I Was Here

Forman, Gayle. I Was Here. 2015. 270p. ISBN 978-0-4514-7147-5. Available at FIC FOR on the library shelves.

Cody and Meg have always been two peas in the same pod. Hanging out together, they’ve made plans to go to college together. But a full scholarship to Cascade University meant that Meg got to go west to Tacoma, while Cody, poor and not as scholarly inclined, stayed behind in their little Eastern Washington town to work. The distance between them grew until it felt to Cody like they had fallen apart.

Then Meg committed suicide by drinking a bottle of cleaner by herself in a sleazy motel room. Cody never saw it coming. Meg never reached out to her for help, but she did send everyone she loved a time-delayed email explaining her decision. Devastated, Cody begins to spiral downwards in her own depression. How could she not have known? Why did Meg not seek her help? Cody’s life feels shattered, like the better half of her has been ripped apart.

Meg’s parents, the Garcias, have always been like Cody’s family. Trish, her single mom, has never really taken care of Cody, and all of her life milestones have been spent with them. When they ask her if she could go to Tacoma to pick up all of Meg’s things, Cody can only agree.

Once in Tacoma, however, she discovers there was a lot of things Meg had never shared with her. She’d never told her about the kittens she had adopted. About her roommates. About Ben McAllister, the guitar player who rocked in an Indie band and who dumped her after sleeping with her. About the websites where she spent so much time. And as Cody begins to put together the threads of Meg’s last months of life, she realizes everything she knew about her best friend was only one side of the story.

With the help from Meg’s former roommates and from Ben, Cody embarks on a dangerous trip to explore Meg’s suicide and discover who, really, was responsible for it. She’s worried, for she feels that she in fact was responsible for her best friend’s death, and that by failing her she may have doomed herself.

The reverse coin of If I Stay by the same author, this book explores suicide and the impact it has on those that are left behind. Another great read on the theme of suicide is Falling into Place.