Tomi could hear the silence in the background. This was unusual. There was usually someone screaming and fighting in the background when she and her friend talked on the phone.
They had been best friends ever since Harley had moved to the small southern Georgia town two years ago. They had met on her first day in the tiny high school.
Immediately they saw the differences in their up-bringing. Tomi had always lived in the same small town. Her home life was happy: family meals, outings together with the family, and never a harsh word between her parents. The model family of four: her housewife mother, lawyer father, the inevitable pesky little brother, and herself.
Harley grew up in the rough part of a big city. An only child, her natural parents had divorced right after she was born.
She had seen the many boyfriends that her mother, a nurse, had gone though. Finally, her mother met Rane, a laid-off factory worker. Harley had hoped things would settle down. He had blinded them both with a vision of glory with his flaunting of the money he had inherited.
Then the fighting started right after the wedding. Rane and her mother had been married two months after they met. Two weeks later, the first clash had erupted. Their quarrels got worse as time progressed. Then she had been dragged in. At first she tried to pretend nothing was going on. Even when the teachers started seeing the bruises on her arms and face, she still tried to deny anything unusual.
Rane would cuff her for being slow and lazy. She could never please him. This always happened when her mother was out working to support them. Harley made sure that she never saw the marks or heard her crying in the night.
Their fighting continued to increase and as it did, Harley began to try to stop them. At first she succeeded, but it always started back.
As the warring got worse, so did Rane's abuse of her. But now instead of just hitting her, he started to touch her. At first she fought him, but that always ended in his beating her. To avoid being hurt, she quit trying to fight him. As soon as he would leave her alone, she would run to the bathroom and throw up. As this cycle continued, he became more insistent. Finally he raped her.
Even now, Harley didn't tell her mother. She couldn't. There was no way she could put the horror into words. As the assaults continued, she gave up hope.
Suicide? It started to seem like the only answer.
To die at fourteen. So much that lay ahead.
Harley couldn't see past this into the future that lay before her. All she could see was the next beating or the next time he raped her.
Running away? No, she was too afraid of the outside world.
Retreating into herself, she started to eat less and lock herself in her room with the music blaring. She kept a packet of razor blades under her mattress. She even had a bottle of her mother's old sleeping pills hidden in the nightstand beside her bed. She read books about suicide, trying to find the easiest way.
Then the news came. They were moving.
For about a month, in the excitement of packing and moving, the fighting and abuse stopped. The only squabbles now were over the job at hand. The only reason Harley could get for the move was that Rane had said they should. This was enough. She knew that one of her teachers had probably called about her grades and mentioned the marks on her body. It would have been enough to scare Rane into moving.
Cutter was a tiny town in south Georgia. They moved into a modest house on its outskirts. There were no neighbors near by. Things stayed pretty calm for a week or so after they arrived; then everything began again, worse this time. Rane began to try to hurt her more and more every time he forced her.
Three weeks after they arrived, Harley started school at Cutter High. There she met Tomi Cutter. A hundred or so years before, the Cutter family had founded Cutter.
She and Tomi hit it off at the very first second. Never being a shy person, Tomi had walked up and introduced herself.
Within months, they were best friends. By the end of the first year, Tomi knew almost everything that had happened to Harley. She had been sworn to secrecy, and at fifteen, the best thing you could do for a friend was keep her secrets. Or so they thought, until...
The only thing Harley hadn't told Tomi about was her thoughts of suicide.
One evening, it all happened. Rane had just begun to start messing with her. Her mother had left for work about an hour before.
In the back bedroom, Rane was lying on top of her when she heard the front door open. Hearing her mother call out to her, she started to scream. The bedroom door flew open as the woman rushed in.
At the first sound, Rane moved quickly off the bed. Still clothed, he looked at the naked Harley in a shocked manner.
"Mama. Help me! You see now what he's been doing?" Harley sobbed.
