My best friend killed himself.

I haven’t been able to bring myself to tell my friends and family the full story. I’m hoping that writing it here anonymously will ease my conscience, like an admission of guilt without the sentence. Fair warning, it’s a long and dark one (don’t make that weird).

June 18th was Father’s Day, my one year and six month anniversary with my girlfriend as well as the last day of our relationship, and the day my best friend committed suicide.

At 2:30 AM, he simply texted the guys’ groupchat “goodbye.” The other two guys were asleep, but I was awake. I like to just sit, listen to music, and play video games at night, so that’s what I was doing up until 3:30 AM when I checked my phone. Although the text was concerning, I didn’t believe it to be his last text to us ever. He suffered from bipolar disorder, was heavily medicated, had been to the psychiatric hospital multiple times, and had said things that suggested suicide before, but he never went through with it — thankfully of course. Thus, it didn’t immediately raise my crisis alarm, but when he didn’t respond, I texted his mom, who was out of the country for work, for his location. She sent me it, and it said that he was in the parking garage of the local mall. Seeing that he was out so late began to worry me, so I decided that I had to go check on him.

I drove at a normal speed because, although I was worried about him, I didn’t believe that it would be that serious. We had just hung out two days prior at our usual spot and had a blast. He was smiling and laughing, and the time before this, he seemed like he was doing better. Because of his disorder, he had trouble attending school, but he worked so hard towards the end of the year to graduate. He worked out every day, got a job, and told us about his plans for college. All signs pointed towards improvement.

When the parking garage came into view, I saw two cop cars and crime scene tape near one of the entrances. Maybe it was disbelief, me being under the presumption that he was doing better, or just me being tired, but for some reason, I didn’t immediately piece the clues together. I took the other entrance and slowly made my way towards the top floor. He liked to chill at the top floor of the garage, so I assumed he was up there. It was either the second or third floor that I began to think that I thought more about the tape and realized that something could be terribly wrong. With each floor I climbed, I sped up as did my thoughts and heart rate. I reached the top and, in the corner, saw his car.

At first I thought he was alone, but then I looked to the right and saw a cop car. I sped to his car to check on him, but a lady stepped out of the cop car and stopped me. I parked a few spots to the left of his and got out, after which she told me I couldn’t be up there. I figured he had just gotten into some legal trouble for speeding, weed, or something of the sort, which he had gotten into trouble for in the past, so I told her that I knew the owner of the car and wanted to know how he was doing. While we were talking, another car pulled up and parked nearby, and to my surprise, his dad stepped out. Now my friend’s mom was awake because she was in another time zone, but I assumed that his dad was asleep. I later found out that she somehow woke him up, but that’s not important. His dad approached the cop who asked if he was the father. She then told me to get back into my car for a second while she pulled him aside. I finally had the chance to peek into his car, but when I saw that it was empty, realization started to kick in.

Then, one of if not the most heart-wrenching, hardest to bear, and traumatizing parts of the past month happened. I’m in my car starting to finally comprehend what had happened when, from behind my car, I hear his dad make the worst noise my ears have ever heard and ever will hear. He cries, hollers, screams, and wails in pain. I wanted to get out, but I couldn’t even turn around to look at him. I’m frozen in utter despair.

By this point, I understood what had happened. I forced my frozen body to step out and slowly turned to see his dad on his hands and knees. I was somewhat close to the dad because we had talked about helping his son, so I wanted to comfort him. Yet, I could only watch in horror as this beloved father’s reality was shattered.

After what felt like an eternity, I came to his side. He stood up, took a breath, looked at me, then wrapped me in his arms tightly and proceeded to cry. I cried with him and desperately tried to reassure him that it’s not his fault and he was the best father that my friend could’ve asked for.

I cried with his dad, but not in the same way he did. I sort of died along with my friend: I couldn’t blink, breathe, or bring myself to break down. I became lifeless.

After a couple of minutes, two other cops showed up from the elevator. They made their way towards us to get our information and ask us questions. The dad earned my utmost respect in that moment because he had the strength to temporarily rip himself from his pain and collect himself well enough to talk to the cops.

A bit more happened that night, but that’s the meat and bones of it. Luckily, his body had been taken to the hospital by the time I got to the scene, and I got the closure from a cop that he was announced DOA (dead on arrival).

The period that followed was miserable though. Because my friend’s mother and brother were out of town, his dad asked me to keep things quiet until they got back. For a bit over a week, I had to not only suffer alone but pretend that everything was fine as well. All the guys had previously made plans to hang out the day he died, so I told them that he was grounded and that I was busy. More people kept asking me why he wasn’t responding, so I just kept telling others the same story. I had to act happy for my mom’s 50th birthday. I rejected all plans, cancelled my senior trip, and holed myself up in my room. All I could bring myself to do was work out, listen to music, and cry.

Back to closer to present day, his funeral happened last week. It was just as traumatizing as being at the parking garage and hearing my friend’s dad yell in pain. As a pallbearer sitting in the front row, we had to watch everyone — my closest friends, his family, and old teachers — walk by his casket and then hug his father, brother, and mother. His mother, who is the most gentle person in the whole world and stood directly in front of us, had the softest yet most heartbreaking cry and couldn’t stop asking “why?” This killed us pallbearers all on the inside. Giving a speech, carrying his casket, and watching him being lowered into the earth and buried under dirt was bad too.

A teacher that I was extremely close to during middle school and hadn’t seen in forever also came up to me while everyone was visiting the casket and his family. I couldn’t watch his mother cry, so my head was down. She came over, lifted my chin, held my cheek gently in her hand, and just looked me in the eyes for a couple of seconds. She didn’t say a word, but her actions moved me more than she could ever know. I had been fighting to hold back my tears the whole funeral, but I couldn’t hold them back after that.

Now for the present day. I’m obviously still pretty bummed, but now I can’t stop blaming myself for his death. What if I asked him how he was doing instead of assuming he was getting better, hung out with him more often — I keep asking myself things like that. I feel especially guilty that I was awake at 2:30 AM when he sent the text, but I was wasting time. I was enjoying music and video games while my best friend gave me a chance to save him. I was the only one awake that could’ve done something. Even a simple call or text could’ve saved his life… but my procrastinating habits and lazy lifestyle cost me my friend, my brother. According to the cops, he died at 3:01, so I had 30 whole minutes to prevent his family’s lives from being ruined, our friends from being devastated, and him from jumping off the top of the parking garage. Instead, his brother feels empty, my friends feel guilty, I feel like ***, and his parents will blame themselves for their son’s death for the rest of their days.

If you’ve read this the whole way through, I’m sorry for troubling you. I’m doing as best as I can. I came to this app for help, but I also want to leave you with a lesson. YOU have to be the one to reach out — not everyone that is struggling will do so. Someone might seem perfectly happy and won’t ask for help, but you have to make sure they know that you are there. Give them your time, your energy, your presence. Don’t hesitate either; you don’t know how long they’ve been in pain. Force them out of the house now, take them to their favorite restaurant, talk to them, hug them. When you leave, tell them that you love them and that they mean the world to you. Don’t do it once; do it often. As often as you can. Take my advice seriously. It didn’t matter to me until it was too late, and now all I can do is beg for one last hug that will never come.