Suicide, Skittles and Skates [✓]

Chapter 19

CHAPTER NINETEEN

"At least it's got Dora on it!" Alex grinned teasingly at Kalila.

She rolled her eyes and laughed, pulling the sleeves of her grey butterfly cardigan down to cover the small Dora the Explorer bandage on her wrist. It was Boxing Day and they had met up at Alex's flat to continue with their art project, Kalila getting a rather large paper-cut in the process.

Alex scrutinised all the paintings they had completed so far which were spread out on the wooden floor of his living room. Although they were all pretty good – there was no way they couldn't be with her talent – they seemed a little random.

From the very beginning they were intended to represent different reasons for him not to kill himself the day they met. However, nobody else would know that by seeing them and therefore they wouldn't be able to see the beauty of the artwork or how much they had come to mean to him.

Kalila listened carefully as Alex told her of his thoughts. Trying to refrain from shuddering at the word suicide, she nodded her head.

"You're right, we need to make it known that these are meant to be reasons not to die but I dunno how we can do that...?" she trailed off deep in thought as he smiled slightly in agreement.

He sat up suddenly, grinning, an idea in mind. It was so simple that he couldn't understand why they hadn't thought of it before. "How about just having a title at the top and labelling each picture? That way it won't be so obvious it's about me," he asked, a little unsure.

Kalila's eyebrows furrowed a little as she tried to imagine it, her smile widening as more ideas began to come to mind. "Photo frames!" she burst out in excitement.

Alex just blinked. "You've lost me," he said, head tilted to the side in confusion. She laughed and ripped out an empty page from a random maths notebook that was sticking out from under Alex's sofa. Grabbing hold of that infamous lime pen, she began to illustrate her idea, carefully choosing the positioning of the paintings in order of their importance.

Alex jumped up while she was doing that and went towards his bedroom, his heart racing slightly in anticipation of what he was about to do but knowing it should be done anyway. He closed the door gently with the back of his heel as he reached for a huge cardboard box under the very back of his bed.

He had heard of some mothers not being able to step foot into their children's room after their deaths, not even to clean it. Almost as though the presence of the ghosts of their child would be there. He didn't have a bedroom of his sisters he couldn't make himself enter since he now lived alone but he did have this box.

Gingerly peeling off the sparkly purple tape, he pulled the flaps open. Layers and layers of small items and objects that had meant a lot to Alice – and subsequently him also – were piled in there. Tiny stocking sized gifts to her from the last Christmas they had with their parents, the silver infinity sign necklace she had worn everyday wrapped carefully in her favourite scarf, birthday cards to and from her, the cake stand she had make with antique plates and teacups as well as loads of photos of everyone that meant a lot to the two of them. At the very bottom was what he was looking for though; the large, different sized, vintage styled photo frames she had brought for a craft project.

The one she never had a chance to start.

About a month ago he wouldn't have dared to go near that box, never mind open it to take something out for himself to use. 'What's changed now though?' he thought to himself as he taped the box back up – this time with white tape covered in cartoon ice-creams that he had found inside it.

He almost laughed out loud at that stupid thought, it had been Kalila of course. Slowly, she had begun to show him that it was okay to think of Alice without feeling depressed, to remember all the good times and the things he knew his sister would have wanted. Like using these frames for something useful instead of preserving her things for years and years as though they were sacred.