Grace is my friend. We met at a summer camp that helps with SSAT preparation, which is the test required for application to boarding schools. We had been so close that we hung out every day.
Grace was weak since birth. Her mother was 40 when she was born. She often visited hospitals for annual checks or prescriptions. One day, she stopped coming to the summer camp. But we still kept in touch.
I went to a boarding school in New York, while she repeated a year because she couldn’t take the SSAT due to her health problems. One year after, she went to a boarding school in California. We were not as close as before, but we still kept in touch. We always hung out during breaks, and she eventually moved to the apartment next door. We became like a sibling and another family.
Time flew, and I was a senior in high school, and she was a junior. She started to call me every month, crying and in depression. She was often hospitalized and told me how she was sad that high school peers were making rumors about her absence. I thought she was emotional because of the academic stress and other small “teenager” dramas. I calmed her down with every call, and she told me she was thankful that she had a friend like me. I was also happy and thankful that I could be one of her close friends. And I believed she is strong enough to get over these.
After I came here, I was busy adjusting to my new college life. I couldn’t pick up her phone often because of it. And I gradually lost contact with Grace.
It was October 22nd. I was casually hanging out with my other friends in my friend’s dorm. I was scrolling down my Instagram, and I got a notification from her. It was her father who texted me through her phone, saying she had taken her own life. She threw herself at her apartment.
At first, I couldn’t know — alas, didn’t want to know — if this was real. It felt like a nightmare. I immediately went back to my dorm. Sitting down on my bed, trembling, I called my other friend and started to cry. I cried so hard that I couldn’t feel my eyes tearing up, and my head felt like it was about to explode. I kept saying that if I was a better person and supported her, things would’ve changed. I blamed myself for what happened to her. And now I realize, I had been just concealing my feelings from everyone, from myself, all along.
This project was an oddly therapeutic process for me. I reflected on myself and how I dealt with my feelings. I was sad, mad, and uncomfortable looking back at the memories I hid on purpose. But the recording session somehow really helped me to connect with her, and I now feel nothing but love and affection toward her. Now I still miss her, but I am going to continue living my life and hope that she can live vicariously through me — that is one of the messages I wanted to convey.