I Don't Know Anymore.

I'm not asking anyone to read this, but I figured I may as well get it off my chest somewhere.

A friend of mine that I've known since...kindergarten or first grade, so almost ten years now...attempted suicide on Friday. He shot himself with his dad's gun and he's still alive, but they say there's practically no chance of him making it.

We were never really all that close, to be honest - we were acquaintances, we talked and did a few projects together - but we didn't have the kind of friendship where you really talk about things seriously, and I'm beginning to regret that now. He was just one of those people that was always there - we were in the same class all throughout elementary school, and most of them in middle school. I'm in high school right now, in my English class, and if he were here right now he would've sat right behind me.

But he's not.

They say that hindsight is 20/20 - I never really understood what that meant until now. He was always a bit quiet - he was friends with the loud kids, the ones who sag their pants to their knees and wear fake gold chains on their necks - but he was nice in a way they weren't and I think everybody liked him to some degree. He wasn't shy at all, but he was very soft-spoken all the same, and I guess that's why I didn't notice until now.

Thinking back on it, ever since the school year started he's been quieter than I remember - not in his usual way, but withdrawn and barely smiling. I think I only heard him laugh once or twice in the whole two-and-a-half months we've been in school. He always looked so...blank. Dead.

I saw all this, but I didn't really notice it. Now though, thinking back on it, I'm realizing that he was acting the same way I did a few months ago when my depression was at its worst and I was contemplating suicide.

And I can't help but feel like maybe, if I'd just paid a little more attention, I could've done something and he wouldn't be slipping away in a hospital bed right now.

But I was so self-absorbed in my own issues that I didn't put the pieces together, and now it's too late.

I could've helped him.

I could've done something.

But I didn't, and I can't forgive myself for that.