Jennifer's Body
Daniel Lutz At first, I thought Jennifer was the happiest girl I’ve ever known. No matter what was going on in her life, and there usually was something going on, she always seemed to want to go out of her way to let those around her know that she was just peachy. In the two years I knew her, I never once saw her in a less-than-pleasant mood. Her family moved to the town I lived in from upstate New York during the summer before our junior year. Somehow, she seemed to make friends with the majority of our class before school ever started, so much so that by first-day orientation, she blended in perfectly with the group of coolest kids. Due to its small size, about fifty students, my grade didn’t have high-school cliques in the traditional sense. There was the elite group of “cool” kids, roughly fifteen or so football players, cheerleaders, and the rest of the stereotypes you’d expect to see. Then, the rest of us were just a huge mishmash of around thirty middle-of-the-roaders. Jennifer somehow worked her way into the group of cool kids, which, looking back, wasn’t as great of a thing as we thought it was back then. It was surprising that she was so well-accepted considering she wasn’t rich, she didn’t play any sports, and the few of us who got to know who she really was found that she was really a bit of a weirdo (I mean this in the best possible way). She was walking proof that a good attitude and confidence can get you anything you want in this world. She was a beautiful girl, but not in the traditional sense. She had dirty blonde hair that she kept extremely short. She had one of those haircuts where it was obvious she worked on it for hours to make it look like she hadn’t worked on it at all. Not many people have the nerve to wear their hair like that, and the few that try usually fail. But, it worked perfectly for her. She was by no means ugly, but not what society would deem “gorgeous.” If you passed her on the street, you probably wouldn’t glance twice at her. But, to me, she was perfect. I didn’t really notice her until a month or two into school. Naturally, I’d see her between classes, at lunch, and in the parking lot, but at that point, to my feeble adolescent mind, she was nothing more than The New Girl. Added to that, I’m a rather introverted person, not really shy, just not overly anxious to go out and talk to every person I possibly can. Then, one day, walking out of the lunchroom, she walked up to me, stood in front of me and smiled. “ You’ve got really girly eyelashes,” she said to me. “ Um… thanks?” I said. “ They’re cute,” she said, smiled at me again, then walked away. And that was it. To anyone else it wouldn’t mean anything, but it stuck with me for some reason. I had developed an unbelievably low self-esteem in middle school that carried over and pretty much ruled over every aspect of my life up to that point. To have this girl go out of her way to give me a compliment lifted me more than anything had in the past few years. We didn’t talk again for months. Eventually, I built that moment up so much in my head that I didn’t want to ruin it by trying to take things further and having her reject me. So, I watched her from a distance: the closer you get to the fire, the more likely you are to get burned. That was, until one night in late April. Everyone was getting ready for the prom and literally everyone in the class was going except for me. And, just in case I decided to try and forget this fact for five minutes, the junior class is required to plan and decorate for the prom, so every day after school for the two weeks before prom, I was forced to work on the very thing that was making me an emotional wreck. Naturally, I tried to pretend like I didn’t care, like I was too cool for the prom, anyway. But, the truth is, deep down inside, I wanted to go, I was just too scared to ask anyone. I was convinced anyone I asked would laugh in my face. There was a tradition that the night before the prom, the juniors had a party to celebrate finishing the decoration. Needless to say, I wasn’t exactly in the partying mood, but I went to the party anyway. Contrary to what I thought then, looking back I see that I really did have a lot of friends, and they all forced me to go out that night. While everyone sat around, talking about spring break, shotgunning beers, and of course talking about the prom, I just sat in the corner, listening. After a few hours, I was tired of the entire situation, so I got up, said my goodbyes, and left, feeling, and probably acting, dejected. As I walked down the driveway of the house I was at, a voice called me back, a voice I knew well even though it had only spoken to me once. I turned to see Jennifer standing before me, looking into my eyes. Then, without saying a word, she leaned in, kissed me, and walked away, leaving me there alone. No words were spoken, yet we both knew what each other was thinking. The whole thing took no longer than thirty seconds, but it’s been etched into my brain as the turning point of my life. I wish I’d thanked her that night. The rest of that year went by uneventfully and summer came and went as quickly as it always does. However, once we began school again, Jennifer was different. She was much more quiet, a lot less outgoing. I never really noticed, though, because as she became more distant to the rest of the world, she became closer to me. We used to hang out between classes, at lunch, after school, whenever. Most people probably thought we were a couple, but it was more complicated than that. Our relationship was never a physical one, but we were probably closer than any other dating couple at our school. She seemed to complete me, as corny as that is. Summer passed quickly, as they always do, and school began again. The majority of my class was wrapped up in the excitement of the fact that it was our