I lost my best friend.

It's a story about suicide. But from the perspective of those who are left. Specifically, their best friend. Don't expect a 'trigger warning'. Writing is art, and art expresses emotions.

I I lived in a small town in Nova Scotia for most of my life. It was a little sleepy town on the coast where the first light always had to break through a thick layer of rolling fog. Our sleepy little town never had more than a couple hundred people living in it. Two hundred and thirty seven, to be exact. In a town this small you know everybody by name, and everybody knows you. Normally, something like that is great, but when you're a single, eighteen year old guy, it's horrible. Especially when the only person you like turns out to be your best friend.

Yesterday we were walking home from our little, sleepy town's only high school. We were big enough that we had our own high school, but small enough that nobody had the money for a legitimate bus service. Our only alternative was buying a car, or waiting for the county bus that made its rounds to our sleepy little town every hour or so. Anyways, her and I were walking home from our high school one December wednesday. It was oddly warm for December, our sleepy little town, on the coast as it was, never got much snow. But usually we’d have colder weather by now. When we were walking home, we started talking, I had noticed she seems noticeably different for the past couple of weeks. Tired almost, not so much with that day, but in general. Like life itself was wearing her down. She even looked bleaker than usual. Nothing you would notice just at a passing glance. But when you've known someone for seventeen years, you tend to notice the little things. While we were walking, she started to talk about how her dog was starting to get older, and her parents were going to split up, but I couldn’t help but notice how she sounded while talking about it, she spoke like she was somewhere else. She was right beside me, but she spoke like her words were nothing more than words. As if they didn’t mean anything to her, and weren’t supposed to mean anything to me either. I was always happy when I was with her, but today wasn't the same.

when we got back to our neighborhood - she lived one block up from me - she turned to me and hugged me, which was odd because she was always one to shy away from public displays of affection, to me, her parents, to her younger sister, to anyone for that matter. She started to linger and I could feel her shaking a little, even my shoulder was starting to get a little damp from where her face was. She managed to get out a very faint “Thanks” and turned so I couldn’t see her face and walked down the street she lived on.

I ignored it as just a bad day and turned to cross the street and walk down to my street to go home. I went home and did some math homework, ate supper, went to my job - at that time I worked as a sales associate at the hobby store in what one could mistake as a downtown. When I got home just after midnight I tried calling her, but she never answered. I put my phone away and went to bed. I don't think I ever heard back from her, my phone never rang again.

When I woke up I saw my parents sitting on the edge of my bed, I was so tired I ended up falling asleep in my work uniform. They looked at me and I realized my mom had been crying. I even noticed my dad looked crushed. The started to tell me that Sandra, my best friend, had been suffering from depression for a while now, and last night it finally became too much for her. Her mother found her hanging in the closet early this morning. My vision started to go blurry. I had this ringing in my ears that hasn't fully gone away yet. My head started to feel light. I looked over to my window and my alarm clock caught my eye. It was already 11:09am. I knew I was late for school so I shot up out of my bed and grabbed my towel to take a shower.

I think it was when I was in the shower when it hit me. I sat down against the shower wall and I thought. I don't remember what I thought, but, I wouldn't ever see her again. I'm not sure how long I was in there for but after a while I figured out I was sitting down with the water streaming down on me. I had been out so long that the water was ice cold. I think the only thing that really woke me was my father pounding on the bathroom door.

I pulled myself up and turned off the freezing water. When I dried myself off and walked into my room I saw it was already half past 1. I still felt shaky, it didn't feel real. I knew she was off but I didn't think it was that bad. I don't know how I couldn't have missed that my best friend was suicidal. If she had told me, or anyone. It could have been so different.

I called in sick to work that day. I couldn't face anyone, I never even saw my parents after I went to the shower. I layed in bed for hours that night. I couldn't sleep. I don't think I'd ever be able to, I think the more I sleep the further she slips from my memory.

Eventually I slip into unconsciousness. After what feels like hours I open my eyes, only I'm not laying in my bed, I'm stood in what looks to be a black empty void, nothing around me for miles. Except for her. Standing in front of me, tears streaming down her smiling face. “I'm sorry.” she choked out, as I started to fall.

After a while I stopped, and a distorted view of her room shuttered to life around me. I'd been here before, but this time it was dark, not so much lighting-wise, but ominous. It became way too apparent as to why it felt this way when I saw a rope of bedsheets hanging from her ceiling fan. She materialized like the rest of the room in front of me, her back to me. I tried to grab her, stop her from doing it but I couldn't move, I was locked in place, it was only when my arm swung backwards a little bit did I realize I just couldn't move forward. As she stood on her stool and reached up, trembling, towards her ugly makeshift noose that I was pulled backwards. I thrashed and pulled against the force pulling me backwards but no matter what I did the force kept pulling me out of her room. I tried to scream her name but even to me it felt muffled. As I was about to be pulled through her door she kicked the stool out from underneath her and her body started swinging. When she fell from the stool the forces pushing me back let go, but it didn't matter, I couldn't move if I wanted too.

