You Are Not the Signal - Part 1
I learned a new word because my best friend died: defenestration. The act of throwing someone out of a window.
Honestly, it’s hard to believe anyone wanting to throw Liam out of a window, as I looked at the framed pictures of him arranged like a defense team on a table in front of his casket. There was Liam in a purple velvet tux at prom, Liam hammering planks in Nicaragua for Habitat for Humanity during a semester abroad, and Liam in front of the Richmond Times-Dispatch office for his first job.
The version of him that his parents wanted us to remember.
Not the version I couldn’t stop picturing: crumpled and contorted, a body broken against the pavement below his bedroom window.
The thing is…the thing is that I kept it together until my eyes landed on the fifth-grade school portrait of him, then it felt like something rose within me and took hold of my chest. That sly grin Liam had hanging on the side of his jaw was one that I had come to know. It was my strongest memory of Liam when I first met him.
We’d met on the playground. I was the new kid, so I kept to myself. Back then, I didn’t talk much. English didn’t always land right in my mouth, but I didn’t need that to enjoy soaring high on the swings.
One minute, I was parallel with the bar, pushing higher and chasing that rush. The next, mulch in my teeth and a red patch blooming on my elbow.
Marcus, a local tyrant in off-brand sneakers, strutted off to the monkey bars where he and his goons usually held court. “Better luck next time, loser.”
I didn’t cry. But I clenched my jaw so hard I thought I might crack a tooth. “Grounding the airplane” was a game that spread amongst certain types of kids at school—you know, bullies. And they frequently got away with it as nobody wanted to be a snitch.
That’s when Liam appeared.
“What an asshole,” he said. I flinched when he cursed, even as Liam helped me up. Not because he was wrong, but because he said it like he didn’t care who heard. Like he owned the words. “Don’t worry. Jerks get what’s coming.”
I assumed he meant in some cosmic, you’ll-get-your-karma way.
I was wrong.
The next day, Marcus climbed the monkey bars like usual, king of his castle, showboating, until he finished his victory lap with a one-handed hang, flexing for his audience.
But then—
Grip. Stick. Halt.
Marcus’s momentum slammed to a stop as his hand sealed to the bar.
“What the fu—” he screeched, curse words flying around and splintering off in different directions. His body dangled. He kicked. Twisted.
The playground noticed, the whispers started. And gloriously…laughter erupted.
“Hey, Marcus!” Liam shouted. “Looks like you’re really hanging in there.”
The crowd howled.
That photo with Liam’s grin and that memory rose like a wave. And before I knew it, I was laughing too. Not loudly. Just a breath, a sound I couldn’t hold back as I pictured my best friend standing there, triumphant, the newly crowned playground king. My outburst was enough to turn heads in the procession, enough to remind everyone this wasn’t that kind of funeral.
But that was Liam. Mischief and loyalty in equal measure. That’s how he would want to be remembered. As the grinning fool who went to great lengths to stick up for people, even if it meant pilfering his father’s industrial-style superglue. That’s who he really was, the binding that held everyone together.
He was strong. Resilient.
He was not the kind of person to jump.
I didn’t care that the police had ruled that there were no signs of foul play. Someone had to have pushed him. Oddly enough, I put my hope in that. It was something to hold on to, anything. And the only thing to keep certain things at bay.
At the end of the service, I paid my respects to Liam’s mother.
She looked less distraught so much as she looked distracted. Distracted with the question many of us were probably grappling with: how do we live without the people that we love?
“Thank you for being here, Nico,” she said, her voice paper-thin. “You know that Liam always thought of you as his brother.”
“I know. I did too.” I gave her a hug, and I felt her convulse into me as if she were being raked by a cold gust in the dead of winter. She released me, tilted her head back, and artfully blotted some tears from her eyes. “Lord, I just need to make it through this god-awful day, and then I can weep for an eternity.”
I didn’t know what else to say. “I’m sorry,” or “He’s in a better place,” or “He’ll always be in our hearts” all felt cheap, trite. Luckily, she rescued me from my awkwardness by fishing something from her bag.
She handed me an envelope. “Here, dear. We found this when we cleaned out Liam’s apartment. It was wedged behind his dresser. The police came and looked through everything, but they missed this. Or ignored it? I don’t know. I didn’t give it to them. It didn’t feel…right.” She squeezed my hand. “And make sure you keep in touch, okay? I don’t need to lose both my sons.”
“Of course,” I said, and her expression shifted to the kind parents wear at PTA meetings. Composed. Presentable.
It dislodged something me.
Back at home, I burned some incense, not for belief. My faith, if I ever had it, ran thin. But for memory. For the way my grandmother used to say the dead wander if they’re not properly guided.
Then I tore open the envelope and pulled out a USB drive wrapped in a sticky note: Don’t EVER listen to one all the way.
There was also a crumbled scrap of paper with a note at the top in Liam’s handwriting, “You are not the signal.” Below was a list of names, most of which were crossed out. I recognized a few of them, other journalists who worked at publications in the DMV area. But my eyes lingered on the last two names.
The penultimate was Liam’s.
Goosebumps licked up my arms, a silent chorus to the whispers of doubt I had about my best friend’s death. Whatever was on this drive, whatever I was about to see, I just knew that it meant going down a certain path. As a journalist, I liked to believe that I pursued the truth. I knew that Liam did as well.
But what would this cost me, I wondered.
It would be so easy to throw this all in the trash, so easy to accept the story of Liam’s death at face value. That he had been acting strange weeks before, and one night, he left a suicide note, then threw himself from his living room balcony.
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