The Jacket

Samuel didn’t leave a note.

He left his jacket, though, so that had to be enough. No one had to know that it wasn’t.
There was nothing special about the simple black jacket. It wasn’t lucky or stylish or signed by a movie star, but it was Samuel’s, and it was the only thing he left for us besides an empty room. Wearing it helped me pretend I was okay with him not leaving a note.

Samuel was my brother, and he was five years older than me and as far as I could remember, he had always looked exactly the same. Almost baby-faced, but very tall and very thin. He was pale, but the sickly kind. His eyes were a dull green with little specks of blue spread out throughout them. His hair was orange, faded like an old picture.

That’s how he used to look, anyway. When he got the jacket, it was like he’d crawled out of his skin, all muscle and bone, and stolen a new body. His hair was brighter, and the little blue specks seemed to have multiplied. His white skin perked up with color, like it was happy to be there. He’d always been insecure, but wearing the jacket, his face shone with a confident excitement that I’d never seen on him.

Samuel loved the jacket. He said he wore it because he was always cold, which was true, but a lie. He was depressed, and somehow, the jacket helped.
But it couldn’t help forever. It helped for a while, but it couldn’t do it forever.
---
Five years later, I found the jacket was hanging on my doorknob, and Samuel’s door was closed. I picked it up and walked in his room. I thought that maybe he was playing a prank on me. I thought I would find him at his desk, drawing. He always woke up earlier than anyone.
Instead, I found him hanging from the ceiling fan, a cable around his neck.
I don’t remember what I did after that. I know I screamed.
---
Four years later was my first day of college, and there, I saw my brother again – and by my brother, I meant someone exactly like him.
Not physically, of course, because this man had very dark hair and very dark eyes, but his eyes were the same. They had the same specks of blue, and there was a kind of sadness in them; that sad, lonely look, that little glimmer of a reflection of a reflection you could barely see. His face was an imperfect mask of excitement. He looked insecure, like he was displeased with himself, like his skeleton wanted to live somewhere new. He was Samuel. Everything; the eyes, the face, the emotion, the posture, everything was Samuel. Every part of him was the same.
That was why I hated him. He was Samuel, with the same sad eyes, but he was still alive. I hated him for being allowed to live while my brother had to die.
A part of me wanted him to die.
---
I met him, properly, once, a few weeks after I saw him. I’d learned through the grapevine that his name was Matthew.
My roommate was throwing a party. I was there, but only because he was my roommate. Someone bumped into me – not on purpose, and not hard.
“Sorry,” he said, and I turned around.
It was him, and his eyes looked very blue. He didn’t look surprised that it was me. He looked like he was about to laugh, and I could tell just from his face that he hated me, too. For a moment, I forgot my anger, because he looked so utterly empty I couldn’t believe it. He had no emotion, and all I could see was Samuel, looking like all was lost.
Wait, I wanted to say, but like that, he was gone.
---
The next day, he wasn’t in class.
The day after, he wasn’t in class.
I didn’t know why I was so worried about him.
I hated him, didn’t I? I hated everything.
---
I saw him through a window, three days after I wanted to say Wait. He was outside, walking away. I followed him, because I knew from his eyes that he wanted to die.
I hadn’t been following him for long when he stopped by a lake. He was staring into it like it held the answer to his existence. He turned around when I got close.
“Why aren’t you wearing a jacket?” I asked him, like we were friends, like I never hated him. He made a face, but he still looked empty, like a ghost.
“I thought you hated me. Why are you here?”
I wasn’t surprised that he knew. I decided to jump right to the point.
“I why do you want to kill yourself?” I asked. His eyes widened.
“What?”
For a moment I worried that I was wrong. But I couldn’t have been. I’d seen his eyes.
“Do you think I’m some kind of idiot? That I just go around and accuse people of being suicidal? I know what I’m talking about.”
He crossed his arms over his chest.
“Okay. You think you’re some kind of genius.”
“My brother killed himself.”
Why did you say that?
I hated the guy. I didn’t know him. And yet, I was desperate to save him.
He flinched, like the statement has caused him physical pain.
“Oh,” was all he said. His expression was blank.
“I don’t want it to happen to you.”
“I thought you hated me,” he said.
I shrugged. “I thought so, too.”
He found that funny, and laughed.
“I’m Matt,” he said.
“Pat.”
He smiled, and it was almost real. “Can I call you Patrick?”
The name cut me like a knife. Samuel had been the only person to call me that. When the name left his mouth, I almost went back to wishing he was dead.
“If you ever call me Patrick I will throw you in this lake.”
He laughed. And there it was; an actual smile. It was one of the best things I’d seen in a while.
---
We weren’t friends. I still hated him because he was Samuel and Samuel wasn’t alive, and yet it was because of that I wanted to save him. I don’t know why he let me.
I followed him outside again. It was another harsh winter.
I wasn’t wearing the jacket that day.
I found him by the lake, staring into it like it held all the answers.
He turned around when I got close.
“Why aren’t you wearing a jacket?” I asked him, almost like a joke. He looked at me like I was crazy.
“I could ask you the same thing,” he said, nodding at the jacket draped over my arm. I looked at it like it held all the answers, because for the longest time it did. I laughed.
“I could ask me that, too.”
It was clear that he wasn’t going to say anything else. He was waiting for my explanation.
“I guess I’m trying something new.”
Something changed in his eyes. There was a slight spark of empty blue, and he looked away.
“Why did you follow me?” he asked. “Before. The first time. Why’d you do it?”
I didn’t have an answer. I wanted to save him, but for some reason, I couldn’t find any of the words I didn’t want to use. I just looked at him, until he looked away.
“Put your jacket on,” he said quietly, like he’d just been betrayed. Maybe he had.
I didn’t. I waited for him, and we walked away together.
---
I didn’t hate Matt anymore. He was my best friend, and I told him so when I gave him the jacket, but I couldn’t tell him what it meant to me or else he wouldn’t take it.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked.
“You’re my best friend,” I told him. I smiled. “And I don’t hate you enough to want you to die.”
The jacket looked much better on him than it did me. It was like when Samuel got it – he was renewed. His dark hair was darker, his dark eyes were bluer, and his pale skin was brighter. He looked like a person. I’d never realized before how much he looked like a corpse.
Things were good for a while. His eyes stayed bluer and his smile stayed wide.
---
Two years later, Matt’s sister called me on the phone. She was wailing.
I knew what it meant.
Matthew didn’t leave a note, but he wrote “Sorry” on the wall.
That would have to be enough. No one had to know that it wasn’t.
One day, I asked her about the jacket. I wanted it back, but I didn’t want to wear it anymore.
He didn’t leave that, either.
I tried to hate him, but I couldn’t.