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WAVERLY

Loads of suicide, death, and depression ahead.

But also laughter, hope, love, and healing.

You’ve been warned.

January 2025

H ere’s a secret to keep in mind about the depressed: We don’t really want to die.

I mean, I didn’t, anyway.

I definitely thought I did at times. I convinced myself it was absolutely true. I would get stuck so deep in my own head that I just wanted it all to end.

Everything felt hopeless. I was stupid and small and insignificant. I was a worthless drag on the world who couldn’t do or say anything right, and everyone would’ve been better off if I was just…gone.

I mean, who’d even care if I ended it all? It wasn’t as if I was important or particularly good at anything.

But those thoughts—even if they did feel absolutely true—were just the pit talking. The pit I fell into and couldn’t climb out of. But the pit was evil. It lied and manipulated, only reminding me of all the bad inside me.

The pit swallowed souls whole.

What I really wanted was to stop hurting.

I wanted to stop being useless and sluggish.

I wanted out of the cycle of self-blame and guilt for not being perfect.

I wanted to care again. Care about anything.

I wanted to connect—honestly connect—with another person and feel accepted by them with all my guts and ugly parts on full display.

I wanted people to care about me in return.

And I wanted to stop messing up everything I did.

But mostly, I just wanted to live.

Except dying was the most alive thing I could think to do to accomplish that. So that’s the direction my thoughts tended to turn.

I had considered all the different ways I could die.

When I was nine, my babysitter—my best friend on the planet—cut his wrists in my kitchen and bled out on the tiles. I woke up and went downstairs to get a drink and found him there, already gone.

Up to that point, I think that was the most alive I’d ever felt.

The most terrified, the most confused, the most shocked, the most hurt and abandoned.

But also the most alive. My blood had pumped through my veins with a speed that defied logic.

My head buzzed. Heck, my entire body just…

vibrated with the awful fear of death swirling inside me.

It was the first, up-close-and-personal experience I’d ever had with dying. And from that point on, I’d been hooked.

It made me wonder if that was why so many people participated in death-defying feats like skydiving, BASE jumping, wall climbing, stunt work, bull riding. The closer to death they crept, the more alive they felt.

My problem with those things was I wasn’t brave like those people. I couldn’t do any truly death-defying feats.

But my mind still wondered about them. And wished…

After Zane’s funeral, when the reality set in that he was honestly gone and I’d never get to see him again—when the dragging sadness swept over me—that was my first stint with depression.

At nine years old.

I was lethargic yet anxious. I wanted to be with him, to follow him to wherever he’d gone.

The only thing that made my blood pump with that thrilling fear of life was to think about death. His death. My death. Any death.

I was fifteen before I actually tried to kill myself. Except I used pills, not a knife like Zane had. I thought it’d be less painful. I just wanted peace and quiet from my own tormented thoughts. From the embarrassment of being me. From the guilt and humiliation of everything I’d never done right.

My blood had pumped hard with fear and anxiety when I’d palmed those tablets; it was the very hit of life and vitality I hadn’t known I’d been seeking.

Until afterward, when my savior had found me, rushed me to the hospital, and I’d gotten my stomach pumped, then witnessed my parents fall apart over what I’d done. I knew I couldn’t do the suicide route again because I guess my family hadn’t wanted me to actually die either.

I still thought about death though. I wished for it in different ways, ways that wouldn’t traumatize my parents quite as much as ending my own life.

I hoped maybe I could catch cancer. Except slow suffering didn’t sound fun.

A car accident, then? Quick and painless.

Except with my luck, I’d probably survive and become an invalid, and I’d be worse off than I’d been before.

There were other options. Sudden brain hemorrhage that dropped me flat where I was standing. Getting struck by lightning. Hit by a train. Have a piano fall on me.

But honestly, there was no preferable way to die. Because I really didn’t want to.

I still hoped for it, though, even when my deepest wish was the very opposite. Because I wanted out of this existence. I wanted?—

“Hey! Frankie!”

Jumping at the call, I tore my attention from the cart of books I was sorting into Dewey Decimal order so I could reshelve them more easily, and I turned to peer over the checkout counter at the gorgeous blonde who waved at me as she entered the university library with loose, graceful strides.