senior year. I didn’t really see what the big deal was, personally, it wasn’t like we got some sort of special treatment. Classes still sucked, the teachers were still jerks, nothing changed. Nothing, that is, except for Jennifer. The first thing I noticed about her was how quiet she’d become. The thing that I initially noticed about her when we first met was how outgoing she was, but now she hardly said anything. Eventually, I found out that her father had died of a sudden heart attack over the summer. I knew her parents were divorced and that she didn’t have a good relationship with her mother, so she was really close to her father. I guess it made sense that she’d become more introverted. As the year progressed, things got worse. By Christmas she had been skipping class, suspended twice for cheating, and between classes and during lunch, I didn’t see her at all. Of course I tried to help her out, but she’d always assure me that it was no big deal, not to worry about it. But I did. It was scary to see someone who I considered a good friend change so drastically so quickly. When she started losing weight, I never really noticed, but I knew it was a major thing once her eyes started to lose that flair that had captivated me. The bright blue hue somehow seemed to dull. After a while it seemed like her eyes were seeing things that nobody else did and they were really horrible things. Somehow, even through all this, by the end of the year she had pulled out a C average and graduated with the rest of us. She was, however, the only student in the entire class to not have any plans for the future. As is the tradition, there was a big party after graduation. I spent the majority of the night shaking hands and exchanging hugs, saying congratulations, the usual graduation stuff. Around ten o’clock, Jennifer arrived at the party accompanied by Anna Stapleton, who I’m sure forced her to go. Jennifer definitely looked like she didn’t want to be there. A few people came up and gave her hugs, most people turned around and talked about all the rumors that had been going around about her: she’s a devil-worshipper, she’s on drugs, she’s a lesbian, typical high school crap. I went up and talked to her for a while, but it didn’t feel like I was even talking to the same person. Nothing about her felt familiar anymore. But, we talked, and she seemed to be in better spirits, actually talking about going to college and stuff like that. After about an hour, she said she was going to go “mingle” a little. She promised that we’d get together over the summer and left. Around 1:00, I was inside, playing a game of pool. By this point, I had drunk quite a bit, so the next hour or so was more or less a blur. I remember hearing someone mention something about something going on outside, then three or four people followed him out of the room. I figured it was just another fight or something (fights were really common at parties in my town). Then someone else came into the house, clearly freaking out, and in a shaky voice yelled out a phrase that blasted me out of my haze. “ Someone call an ambulance… Now!” I don’t know how I knew, but I was certain right away that something had happened to Jennifer. I ran into the backyard to find everyone looking to my right. All the cool kids from the inner circle were standing around over by the side of the house. I walked over to see what was going on. As I walked over, I noticed an arm before I could see anything else. A dark stream of dried blood ran down from the crook of the elbow to the palm of the hand, where it had pooled and dried. A syringe was stuck into the source of the blood, the plunger depressed. As a couple of people cleared out of the way, I saw Jennifer’s face staring at my feet. She looked more peaceful than I had seen her in a long time. I thought it looked like she was smiling, but I somehow doubt it. She was curled up in a fetal position beneath a large hedge, shielded from the world she had grown to hate. I remember thinking, if this were a movie, Jeff Buckley’s “Last Goodbye” would be playing from someone’s stereo right now, and everyone would be turning away and crying. But it was nothing like that. There was total silence, and not a single person was crying. In fact, no one was doing anything. We all just stood there, staring at her. For the final time, Jennifer was the center of attention again. The ambulance arrived at 1:23. The two EMT’s immediately began asking questions of those of us who had not left. Does anybody know what happened? When was the last time anybody saw her? Do you know what she took? None of us knew the answers to these questions and never would. Jennifer was pronounced dead at 1:39 AM on June 1st, 2001. The entire inner circle attended the funeral, and we had a memorial service for her at school. For months afterwards I went back to all the times she was dropping huge hints that this was coming, which I completely ignored. To this day, I know if I had listened to her a little closer, I could have prevented this. But there’s nothing I can do about it now. In the end, Jennifer somehow changed my life, despite the fact that I hardly knew anything about her. Nowadays, whenever I start to get upset or angry about anything, I just think about her face smiling at me from across the classroom, full of life and joy. She more or less saved me as she was letting herself go. However, sometimes in the middle of the night I catch a glimpse of her face that night, buried in the soft grass with that creepy smile. And the thing that haunts me more than anything else was a conversation I overheard between the EMT’s. As they examined her body, one EMT asked, “what do we got here?” The other looked at him, and without even trying to hide his voice from us, said three words that haunt me to this day. “ Ah, you know, just another overdose.” Just another overdose. |