I changed that day.
Everything I had been before June twenty-ninth was wiped clean. When I lay down beside Willow, it was as if she took my pain; she took my burdens.
I felt it pressing on me. I knew I would share, but before I did, I needed to make sure Naomi understood.
I murmured again, “She never said anything. Not about that.”
She scooted even closer. “But you are talking. You are saying something.”
Yeah . . .
“I’m fine,” I told her.
“No, I know—”
She didn’t. I had to make sure she did. “Willow died, and I lived. I laugh. I love. I feel happiness, but this year was so hard. I wanted to be with her at times, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. I had Robbie depending on me. My parents needed me. And I have Ryan. I love him, and I know we’ll be fine. We’ll be happy. I mean, yeah, we’ll have problems, and we’ll struggle. Everyone does. Every relationship has ups and down, but we’ll be fine. I’ll be fine.”
“I know.” But she still frowned, struggling to figure out what I was telling her.
“I’m not arguing with you about what Willow felt. I know she was hurting. I just didn’t know how much she was hurting, and I wish—”
My voice broke. It went back to not working, and I had to wait a moment. One breath, two, three, and then I could speak again. “I wish I had seen more than I had. I wish I had talked to her, but I was wrapped up in myself. I could only see what I was dealing with, and I never thought—”
My voice stopped again. I had to wait longer this time. Thirty seconds, and then, I tried again. “It wasn’t supposed to be her. I wasn’t supposed to be the one to go on and shine. That was always her role.” I repeated again, “She never talked. I am talking now.”
Naomi sat up, a look of horror on her face, but I grabbed her hands before she could sit back in her seat, and I finally told her what I’d been hiding from everyone else.
“I don’t know how she found it. I don’t know why she had it with her, but she didn’t write that note. I didn’t read Willow’s suicide note because it wasn’t hers.” I let go of Naomi’s hands and sat back, finally, finally feeling some peace as I shared my last secret.
“It was mine.”
Dear Reader
I have never written a book that changed me.
There were books in my past that changed a part of my life, where they moved my career forward, etc. That’s happened. I’ve had books be so loved by readers, and I’ve also written books that seemed like a grimace, but I’m always proud of every single novel I write. I grew or learned some lesson with each one.
But Ryan’s Bed is different.
I began writing Mackenzie’s story when I would travel for book signings, and I think there’s something so lonely about hotel rooms that it crept into me and then through Mackenzie. I remember writing some chapters and thinking in the back of my head, “Where am I going with this? What am I doing?” And that’s how I felt for the first eight chapters, but I didn’t want to take the book into a path that I didn’t feel was right. I didn’t want to be careless with this book because there was something more with Mackenzie and Willow.
I’m glad I waited.
When I started writing it again, I felt Willow wanting a voice and I don’t know if she would’ve had one in the beginning if I just pushed through. And then as the book started to unfold, I heard Ryan’s voice more and more and then his storyline unfolded too.
This book was so hard to write, not in the way where I felt like I was taking a chainsaw to a glacier, but in the way where I cried almost every time I wrote it or worked on it.
A friend talked to me about how taboo suicide is, and how teen suicide is even more so, and that conversation really affected me. I agonized over if I should dare write this book. I thought about parents I know who lost a child, friends I know who lost their siblings to suicide, and even the ones I know who have gone. And when I really considered putting it aside, telling people it was abandoned, I couldn’t do that. I honestly couldn’t. I felt a huge cry inside of me that it was wrong to shove this book back down and ignore it.
I even talked to friends about writing Ryan’s Bed. I remember having conversations saying that I didn’t know what I was going to do with the book, if I would just finish it for myself and not publish it. I was that scared to write this one and publish it, but I kept writing it because there was something in Mackenzie that wanted out.
I know, I know. If you’re not a writer or an artist, you may not understand this and it makes me look crazy, but I kept writing this book because I had to. That’s the ultimate truth. I felt it was more wrong not to finish it so I started writing it again.
I wanted to respect Willow. I wanted to respect the loss Mackenzie had about losing her twin. I wanted to respect grief itself, acknowledge it, and not have it shoved under a rug. I wanted to write about Mackenzie’s relationship with Ryan, but I also wanted to focus on Mackenzie herself.
I always felt something dark with her, something that she was hiding from, even herself. It drove me nuts, trying to figure out what I was feeling from her, until I realized what it was. And even when I did, I was still so scared to address it in this book. If you’ve read any of my books before, you know that I’m not someone who will shy away from the real issue. I usually go head first into it, exposing it and making you, the reader, sit with it. I wanted to do that with Mackenzie, but I wanted to do it in a different way so if you’ve stayed with me this whole time, I hope this book will make you think, and I hope this book will sit with you because that’s what it’s done for me.
No sequel is planned and I left the ending how it is because I hope it will make you think. I hope it will make you reread the book, but see it in an almost totally different way.
Out of all the books I’ve written, this is the only one that has changed me as a person.
Sincerely,
Tijan
Links & Resources
https://www.crisistextline.org/
Text 741741 from anywhere in the USA to text with a trained Crisis Counselor.
https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org
Call 1-800-273-8255 or if you go on their website, you can chat online.
For more facts about suicide prevention and warning signals,
go to http://www.211bigbend.org/nationalsuicidepreventionlifeline
or call 1-800-273-TALK
Also by Willow Winters
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