"Rane?! What in the devil is going on here? Harley!"
"Kate, I was just sitting in the living room when I heard Harley call me to come back here. When I got to the door, she was lying here like this. She told me to come take her. Said that she wanted me."
"Harley? What happened here? Don't lie to me."
"Mama. He's lying. He's been doing this to me for over three years. Please, help me. Make him quit." Harley broke down into sobs again.
"Yeah, right!" Rane sneered, "Three years, yeah, she's been trying to seduce me for about that long. Now she pulls this stunt. Thank goodness that you happened to walk in. I swear I never touched the girl!"
Kate was too furious to think clearly about what was going on. Her husband's words put things clearly into perspective. She had seen the moves that Harley had.
Looking into her mother's face, Harley hoped for a glimmer of compassion through the mask of hate she saw.
"Get out! Get out of my house!" Her mother suddenly screamed. Pointing at her, she screamed again, "Get up and get your clothes. I want you out of here."
"But Mama, he's lying. Please, listen." She couldn't believe what was happening. How could her own mother turn against her at this liar's words?
Jumping up she ran from the room. Slamming her bedroom door, she threw on some clothes. Falling blindly onto the bed, she flinched as the front door slammed. Suddenly there was a knock at her door. Not moving, she heard Rane's voice coming through to her.
"Finally. I won't have to try and keep you in line anymore. Harley, honey, you know that everything that has happened these last few years has been your fault. You know that, so remember it." He laughed as he walked away.
Lying in the middle of her bed, Harley heard his words. Had everything really been her fault? It seemed that way. Maybe she had just gotten what was coming to her. Maybe?
Still in a haze of hurt and bewilderment, she managed to clear her head enough to throw some clothes in a bag. Not bothering with unlocking the bedroom door, she let up the window and quietly slipped out into the cool night.
Tomi's? No, she couldn't. She knew what she had to do. She knew... There was no other way.
Even in her state of mind, she had remembered to bring the bottle of tranquilizers with her.
Walking, alone, through the silent town, she thought about what to do. Tired from her walking and from her tears, she dropped down on the floor of the town's only phone booth. Sitting there, she occasionally looked up at the telephone. Call Tomi? No. It wasn't right to bother her, especially not in the middle of the night.
Holding the bottle in her hand, she shook the little red pills around inside it. She knew that enough of them would let her drop off to sleep and never wake up. She was a small built girl, so it shouldn't take many.
With the top off, she poured them into her hand and counted them. Twenty. Surely that many would do it. It felt so right to be thinking about it.
She couldn't go back home.
Harley placed the first in her mouth. She had always known that her trick of being able to swallow medicine without water would come in handy.
"Tomi probably doesn't really care what happens to me." She thought as she swallowed the second.
A different thought crossed her mind as she swallowed each successive pill.
After about ten, she put the rest in her mouth and swallowed as many as she could with each try.
In a few minutes, her eyelids started to droop. "Call Tomi!" Suddenly flashed through her foggy mind. "Call her. Tell her what you've done!"
Swaying, Harley rose to her feet and managed to fumble a quarter out of her pocket and into the phone.
"Hello?" Mrs. Cutter's sleepy voice answered.
"Tomi..." Harley's voice was badly slurred.
"Who is this?"
"Harley. Need Tomi." She barely managed to say the words.
"Harley! Harley! What's wrong?" Mrs. Cutter was wide-awake. Turning, she shook her husband roughly. "James! Wake up! Get Tomi! Tell her something's wrong with Harley. Hurry!"
Jumping at his wife's words, he quickly ran to get his daughter.
"Harley! Talk to me! Where are you?" Mrs. Cutter continued shout into the phone.
"Mom! What is it?" Tomi came running into the room. Frantic, she didn't wait for a reply, but grabbed the phone. "Harley! Harley! It's me, Tomi! Talk to me."
"Tomi. I did it." Harley was losing touch.