Forgetting my morbid thoughts for the time being, I sent her a sickened smile.

“Oh. Hi,” I said, and I did a pretty lousy job of keeping the wince from my face as my features fell.

I shared an Early American Lit class with Xander Union, and for some reason, she’d taken a liking to me. I had no idea why. It definitely wasn’t because of my sparkling personality, that was for sure. Because I didn’t have one.

Maybe it was some kind of Winnie-the-Pooh syndrome; every Tigger needed its Eeyore.

Either way, as soon as she’d learned I was Library Girl, as her roommates had taken to calling me, she’d started sitting next to me during every class, dragging me to lunch with her, and now apparently, she was seeking me out where I worked.

I really wished she’d stop, though. If she got too close, she was just going to learn what an utter disappointment I was. And she’d leave.

Trust me, I saw the irony in that: wishing she’d leave so she wouldn’t…leave. But it was one thing for people to leave you when they didn’t know you; it was quite another when they did.

Zane had known me. Better than anyone. And when he’d left?—

Well, apparently I was still trying to recover.

“We need to talk,” Xander broke into my thoughts as she strode to the counter with a short frown.

She was first cousins with the campus’s football god, Foster Union, and had been born and raised in Victoria, Texas, which was only about an hour and a half from Westport.

She was supposed to be a sophomore, like me, but she’d taken a gap year so she could attend HaveU with her boyfriend, Liam, who was a year younger than her.

Except, according to her, Asshole Liam—her term—had accepted a scholarship to study abroad in Europe, and so he’d dumped her to go screw French whores instead—also her terminology.

I guess she and the French-whore-screwing asshole had already made a down payment on a rental in Westport when he’d up and left her with all the bills.

Xander hadn’t been able to afford the apartment by herself after that, so her cousin Foster had gotten her an “in” with a handful of his friends. Now, she roomed with them at what she referred to as Archer House.

Xander had volunteered a hundred percent of this information to me—because I certainly hadn’t asked for any of it—during our literature lectures while the professor had droned on about James Fenimore Cooper and Stephen Crane.

I wanted to be annoyed with her for taking me away from whatever I was supposed to be learning.

I mean, The Red Badge of Courage was totally about the fear of dying, which was right up my alley.

But Dr. Gleek’s voice was as dull as dust, and it was impossible to focus on what he was saying, even when someone wasn’t gossiping in my ear.

Besides, Xander’s stories were just so fascinating; I couldn’t ignore her if I tried. She seemed to love life. That intrigued me because… Why? What was so special about life to actually love it?

Maybe it was because she was everything perfect and beautiful and smart, which I kind of hated about her.

Five-foot-ten, double-D breasts—at the very least—twenty-seven-inch waist—I’m sure—brilliant blue eyes, a butt that made guys whistle and gawk, and her hair—sweet mercy, don’t even get me started on the hair.

No one should have luscious, flowing, cornsilk locks like Xander did.

It just wasn’t fair to the rest of humanity.

What was worse, she was super nice too, plus insightful, sweet, funny, and considerate. She was always offering me food from her tray at lunch. She asked me about myself and actually listened to my answers. And she’d given me a cutesy nickname.

I mean, Frankie ? Really?

How adorable was that?

The problem was, I didn’t do adorable. I didn’t do nice, or friendly, or anything she did.

And when I’d told Xander as much, she just laughed this really awesome laugh that probably made sprites and fairies jealous, and she’d hooked her arm through mine to rest her temple on my hair, where she sighed as if utterly refreshed before claiming she liked my honesty.

If I were a lesbian, I’m sure I’d be flat-out in love with her. She was exactly the kind of person I could never even hope to be.

But perfection like her drew attention. Lots of attention.

As I glanced around the library, I noticed pretty much every eye in the place following her to the front counter, and I sank a little lower in my chair because, yep, here it came.

Now they were looking my way and no doubt wondering why someone as flawless as her would even want to communicate with someone as unremarkable as me.

“I finally finished that book you recommended,” she announced as she slapped said book down on the counter in front of me and arched her eyebrows in reprimand. “And you totally failed to mention that basically everyone in it freaking dies .”