One Day (Steve)

I can't live with myself anymore.

It was my fault. How could I have been so oblivious? I should have held her a little tighter at night. I should have let her room with me the night before what was supposed to be our wedding. I should have acted faster. I should have complimented her more often. With Caitlin, I had something I never had before and, now that she's gone, I don't know if I can ever have that again.

The pillow she used still smelled like her strawberry 3-in-1. She told me to pick it up at the store once and I had no clue why, but she's sworn by it ever since. The sweet scent reminded me of, well, everything about her. I found her box of reeds and her clarinet. Sometimes, I thought Caitlin loved her clarinet more than she loved me. Lost in thought, I bumped into a music stand and a pile of sheet music came crashing to the floor.

I picked up the pages and glanced at them. They were mostly clarinet etudes, but among them was an arrangement of World's End Dancehall for a trumpet/horn duet and a backing ensemble. I went on Twitter to distract myself, but what I saw disturbed me to my core.

Disability community, lend me your ears! We will wipe this stain "Caitlin Netherfield" from us with enough effort. 

Let her know what harm she has done to us! 

That's one less enemy we have to worry about.

We have victory! 

At the last one, I ran to the bathroom and vomited. These people had no idea what I--and many others--had lost through Caitlin's suicide. I ran my fingers over the details on the wedding dress, beautiful and understated like she was. It's often said that one never knows what they have until it's gone. What did these people have in Caitlin that is now gone? I went back to distracting myself since nothing in the fridge looked appetizing.

She may have been a stain, but you reek of cowardice. 

Hmm. What's this? *sniff sniff* It smells like a totally unjustified victim complex.

Way to promote empowerment for ALL disabled by driving one of your own into suicide and calling them an "enemy". *applause*

You fought a useless battle that shouldn't have been a thing in the first place.

Leave it to Mark to come up with the best comebacks. I wished I had that way with words, not only the effortless cadence of his speech, but his cleverness. I could not have thought of something quite so witty, especially under emotional duress.

Ever since Caitlin's death, the suicide plague at Mindcrack got worse and worse. Alex told me that, on one occasion, she found the bodies of several students littering the bathroom floor. She said they were mostly high schoolers. That told me several things: 1) SAT and ACT tests are coming. 2)  The students were most likely AP students. 3) They were probably juniors or seniors. 4) They thought that no one would care or notice if they were gone. 5) Something was off with regards to their mental health. Though I didn't really want to do anything, I went to Mindcrack to lead my students. In these tough times, they needed me more than ever.

Having survived an attempt previously, I found leading my band difficult. Strange dizzy feelings started washing over me, almost as if my head were vibrating. My middle schoolers were not getting the hang of balance, so I explained the pyramid of sound to them. Their pyramid of sound sounded more like a step pyramid, so I had tenor saxes to play out a bit more, the bass clarinet back off a bit, and flutes to fix some tuning issues. I felt very sick and shaky, probably because I never had breakfast, but I continued. The clarinets played, although one of them had a broken reed, they sounded fairly decent.

The trumpets came in with some fracking, but that was to be expected from young players learning what high notes are. I led them in some lip slurs and ignored my pounding headache. To add to that, percussion came in too loud. I had our snare drum player play with a lower stick height for now, mainly to preserve my sanity.

During the break, I went to pick up information on online days. I found a handwritten note stamped "Urgent" and sealed with a glitter sticker. I opened it to find this inside:

I can't take this anymore. I need you to take over the orchestra. 

How much could one day throw at me?