed around her thin neck.
I stood frozen. My heart felt as if it had stopped as her pale face, her bulging eyes, her limp body and open mouth were burned forever into my brain. My tongue felt enormous as I opened my mouth to say something, but I couldn’t find a word to say. I wanted to shut my eyes but I couldn’t, and the image of the belt squeezing, cutting into her throat was carved into my petrified head. My best friend was dead, she had hung herself by a makeshift rope and her mother had brought me in to see her. My head spun, I turned to Ms. Smyth, hoping for some sort of an explanation as to why she’d done this, why she’d brought me in here, why the hell she hadn’t called an ambulance. I was shocked to see her smiling at me.
“Look what you did to her, Lee.” She said in a sinister voice, and I saw in her eye what I had feared most: madness. Something else flashed in her eyes as she gazed at me steadily and I realised with disbelief than it was a look of pleasure; she was enjoying my terror, my shock, my complete and utter inability to comprehend what was happening.
“Look at her, Lee, look what you’ve done. This is all your fault, you know. I hope you do know that. ‘Coz we all know it’s always been your fault she was this way. You changed her, you made her into this...thing!” She violently pushed at her daughter’s shoulder, and her lifeless body swung back and forth as Ms. Smyth laughed, a horrible high-pitched cackle that resonated in my ears until I thought I would faint.
“You killed her, Lee, don’t you understand? IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT!” She was still smiling at me, and I found myself unable to move, unable to speak, only able to stare at the thing that was once my best friend, still swinging slightly from the force of her mother’s push. My mouth moved, but there were no words. I felt as if I was about to cry, but the tears froze in my eyes even before I had tried to stop them.
“I...I...I...” I trailed off, incapable of speaking.
“You what?” She said mockingly. “Cat got your tongue? You little shit! You killed my daughter!”
She looked at me with an anger so strong I felt myself cringe at its intensity.
“I didn’t – ”
“Yes you did! It’s you! It’s all you! I’m going to tell everyone what you’ve done!”
“This is not my fault!” I cried, finally finding my voice. Anger and sadness had risen in my throat and I kept on yelling. “You did this, you...you’re crazy! How could you treat your own daughter like that and then blame me? Didn’t you ever think about what you were doing? What you called her? Did you ever think it hurt? Why blame it on me when you know it’s your fault?!?” I was crying now and sobs retched through me as I backed out of the room, the image of Sasha’s face never leaving me.
“You little bitch! How dare you?” She stepped up so face was level with mine and slapped a cold hand across my cheek. “YOU KILLED MY DAUGHTER!”
With that I ran, I fled from the house, trying to block out Ms. Smyth’s voice screaming at me from behind, I went as fast and as far as I could until my lungs burned, screaming for more air. My legs collapsed under me and I lay on the cold concrete as the day gave way to darkness around me. And I cried and cried for my best friend, who I had grown up with, who I had loved, who I had shared secrets and crushes and first kisses with. Who had killed herself while I was out getting stoned, who died alone, who I could now only remember as a lifeless doll; hopeless, helpless, strung out, hanging onto nothing, forever.