"What? You did what?" Tomi could hear the silence in the background. This was unusual. There was usually someone screaming and fighting in the background when she and her friend talked on the phone.
"It's over. It's all over."
"What? Tell me what's wrong."
"I swallowed them all..."
"What? What did you swallow? Harley, please talk to me! Where are you?"
"Sleep..." Harley's grasp on the phone was slipping. "Gotta go... sleep." The phone clattered against the wall above her as she let go and slid to the floor.
"Harley! Harley! Please, Harley!" Tomi suddenly felt it. She knew where her friend was. In her mind, she saw the phone booth. She felt the floating. In seemed as though she were soaring through the air. "Peace... Freedom..." Echoed through her mind. The haze...
"The phone booth!" She screamed. "That's where she is!"
"How do you know?" Her mother grabbed her shoulders.
"I just do." Tomi pulled away and ran for the door. "Come on!"
"You go James! I'll call the ambulance."
Turning the corner onto the square, they both saw that Tomi was right. Harley was indeed in the phone booth.
Jumping out of the car, Tomi was beside her friend even before the car had completely stopped behind her. Her father was at her side in seconds.
With Harley in her arms, Tomi screamed her friend's name as she saw her eyes flicker open then close again. "Harley! Look at me! Don't close your eyes! Please, don't close your eyes!"
Her father knelt beside them. He saw the empty bottle next to the girls. Picking it up, he read the label. He didn't know much about medicine, but he did know that it was a tranquilizer. The prescription was for twenty-five pills. He wished they knew how many had been in the bottle. Not many he prayed.
It seemed like hours that they sat there waiting for the ambulance to arrive.
"Harley! Harley!" She heard her name being called in the distance. Looking around, she couldn't seem to find the source. As she floated, she could see the ground below.
There was the trail that she and her mother had hiked that day ten years before. And over there, that was her mother's flower bed. But now, there was Rane, digging it up, saying that there was no need in such things. Floating on, she saw Tomi. And there was she herself, standing arm in arm beside her. They were waiting outside the doors at their first concert. She remembered the fun they had that night. She thought of their excitement. Wistful, she wished they could go back. That song... "Coast to Coast"... that was the song they had both treasured. They loved the words. One particular part came to her now. "But you know in your heart, you're not alone..."
There below her, she saw Tomi again, but what was she doing. She's crying. Who's that with her? Hey, that's me. What am I doing lying there like that? Oh yeah, the pills.
Tomi was crying as she screamed the name. "Harley! Harley! Please. Look at me. Don't close your eyes!"
She's calling me. I better go to her. She's calling...
Hugging Harley to her, she pleaded with her. "Harley! Please, answer me! We're sisters! You can't leave me! I love you. Please, Harley!"
She said she loves me. I gotta try. I can't leave. Wait... what's that over there? It looks like a cliff. Gently she descended to the ground. Walking toward the edge, Harley heard her name being called from behind. Turning, she saw Tomi. As she watched, she heard her friend's pleas. She saw the outstretched hand and the tear streaked face. She turned back to look at the edge of the cliff. Then back to her friend. One step toward the edge. Stop! You can't leave Tomi. Her eyes turned back to her friend. Behind herself there was nothing, but behind Tomi stood the whole world. Now was the choice. Harley knew that over that edge there lay nothing. And there was no turning back either way she went.
After Harley was loaded into the ambulance, Tomi asked to ride in the back with her. She knew she couldn't leave her now, not after what had happened just before the paramedics' arrival.
As she had cried and called for her friend, she had had the sensation of standing close to edge of a cliff. In front of her had stood Harley and beyond was the edge of the cliff. She had held out her hand and called to her friend. In a moment of what seemed to be indecision, Harley had stepped toward the cliff, then turned back and slowly walked toward her. As their hands touched...
Lying there on the floor of the phone booth, Harley had opened her eyes. "Tomi, my sister, I made my choice."
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