Ballad of Jayne

I heard Jayne died last week. They didn’t say how, but everyone’s whispering it was the usual way—too many pills, too much booze, or maybe the fall. The details blur, like her life did toward the end. She’d been gone for a while, checked out in every sense. I hadn’t seen her in years, but the news still hits me like I knew her yesterday.

We all had a thing for her back then. Not because she was beautiful—though she was—but because she was untouchable. Jayne was the girl who floated above the rest of us, light as a feather, like she wasn’t meant to be here in the first place. It’s like she knew something we didn’t, like she was always halfway out the door.

She smiled like she knew your secrets, and maybe she did. She could look at you with those wide, sad eyes and make you feel like everything was going to be okay, even though you knew it wasn’t. Jayne had that way about her.

But there was something else there too. A darkness. You could see it if you paid attention—the way her fingers trembled when she thought no one was watching, the way she’d space out mid-conversation, eyes glazed, like she was remembering something terrible. Or maybe she was forgetting. I never asked. No one ever asked.

I remember the last time I saw her. She was standing outside the bar, leaning against the wall, cigarette in one hand, a glass of something in the other. It was raining, but she didn’t seem to notice. She smiled when she saw me, that same distant, tragic smile that never really reached her eyes. Her hair was soaked, clinging to her face in wet strands, and she looked like she was already slipping away.

I walked over, said something stupid like, “You’re gonna catch a cold.” She just shrugged, took a drag off her cigarette, and exhaled slowly, like she had all the time in the world.

“How you been, Jayne?”

She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she stared at the street, watching the cars pass by like they were part of a movie she wasn’t interested in. Then she said, “You ever feel like you’re not really here?”

I laughed because it was the kind of thing she’d say, the kind of question that didn’t need an answer. “All the time,” I said, even though it wasn’t true.

She nodded, like she knew I was lying but didn’t care. We stood there for a while, not saying anything. The rain kept falling, and I kept thinking about how far away she seemed, even though she was right next to me.

Eventually, she crushed the cigarette under her boot, downed the rest of her drink, and said she had to go. I watched her walk away, into the rain, and for some reason, I didn’t follow. I thought about calling out to her, telling her to stay, telling her something that might matter, but I didn’t.

That was two years ago. Maybe more. Time doesn’t really stick with me anymore.

Now she’s gone for good. They’ll say nice things at her memorial, talk about how beautiful she was, how kind, how full of life. They’ll leave out the part about how she was broken. They always do. They’ll talk about how tragic it is, how she was too young, how she had so much potential. But I don’t know. Maybe she was always heading for this. Maybe she knew, and that’s why she floated through life like she was already a ghost.

I wonder what she felt in those final moments, if she even knew they were her last. Did it hurt? Was there regret? Or was she relieved? Part of me hopes she was. Part of me hopes she finally found whatever it was she’d been looking for, all those years when she was drifting from one place to the next, from one face to another, never really landing anywhere.

I keep seeing her face, the way she looked that night outside the bar, rain falling all around her, that sad smile hanging on her lips. And I wonder if I could’ve said something different, something that might’ve made her stay, at least for a little while longer.

But that’s the thing about people like Jayne. You can’t save them. They don’t want to be saved.

They’re already gone, long before they ever disappear.