While walking with my friend Dane, I noticed ahead of me that my best friend Heather was walking alone. I walked through the people to get closer to her as Dane followed behind me. I grabbed onto her shoulder, where she suddenly jumped in panic. I chuckled nervously as I greeted her and offered to walk her to class. She smiled lightly as she accepted my offer. The three of us walked to class together. Heather and I have been best friends since we were kids. We met when we were seven and now it was our senior year. After being friends for so long, I fell in love with her, but I feared that if I confessed this to her, our friendship would come to an abrupt end. I knew she wouldn’t go out with a guy like me. At least, that’s what I kept telling myself, but near the end of March, Heather suddenly became aloof. She was more distant, and kept quiet to herself most of the time; whenever I would talk to her, she was always hesitant to speak.

After a couple of days had passed with her strange attitude, I decided to ask her out on a date, just for us to go to the movies or something. She declined at first, but I grew persistent. She told me that her parents were gone for the weekend and wanted her to watch the house while they were gone. I pleaded for her to go with me, which would only be for a couple of hours. After a long, exhausted sign, Heather finally gave in and the date was set. I planned to confess to her that night; I didn’t want to wait until the end of the school year because that would probably be worse for me. I was ecstatic; finally two days past and it was Friday. I called Heather and told her I would be there around seven. She agreed to my time and said she would get ready.

It was 6:50pm; Friday, March 27^th. I exhaled shakily as I got into my car. The night was cold, but durable for an evening out. I couldn’t think straight, being I was so nervous for tonight. To confess to a childhood friend is so bold and insane. The only thing that concerned me was her recent attitude of isolation. I wonder if something happened to her family, but even this type of attitude was rare from her. Even though she was a shy person, she never turned to solitude. After time had passed, I finally arrived at her house. I took out my phone and saw that it was 7:01pm. I called Heather but there was no response. I grew slightly concerned but thought that she was finishing getting ready. I waited for about five minutes until I decided to call again. There was no response. I glanced at her house and the lights were on, so where was Heather? I turned off the car and headed to Heather’s front door. I knocked hard for a couple of seconds and waited impatiently. I called her again while knocking harder this time yet no response for either attempt. I turned the doorknob, but it was locked; I headed over to her window and shouted her name. Again, there was no response. Now I grew worried; I hurried to her back door and thanked God it was unlocked. I entered the house and called out to Heather again, but the house was silent. I walked through her kitchen, and then into her living room where the television was on; I called out to Heather again, yet there was no response. I headed upstairs towards her room. I called out again; no response; I noticed her door was closed too. I walked over to the door and knocked-no response, but when I tried to turn the doorknob, it was locked. I grew frantic for some reason and started banging on the door while calling Heather’s name. I heard nothing from the other side of the door, which made me worried. After about a minute of struggling, I took a step back and kicked down the door. Once the door was down, I entered the room; the light was on and what I saw left my eyes widened in horror. I walked over to Heather, who was hanging from her neck on a rope attached to her ceiling. I started panicking as I tried to lift her up; I hoisted her upwards until the rope was loose and then removed the rope from her neck. Then I lost my balance and collapsed onto the floor with her. I went onto my knees and stared at her; I felt my eyes tremble when I lifted her head up to see a big red mark across her neck. Without realizing, I started to cry. I stared at her in devastation and told myself perpetual amounts of times that she can’t be dead! I whispered her name to her, in hopes that this was some nightmare to wake up from, or even possibly a prank that she pulled. At this moment, I didn’t care. I just wanted her to wake up! There was dead silence from her. I started crying loudly as I buried my face into her stomach. My voice could probably be heard from miles away, but for some reason I couldn’t hear it. Then, I felt my chest swell in horrific pain. I grabbed onto it as I continued to cry in agony.

“Why the hell would you do this!?” I shrieked in pain; I raised my head to face her. Her eyes remained closed and I just wanted them to open again. Then I noticed an envelope right beside her head. I grew quiet for a moment as I snatched the envelope from the floor and opened it up. I pulled out a piece of paper, which turned out to be a letter; I felt myself blink in confusion as I saw that the letter was addressed to me. It read:

