Do Me a Favor; a suicide prevention story

In His Final Days; Caleb

Ryan and I sit in his room doing what we usually do. We play video games, show each other memes and laugh about how bad we actually are at the game, but we don't care. The fans ion the console speed up making a whirring noise as Ryan's thoughtful button presses turn into frantic button mashing. It's a depressing, rainy day. Raindrops pelt the roof of the house. The screen goes red and fuzzy and says "flatlined" we lost the fight again. Ryan seems frustrated and puts his controller down hard creating a small bump- not hard enough to damage the controller though.

Ryan is a skinny boy who doesn't eat much at all, he and I are in our senior year of high school and it's taking its toll on us- him more so than me. I look to his wooden dresser to see his anti-depressants still full from his last refill. Ryan has been battling his own head since his dad died in sophomore year. If he's not taking them, he must be getting better, I smile at the thought.

The game we play right now has made us both go through numerous controllers; you can probably still find shards of plastic from our last three. I inhale as I pick up the controller, ready to take my turn. I change some items around in our inventory, trying to give me the best chance at battling this boss. We play on the hardest difficulty as we have played this game countless times using different classes and builds. Our build this time is a charismatic machine-gunner that tries to help everyone in need. It's based off how Ryan acts towards most people in his life. Since we have played this game before we know this boss's attack patterns, but they are sped up on the highest difficulty and that gives us fractions of a second to react. Ryan and I are frustrated about being stuck on this for the past week and a half. Taking a deep breath, I continue the game.

The fight begins, and I weave through each of the bosses first attacks without taking any damage at all. I fire, doing barely any damage to him and out of the corner of my eye I see Ryan taking notes. The book he takes notes in has been filled to the brim with his sloppy writing from over the past few years we had played. I hear the strokes of the of his pen over the game and they're throwing me off focus, but that's okay if we get any new info on the boss.

Eventually, the sounds of the pen ruin my focus and I die. The boss's health had a single segment left. I toss Ryan a glance, he looks up from his notebook.

"What?" Ryan's soft voice chimes as he looks towards the screen, and he chuckles nervously "Sorry." I hand him his controller in exchange for his notes. I read them over: "Caleb's armor and weapons seem to work better for this boss, and his reaction time is just as fast as usual allowing him to take no damage for the first set of attacks. His build has gotten is the closest we have been to ending this battle." I can barely make out his writing since it was written so fast and sloppily.

After Ryan dies one more time he sets the controller down, gently. I can see he is getting frustrated. I hand him his notebook; he closes it and sets it on his desk. As he turns of the console, the internal fans slow down.

"Let's finish for tonight," Ryan sighs "we have class tomorrow." Ryan pulls his chair away from his desk, the feet squeal against the floor. The floor under the chair is scratched from the countless time the chair was drawn out and put back. Ryan opens the opens the notebook and takes a quick scan at what we took today. When he finishes, he opens a large drawer on his desk and rustles some things around before dropping the notebook in.

The metal desks drawer screams closed as he spins his chair around and leans towards me. I'm still sitting on his bed. "Wanna stay the night tonight?" Ryan asks, "we're both going to the same place tomorrow anyway." he leans back in his chair which creaks as it goes back.

"Actually, I have to watch the house tonight," I reply as I check the time. It's 7:30 and I have to be home by 8:00. "You could crash at my place though." I smile.

Ryan sighs and waves his hand. "No, it's fine Caleb," he gets out of his chair and cleans a bit of garbage from his desk. "If you have other things to do, go ahead."

"What about next week?" I throw the skinny boy a smile.

"Sure." Ryan hands me my hoodie from the back of his chair. I look over to the anti-depressants as I hug him and show myself out of his house. My car sits in Ryan's driveway, soaking wet. I pat my pockets for my keys, but don't find them. I probably left them on Ryan's room. I make my way back to his room and knock on the door.

I open the door to see him sitting at his desk with his hands over his eyes, sniffling. I grab my keys from his desk and pat his back. "Do me a favor," I say "take care of yourself tonight." I say in a quiet voice as I grab the anti-depressants from his dresser and set them next to him on the desk. "Okay? I'm worried about you." I leave his room one more time, closing the door behind me. I hear the bottle of pills rattle and hit the floor. I sigh if he doesn't want to help himself how can I possibly help him?

I take soft steps down the stairs and go back out to my car. I press the unlock button on my keychain and it unlocks with a honk. Clicking my door open, I swing my legs in and thump the door closed behind me. I sigh and scratch my wrist, leaving it still itchy. I sigh as I put my key in the ignition, and start my car, backing out to make my fifteen-minute drive in silence.

* * *

I pull into my driveway and stop the car. It's engine dies, and I put my elbows on the steering wheel and my head between my hands. I l et out a deep sigh and stay in my car like that for the next several minutes holding back tears, breathing shaky breaths. A few tears slip down my cheeks as I open the door. I hang my legs out of side of my car and scroll through old pictures of Ryan and I, the tears fall on my phone screen. I scroll on one of our freshmen photos. Ryan, his dad and I all stand outside of a concert hall waiting to see our favorite band- For the Strays.

Ryan's dad was like a second father to me, but I didn't take his death as hard as Ryan did. Ryan's dad had been in and out of hospitals for the final few years of his life, he had blood cancer and ended up losing his fight. In the picture I look at, he is very skinny- this was a month before his final visit to the hospital. I scroll back another year and a half, finding a plump man taking us to and e-sports tournament, we all wore different shirts for different players on the same team. I can't look at the picture anymore, I turn off my phone and stuff it in my pocket.

I get out of my car with blurry vision and close my door. I look up towards the night sky and sigh, I can't even see the stars. I walk up the stairs to my porch and unlock the front door. Opening it lets the chill of the wet night into my house. I make my way into the kitchen after closing the door up behind me and taking my shoes off. In the fridge I grab a gallon of green tea and pour it into a cup and go back outside.

Sitting on the wet stairs of my deck I sip at my tea. When the cup is finished, I go back in the house, turn on the heat, and lay on the couch. I turn on the TV for background noise. The way I lay, I have my hand behind my neck while I stare at the ceiling. I remove one of my hands from my neck and look at my phone.

Three messages from Ryan sit on my lock screen. The last message I sent him says: "Sure I'll be over, we're killing that boss tonight!"

We didn't beat the boss tonight, either way, Ryan's texts say: "Thanks for coming over tonight.", "It really helped." and the final says, "Thanks for worrying about me but I'm fine!"

I respond saying, "No problem, anything for the homie. Tonight was fun, we are doing the same thing next week." I smile and set my phone on my chest, put my hand back behind my neck and fall asleep right there on the couch.