Michelle Falkoff - Playlist for the Dead

ALL MY YEARS of watching TV made me think it was possible you could find a dead body and not know it until you turned the person over and found the bullet hole or stab wound or whatever. And I guess in some ways that was rightHayden was lying under the covers, tangled up in a bunch of his lame-ass Star Wars sheets (how old were we, anyway?), just like he always was when I slept at his house.

Hayden had always been a hard sleeper; sometimes I had to practically roll him out of bed to get him to wake up. Which wasnt easyhe was short and kind of round, and while Im a lot taller, Im more of a string bean kind of guy, and when he was out cold he was hard to move. When I saw him lying there I sighed, trying to figure out how to incorporate the apology from the night before, the apology Id come over to give him, with the apology for dumping him out of bed onto the floor.

The sound of my sigh seemed loud to me, though, and it took me a minute to figure out why: Hayden wasnt snoring. Hayden always snored. My mom, whos a nurse, thought he had sleep apnea; the sound of his buzzing made it all the way down the hall to her room when he stayed at my house. She kept trying to get him to talk to his mom about getting some kind of mask that would help, but I knew that would never happen. Hayden didnt talk to his mom unless he absolutely had to, and he was even less likely to ask his dad.

The silence in the room started to freak me out. I kept trying to convince myself it was nothing, that Hayden had just found a good position to sleep in that quieted his steady drone or something, but that would have been some kind of minor miracle, and even after five years of Hebrew school I didnt really believe in miracles.

I gave his leg a little shove. Hayden, come on.

He didnt move.

Hayden, seriously. Wake up.

Nothing. Not even a grunt.

I was just about to grab a stormtroopers head and pull down the sheets when I saw the empty vodka bottle on Haydens desk, standing in between his laptop and his model of the Millennium Falcon, just next to where he was sleeping.

That was weirdHayden didnt drink at all, not even at the few parties wed been to. And from what I could tell he hadnt had time to take as much as a sip from the keg last night. There was no reason for that bottle to be there. Unless hed been even more bent out of shape than I realized; he could easily have taken it out of his dads liquor cabinet when he got home.

I felt my stomach churn with what I realized was guilt. That must have been why he wouldnt wake up: he was hung over. Even through my guilt, I couldnt help but start laughing. Haydens first hangoverI was going to give him so much shit for this when he finally woke up. Then Id drag him off for a greasy breakfast and wed make up. And everything would be fine.

Now he just had to wake up.

I moved closer to the head of the bed, sniffing cautiously in case hed puked. The air smelled like it normally did in his house, overly disinfected, the pine scent overwhelming anything else. I swear his mom must have had cleaners come in every single day. I debated whether to roll him over or just pull the pillow out from beneath his head, but just as I went for the pillow I knocked over the empty vodka bottle with my elbow. It fell to the floor with a clang, taking down some other stuff with it.

I bent over to pick it up. No need to have Hayden wake up pissed that Id made a mess; we had enough to talk about as it was. I grabbed the bottle, and then saw a prescription bottle next to it and grabbed that too. It was a bottle of Valium. It had Haydens mothers name on it. And it was empty. I didnt know how many pills were supposed to have been in there, but according to the date on the bottle, shed picked it up just a couple of days before. Which meant shed gone through a whole bottle practically overnight.

I looked at the vodka bottle.

Or Hayden had.

And then I saw one more thing Id knocked on the floor. A thumb drive, next to a torn-off scrap of notebook paper. For Sam, it read. Listen and youll understand.

Thats when I called 911.

THE MORNING OF HAYDENS FUNERAL I couldnt get out of bed. I dont mean that I didnt want toif anything, I wanted the day to go by as quickly as possible, and if getting up was the first step, then I was in.

But I couldnt do it.

It was a weird feeling, kind of like being stuck in a block of ice. I pictured that scene from Star Wars where Han Solo gets frozen in carbonite, hands in front of him as if he could somehow protect himself, mouth half open in silent protest. It was an image Hayden had always found haunting; he said it freaked him out every time he saw it, and hed seen The Empire Strikes Back maybe a thousand times. Id seen it nearly as many but for some reason I thought the whole carbonite thing was hilarious, and it was even funnier how twitchy it made Hayden. For his birthday Id bought him an iPhone cover with the frozen Han Solo image on it, and Id slipped frozen Han Solo ice cubes into his soda.

Remembering the look on his face made me laugh, and laughing seemed to break the spell. I could move again, though I didnt want to anymore. Moving meant I was awake, and being awake meant Hayden was really dead, and I wasnt quite ready to admit that yet. And laughing felt wrong, but also good, and the fact that it made me feel good also made me feel guilty, which brought me back to wrong. Really, I didnt know how to feel. Sad? Check. Pissed off? Definitely.

What were you thinking, Hayden?

What? My mother cracked the door open and peered in at me. Her curly brown hair was twisted into a braid, and she was wearing a dress instead of scrubs. Did you ask me something, Sam?

No, just talking to myself. I hadnt realized Id said it out loud.

She opened the door wider. Still in bed? Come on, weve got to get cracking here. You know Im not going to be able to stay for the whole thingIm going to be late for work as it is. She snapped her fingers a couple of times. She wasnt exactly the warm and fuzzy type.

I cant get ready if you dont get out. It came out sharper than I meant it, but she must have understood because she closed the door without saying anything, but not before hanging something on the back of my door on her way out. A suit, the one Id worn to my cousins wedding last summer. She must have ironed it for me. I felt like even more of a jerk than I already did.

I got out of bed, turned on my computer, and pulled up the playlist Id found on Haydens thumb drive. Hed left it for me, knowing I would find it, probably even knowing Id find himI was always the one to apologize first after our fights. I couldnt stand staying mad. He must have realized Id come over, even after how wed left things.

Id been listening to it constantly over the past couple of days, trying to figure out what he meant. Listen and youll understand. What was I supposed to understand? Hed killed himself and left me here all alone, and left me to find him. And I was pretty sure it was my fault, though that wasnt something I was prepared to think about at the moment. But Id listened and listened, looking for the song that would confirm it, the song that would lay all the blame on me. So far I hadnt found it.