And when I’d read them, I’d realized that sometime after she’d messaged me, she’d killed herself.
And, like that time, Suzanne had helped assure me that it wasn’t my fault. That there was nothing I could do.
Only, I’d always felt like I could have stopped it somehow.
Which was why, on the anniversary of her death, I’d released a book. And all first-week proceeds had been donated to suicide prevention.
“I know.” I pinched the bridge of my nose.
“Well, you need to realize that you can’t control the world. You didn’t make that guy come in there and shoot the place up,” she soothed.
I hadn’t.
“Now, let it the fuck go. Fuck them, fuck those shooters. Fuck that cop—which reminds me, was the cop hot?”
And, though my parents had said the same thing about an hour before I’d called Suzanne, I hadn’t been able to really take myself off the hook until Suzanne had so succulently reminded me of my favorite word.
“He was,” I wailed. “And he was sick as a dog. He said something about thinking he had the flu. Which also made me feel really bad. I gave him some ibuprofen out of my purse.”
She chuckled, “Did you get a number?”
“Even better,” I said. “I got where he lived.”
Her gasp was one of excitement. “Really? Are you going on a date with him?”
I laughed then, unable to help myself.
“No,” I said. I didn’t realize that he lived in my duplex until we walked out to the parking lot.
I did notice his big black motorcycle then. And his flashy as fuck helmet.
“What’s so flashy about it?” she asked.
“It’s the helmet, Suzanne,” I said.
She moaned.
“Oh my god.” Her Jersey accent came in thick over the line. “You… it’s him?”
I laughed then.
The helmet under discussion had a pair of overflowing C-cups airbrushed onto it.
That was it.
Just a pair of tits.
But I’d know those tits anywhere.
And when I followed him home over the next five minutes, I knew he’d be all weirded out as I pulled past him once he’d pulled into his driveway.
But instead of waiting for him to confront me, I’d hurried inside and closed the door.
Now he knew where I lived, too.
The thunder that I’d barely beaten home rumbled overhead, and Suzanne changed the subject.
“It’s supposed to storm there, isn’t it?” Suzanne asked.
I scrunched up my nose four times, then answered with, “Yeah. It’s supposed to get really bad around midnight or so. The weatherman thinks that it’s supposed to be worse than we thought.”
“How worse?” she asked.
“Well.” I paused. “We went from ‘moderate’ to ‘enhanced,’” I answered, using air quotes even though I knew she couldn’t see me.
But she knew me well enough to know that I’d use them, so there was that.
See, Suzanne and I met five years ago online. When I’d first started writing, I hadn’t done the best thing that I should have—i.e., hiring an editor that was going to make my words shine. Instead, I’d taken the cheap way out and read it for errors myself.
Big no-no, apparently.
And I found out very quickly after publishing that it wasn’t the best idea in the world.
How did I find out?
Well, when I’d published, I’d done it in a quickly growing genre that all the ladies were falling into in droves thanks to a popular motorcycle series. Motorcycle clubs, MC books for short, had an ever-growing popularity that I’d thought was super intriguing.
So I’d written a book about a motorcycle riding hot guy, published it, and then waited on pins and needles for the first person to buy it.
And they did.
And the next.
And the next.
And the next.
Except, as people bought the book, people also reviewed the book.
And it got roasted.
Roasted so badly, in fact, that I barely could read the reviews and not cry.
From then on, I’d made sure to find an editor before I published another book.
I also learned to stay off of a popular review site that did nothing but tear me a new asshole with each review I read.
Only, not all was bad coming from my first book publishing.
The one person that I met that was nice to me when she didn’t have to be was Suzanne.
She was my light in the dark.
She was a book blogger that guided me through the book world.
Then, at my first ever book signing a year later, I got to meet her for the first time.
And there she offered to help me in any way she could.
When people saw us together, they might think we were weird.
We talked to each other every single day. Texted like best friends. Knew everything about each other as best friends would. And though we only saw each other twice a year at book signings, when we got together it was like we were never apart.
And though she was old enough to be my mother, and had a kid that wasn’t far from my age, and spoke like she was straight off the set of The Sopranos, she was my best friend. And I told her everything.