“Attention all Manchester Hall RA’s: There is a meeting at 8:45 — You have FIFTEEN MINUTES!!”
I hear from the PA system, a little confused as I push open the door to brush my teeth.
“Isn’t it weird that they are calling a meeting now?” Katona was saying.
“Wait, what are you talking about?” I say, jumping into the conversation.
“I heard that someone killed themselves over in Watterson last night at about 10 o’clock.”
“Who?”
“Dunno’…they found him last night though…”
“Suicide, you mean.”
“Yeah…”
“Are you serious?” Vanessa, another girl from my class says.
“Yeah,” Katona says, eyeing Vanessa.
“Do you know her?”
“I don’t know if it was a guy or a girl…”
“Oh.”
“And no, I don’t know her. Or him.”
After brushing my teeth, I go to my first class. I tell my friend whom I sit with in that class about that morning. Her being an RA, I’m surprised that she also didn’t have a meeting.
“Well, I have had classes all day today.” She says, and I am reassured.
There is only one person I know who lives in Watterson. It’s my coworker, Derek. I mean, surely he didn’t…You know?
I get to work at 10AM, and my boss tells me that there is a meeting. NOW. he tells me — upstairs. Everyone has to be there.
“Even the development team?” I say, grabbing up a clipboard with my todo list on it, in case Dean (my boss) wanted to revise what we are supposed to be doing.
“Yes.”
We get up there, and immediately I knew something was wrong. It was all of us, at the first meeting since the beginning of summer. Derek wasn’t there, and neither was Pete (another member of the Programming [Development] Team).
“I just thought I would bring you all here on a very important matter.” Dean says, looking like he wanted to take back what he was about to say. I look at Teresa, and her eyes have already filled with tears.
“It’s about Derek…” Dean says, letting the words hang in the air like lead.
“It was Derek who…??” I burst out suddenly, looking at Dean incredulously. I put two and two together fairly quickly, I would say.
“Derek killed himself over the weekend.” Dean deadpanned.
There was a counselor there, but most of us sat in silence, crying. I remember a lot of what the counselor said, about us feeling angry or upset at what Derek had done. He had killed himself on Sunday night, and he actually killed off his World of Warcraft character on Sunday as well.
Talk about symbolic.
I went to lunch with Teresa, and we talked about him. Somehow, it made it feel better.
“You know…” I begin, once we have sat down and ordered our food. “It is really a selfish act.”
“Yeah, I see what you mean,” Teresa says slowly, eating her chili.
“My question though, is Why?” I say, trailing out to look at all of the ISU students crammed into this one little restaurant-type thing.
“I think that is everyone’s question, though.” She says.
Now I’m sitting at work — Everyone from the Development Team has not come in today. It’s just me and Dean. Dean keeps on making calls to other people. I get random people coming up to me and giving me a hug, telling me that it will just take time.
I know it will, and although it wasn’t too hard on me because he was a coworker - he was still on my Team.
