All the Bright Places

Obligatory family meals suck, especially when meat and
denial are involved. “I feel we can’t go through another of those terrible
times.” Especially when there is so much else to do
. The quote is from
Virginia Woolf’s suicide note to her husband, but I think it fits the occasion.
I send the message and wait around the computer, organizing the pills into
groups of three, then ten, when really I’m hoping for something from Violet. I
work at banging the license plate flat again, scribble down 
Another of those
terrible times,
and add it to the wall of my room, which is already covered in
notes just like this. The wall has various names: Wall of Thoughts, Wall of
Ideas, Wall of My Mind, or just The Wall, not to be confused with Pink
Floyd. The wall is a place to keep track of thoughts, as fast as they come, and
remember them when they go away. Anything interesting or weird or even
halfway inspired goes up there.
An hour later, I check my Facebook page. Violet has written: 
“Arrange
whatever pieces come your way.”
51

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My skin starts to burn. She’s quoting Virginia Woolf back to me. My pulse
has tripled its pace. 
Shit
, I think. That’s all the Virginia Woolf I know. I do a
quick internet search, looking for just the right response. Suddenly I wish I’d
paid more attention to Virginia Woolf, a writer I’ve never had much use for
until now. Suddenly I wish I’d done nothing but study her for all of my
seventeen years.
I type back: 
“My own brain is to me the most unaccountable of
machinery—always buzzing, humming, soaring roaring diving, and then
buried in mud. And why? What’s this passion for?”
This goes to what Violet said about time filler and how none of it matters,
but it’s also me exactly—buzzing, humming, soaring roaring diving, and then
falling deep into mud, so deep I can’t breathe. The Asleeps and Awakes, no
in-betweens.
It’s a damn good quote, so good it gives me chills. I study the hairs
standing up on my arm, and by the time I look back at the screen, Violet has
responded.