Her lifeless, still twitching body started swinging in my direction. Her body stopped abruptly when she faced me. She kept whispering “I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry” over and over and over again without ever moving her mouth.
I fell backwards onto my a*s, tears falling down my face. I didn't want her gone. It couldn't happen. I choked out a faint ‘no’ and her room disintegrated around me.

°

I woke up back in that black void. Still knocked down on my a*s, I got up and looked around. I saw her standing ten or so feet from me, crying, the noose draped around her neck and across her shoulder like a morbid necklace. She was crying, still, apologizing for last night.

Something came over me. I was infuriated. How could she be so selfish. She had people who loved her. Her family. Her friends. Me.

“You stupid b***h,” I told her. She looked up at me. “How could you do this. There's people you could have gone to. There's no reason for this. Why would you?” I trailed off. She looked at me and buried her head in my chest. “I'm sorry” she told me for the umpteenth time. She started walking away from me and I felt that force keeping me back again.

I screamed at her. I was scared, I was angry. I didn't want her gone. I couldn't let her leave. I screamed and screamed until she faded away back into the black void.

“Why her?” I asked to no one in particular. I collapsed on the ground. “Why would you let this happen to her!” I found myself talking to myself more than anything. “Why didn't I do anything?” I said out loud, putting my head in my hands. I'd do anything to get her back. Just one more day with her. Just once chance to tell her and make sure she knows why she shouldn't do it. I'd kill myself if it meant I could spend one more day with her.

No sooner than I thought that to did the void lightened to a lighter shade of grey. I could see her standing a few meters from me still. She wasn't crying anymore. Instead she looked saddened, like the last time I saw her.
The more I looked at her the more I started to feel her pain. I felt the fear that her parents would split up. That she would slip in school and not get a job and end up on the street. That her precious, ageing dog would die and she would be left alone. I started to feel not only these things, but things in my own life. She wasn't just my best friend, she was my only friend. And now I was alone.

I couldn't help but think that it was my fault wasn't it. I wasn't a good enough friend. I didn't notice. It was my fault she's dead. I could have done something. I should have done something. It's not fair that she's dead. And it's not fair that nobody helped her. Maybe if I had been there for her, she'd still be alive. I can't stand to live with myself with her dead. Maybe if I told her how I felt about her.

°
I went through this self-loathing phase for a hour in that grey void. Sitting on an invisible floor. Leaning on an invisible wall. She still stood there, with that look of profound sadness. I couldn't stop myself from looking up at her. And, for the first time in awhile, I saw her genuinely smile. It wasn't a smile to mask her pain which, in hindsight, is all I ever saw on her for the past few weeks. No, this was a smile that told me: “I'm at peace, there's no more pain for me. I'm at peace and I want you to be too. ” As she smiled, it felt like the grey void I was in lightened. The grey of her depression which clouded my mind lifted. And what followed was a bright, peaceful white. Like the feathers of a dove after the roar of war has subsided.

She walked over to me, took the noose off her neck, and threw it to the ground, it too disintegrated as it fell. She motioned her hand to me and I stood up. The forces that kept me back from her lifted, and I hugged her. She told me to come with her. That it was better where she was. And I could come and we could be together. She told me she felt the same way about me and she always knew how I felt. She gave me her hand and I took it. A light appeared behind her, barely noticeable against the endless, white expanse. She turned towards it and faced me. “Are you ready?” She asked, and we walked together towards the light. As we approached it, it came to me that I couldn't go, not yet. I let go of her hand and she turned to me. A look of sadness and shocked spread across her face. “I can't, at least not yet,” I told her. “I have things I need to do.” She told me she understood. As she walked into the light she turned around and said “I'll be waiting”. “I know” I responded, and I watched her image fade away with the light.

As the light faded away, I opened my eyes. It was just after 8:30am when I woke up that day.

That was almost thirty years ago, now. I'm forty seven years old and not a day has gone by I haven't thought about her. Especially the day I was diagnosed with stomach cancer. Especially the day I was given 2 months to live. That day was 7 months ago and I have been in the hospital for 4 of those months. I'm not exactly sure if I'm going to see the outside again.

I'm going to see my best friend again.
I wonder if she's waited all this time.

Reviews

[AJ_Of_Ultron]

Great piece! It felt so real, I could feel what the character was going through and you completely understand his/her's point of view. I thought the last few paragraphs were heartwarming but at the same time absolutely emotional. Great story! Keep up the good work!

[Krizito]

Wow, that's all I can say; wow, that's all I've got to say.

[Krizito]

Wow, that's all I can say; wow, that's all I've got to say.