Last night just after 12:30pm, a good two hours after I had fallen asleep, I was awaken by the ringing of my cell phone. Now I am not sure about you guys, but when my phone rings in the middle of the night, my brain instantly thinks EMERGENCY. Simeon jumped out of bed and ran downstairs to where our cell phones are plugged in, just in time for the caller to hang up. Simeon said it was Darcie, my little sister. He instinctually tried to call her back and didn’t get through. So we waited several minutes to see if she was leaving me a voicemail and then tried to call her again. Still no answer. I am now wide awake and envisioning my sister seriously injured, trying to get help and in calling me, failed to contact anyone. My heart started pounding, my mind was racing. Do I call my mom, who at least lives in the same town as my sister, to drive over and check on her? Do I call 911? Do I just sit and wait to see if my phone will ring again?

I finally decided to lay back down in bed, but set my cell phone on my nightstand in case she called back. Minutes later my phone lit up and rang again. I sat straight up in bed and answered the phone:

“Hello?!?”
Silence.

“Darcie? Are you there?”

Through the static I could barely make out: “Carrie?”
My sister sounded like she had been crying.

“Darcie are you ok?”

She sniffed. She had obviously been crying. “I’m ok. I just wanted to tell you….” Her phone cut out and all I could hear was the word “DIED.”

“What did you say? Your phone keeps cutting out. Who died?!?”

I made out something that sounded like “John.”

“John? Who is John?”
My brain was frantically thinking of every John I know and I was coming up with nothing.

“No. GERON. He died.”

Geron. I hadn’t heard that name in at least six years. My mind flashed over hundreds of memories from middle school and high school. Geron was a guy I dated. My friend Leslie and I went back and forth over which one of us liked him more. There were many a lunch hour spent in the bathroom crying over Geron.

“Geron died? Where are you? Stop moving your phone keeps cutting out!”

“I’m in Seaside. I’m at a bar and I’m NOT moving.”

“So are you ok? What happened?”

“I don’t know. Some people here just told me and I thought I should call you. Something about the bridge.”
“The bridge? Which bridge?”

I started picturing all the bridges in Seaside. But this didn’t make any sense. All the bridges in Seaside are tiny and I couldn’t imagine how a bridge would kill anyone.

“In Astoria. I don’t know. They think he killed himself.”

The words rang out in my ears. I heard her talking but I couldn’t make sense of it anymore. Why would anyone that I know kill themself? We are 24 FUCKING years old. What could possibly have happened that was so terrible that someone would want to kill themselves?

“I’m sorry Care. I don’t know anything more. All I know is he is dead.”

“Ok. Thanks for calling. Let me know if you find out anything more.”

The line went quiet. The call was lost. I looked over at the clock and it was almost 1am. How the hell was I suppose to fall asleep after that? I told Simeon what Darcie has just told me and he laid down to go back to sleep. I stared at the clock. Moments later I could hear Simeon sleeping. My brain started sorting through all the people in my class who have died. For as young as I am, the handful I could think of are far too many. At this point, I don’t know how I feel about things. I am angry, confused, sad, and mostly just stunned.

Happy fucking Monday everyone.