Headscratchers / Silent Hill: The Short Message

• Why do people act like Anita hiding the letter directly lead to Maya's death? I mean it didn't help the situation; but Maya could have reached out to someone else, or ended up jumping even if she had been able to talk to someone about her feelings, or any number of things could have happened. There was literally a psychology book talking about how teenagers make up overblown stories when confronted with stressful situations they don't know how to handle - Anita acted like hiding the letter was the sole cause of Maya's death and that she was directly responsible, when really there was a multitude of factors involved out of her control.
  • The general idea behind the other notes left by Maya indicate that she was absolutely at the end of her rope. When Anita hid the letter, Maya interpreted that as Amelie icing her out at the worst possible moment, and the next thing Anita knew, Maya was dead. That's more than enough for Anita to feel some measure of guilt over Maya's suicide.
  • More importantly, one of the big points behind Short Message is that much of Anita's guilt is misplaced, and stems from either anxiety, depression, and/or her history of parental abuse. When Anita's able to internalize that, even for a moment, she's free.

• So who was the girl that jumped off the roof because she couldn't get into college and didn't want to be around her brother? I thought it was meant to be the third girl because she mentioned having a brother and wanting to go to college, but her and Anita are both alive at the end. Was it supposed to be about Maya as well?