Dear Trent,

I couldn’t ask for a better best friend than you, but to be honest I must confess-I hate my life. You may not see it but, I hate myself with a passion. I feel worthless, ugly and pathetic. Even though you’re my best friend, I haven’t always been so honest with you-so I’ll start by saying that I truly don’t have any friends. You’re my only friend. My mother would always put me down, saying that I’m weird and never would find love. At first, I ignored her thinking that she was all talk, but her words started to reflect on my life. She divorced my father and kicked him out; the one person-other than you, who was always there for me, was now long gone. I never told you this, but he died in a car accident two years after my parents divorced. I was pretty devastated to hear that. Then my mom got remarried a year later to my stepfather named Calvin. He eyed me in a way that shook me to my core. His eyes were full of hatred whenever he made eye contact with me. He presented a pleasant act whenever my mother was around, but when it was just us, he would start complaining by saying how pathetic and ugly I am. He always said that my mom wouldn’t care if I died. He even threatened to burn me alive if I spoke of anything between us to my mom; I forcefully agreed to his terms. That’s a little something about home, but as for school, my problem was love. My mother always degraded me saying that I’ll never find it. I wanted to prove her wrong so I tried to go out and find it. I had a crush on this guy one time, but when he found out I liked him, he came up to me and told me to stay the hell away from him. I was heartbroken, even though it was a small crush, he was disgusted with me and that made me feel ugly on the inside; I didn’t look at a mirror for the whole week after that incident. I ended up dating this guy named Keith a year later. At first he was sweet, until I found out that he was an alcoholic. Despite your warnings, saying that he was a bad guy and all, I continued to date him. Even though he was 17 like me, he drank all the time with his dad and did horribly in school. I decided that maybe you were right and he wasn’t such a good guy, even though he was sweet to me the way you were to me, I couldn’t handle his bad behavior. I broke up with him, only to suffer abuse from him, but before I was able to do anything, he threatened me saying that if I left him he would go after you. Now Trent, I never wanted anything to happen to you, so I angrily agreed to his terms despite the anger and fear I endured. Luckily he broke up with me a month later, but I was back to square one at feeling lonely. The other girls I tried to befriend would use me and talk badly about me behind my back. One time they stole my clothes from my locker during gym and I had to go around the school in my gym clothes. It was winter and I wore shorts and a shirt. Another girl broke into my locker and stole my phone, and when she returned it, she said that she “found” it, my screen was broken beyond recognition. Obviously, I told the principal, but the girl and her friends won over that case, so my phone was never justifiably fixed. My mother grew angry when my phone was broken and beat me badly. I didn’t have my phone until you brought me one for my 18th birthday. Thank you again for that, Trent. After all, due to those incidents with the girls, I decided to stay isolated and not make any friends for a while, but I became clingier to you. You felt like a brother to me, Trent and I’m sorry. The reason I wrote this to you is because you’re the only one I care about. Unlike my mother and stepdad, you truly showed me that you cared about me and I appreciate having you in my life. Trent, I don’t want to live anymore because I feel like everything I do is wrong and that nobody in this world will ever love me; I’m sorry to have to leave you so soon, but I want you to move on towards your dream of becoming a lawyer. It may be too late to say this now, but I loved you Trent. I’m sorry that I won’t be around anymore, but like my mother always said, if I die, no one would notice or even care…”

Sincerely Heather

I finished the letter, only to feel my heart shatter to the last sentence Heather wrote; I looked at the date which read Thursday, March 26^th. She had planned to kill herself already. It made sense why she didn’t want to go on this date with me, it was because she planned to end her life tonight; I clenched my teeth as well as the letter and started screaming in agony. I threw the letter at Heather and let out my voice even louder than before. I hovered over her as my tears drenched her cold face.

“Why would you think that, Heather?” I cried out painfully. “How could you think that nobody loved you when I loved you?” I grabbed my head and smashed it onto the floor; I was so stupid. I could have saved her if I told her those three damn words. If I just had told her that I loved her and that I would protect her, then maybe I wouldn’t have to see her lying dead before me in her room. After what felt like an eternity crying over Heather, I glanced at her letter, only to reach out for it once more; this was the only thing I had left of her, I couldn’t stand to lose it or destroy it.

A month passed since that sorrowful day; I stood before a crowd of people at an auditorium, where I held Heather’s letter in my hand firmly. I grabbed onto a microphone and told the world of Heather’s story; how a simple girl who looked shy, was really dying inside. I explained to the audience that suicide was worthless and selfish.  You’re not only killing yourself to end your pain, but you make those around you suffer even more than you’ll ever know. I told the audience how I loved Heather to death, how she was my best friend and that I didn’t even know everything about her. I told everyone to be there for people, and to always look out and care for their friends. I told everyone to never degrade anyone, whether you physically or verbally assault them, the outcome will always be the same for a person’s mind. Before I ended my speech, I candidly explained to everyone to always be there for people, to never exclude them and that a few simple words could possibly save someone from their hatred towards their own life…