The Somewhat Peculiar Story Of A Cute Boy Named Cas Joiner

The Tragedy That Was Cas Joiners Death

Hi there, I just wanted to make a quick note about this chapter.

If you are not comfortable in reading anything that relates to suicide, I strongly suggest that you do not read this chapter, I do not want any of you to get upset or be triggered. And I, am in no way, romantisicing or glorifying mental illness, self harm or suicide. It is not something that should be used as a fashion trend or a personality quirk, it is a serious illness that can kill. And if any of you do have suicidal thoughts, I ask you to seek help. Even if it is just from a friend, that little bit of support can help. And please don't tell me that I don't completely understand mental illness and the affects of suicide. Because I do. This chapter was extremely hard for me to write, but I, as the author, understand the true meaning and need for this chapter.

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The official report said that he died from a gun shot to the brain and before that, he had already lost a lot of blood.

They said that maybe if he hadn't cut himself so much, he would of survived.

But what would be the point?

He would be alive and hating himself. If he was still him - who knows what that bullet would have done to his personality.

He could of ended up like that guy that hated his OCD so much he shot himself int he head, too. Except he didn't die, and he destroyed the part of his brain that made him have OCD and BOOM, he was cured. But Cas Joiner was never that lucky. He probably would have just been a ghost of himself - still him, but no substance. I would rather him dead than that.

Still, I feel sorry for the man who found him. It was one o'clock in the afternoon when Cas Joiner finally pulled the trigger - so the streets residence hadn't been home. Except for one man who was home sick. Mr Guffney.

I didn't really know Mr Guffney that well, he was just the man down the road in his mid forties with no children and a wife who had passed away from cancer only a few years after they had married. Occasionally - before I had my licence - he would say hello to me as I would pass,or maybe ask how I was going. But we had never had a conversation of any substance. My mother had given him cookies a few times when she had over baked and doubted that my brother and I could devour the extra batch.

Anyways, Mr Guffney heard the gun shot and straight away called for the police and an ambulance. The police arrived 15 minutes later, whilst the ambulance arrived shortly after and then I finally arrived shortly father the ambulance. However, in those 15 minutes, Mr Guffney used his brain cells to figure out that no one had actually broken into the house. So, he used a pot from the backyard to smash through a window, and frantically searched the house. Guffney had found Cas Joiner in his bedroom, head still intact, apart from the gaping hole in it.

The Mr Guffney did what any other person who had just broken into someone's house and found a teenage boy who had committed suicide would do - he passed the fuck out. When Mr Guffney came around, the police had a gun pointed at him. This caused him to pass out again. In the time Mr Guffney was passed out, the ambulance people removed Cas Joiner from the house and took him to the hospital. But it was already clear that his heart had stopped beating.

Then, Mr Guffney woke up, and didn't pass out this time, because there wasn't a gun pointed at him, and he was no longer in the room that Cas Joiner had taken his life in.

However, the police had figured out that he hadn't actually killed Cas Joiner Nd he was the man that called the ambulance. But breaking into the house hadn't really helped.

In the meantime, I arrived home just in time to see the para medicine people run around the side of the house and begin to climb through the broken window, because no one had bothered to open a door. So I did what any other neighbour would do: I pulled in my driveway across the street and then ran across the road and waited at the ambulance. I don't know how long I was standing at the ambulance for, but it was long enough to text my mother and get Mrs Joiners mobile number. I told mum that something bad had happened at the house and the police and an ambulance were here, but I didn't know what had happened yet, so don't bother calling. And she didn't.

Then the ambulance people came out to get those bed things on wheels to load his dead body onto, and completely ignored me. I didn't expect them to stop and ask me how I was going, but I did expect them to maybe tell me to evacuate the area or politely tell me to fuck off. But they didn't, and that's when I figured out that something truly horrible had happened inside that house.

This was when my curiosity got the better of me and I started to follow the rushing paramedics. As I tried to follow them in through the back door a police officer asked me what the hell I thought I was doing.

"My friend lives here" I replied, like it was the obvious answer. That statement wasn't entirely true. Cas Joiner had been my friend before we got to high school. Because high school changes everyone. He joined a varsity team and I became an average student with above average grades that weren't good enough to join an academic club. Sometimes I would hitch a lift with him to school, or he would come with me, but those silent car rides were the new extent of our social interaction.

I think I felt the vomit in my stomach slowly start to rise when I saw the sympathetic look the officer gave me. It meant that something horrible had happened to Cas Joiner.

"I have his Mothers mobile number" I croaked, shock beginning to take over my body. I had managed to hold down my stomach contents until I saw the bloody mess that was Cas Joiners head. I threw up in Mrs Joiners favourite flower bed, then broke one of her nicer hanging pots as my knees gave way and I followed them.

And it was there, in that obnoxiously colourful garden, that I noticed how cruel the world was. My childhood best friend had just taken his life, and the sun still dared to shine so those flowers could do some fancy chemical work and grow, the dog across the street still barked at his own reflection in the window, and those paramedics were treating Cas Joiner like another dead body. The worlds heart didn't even stutter because of his death.

The police officer proceeded to pick me up off the ground and asked me for his mothers number. I gave it to him numbly, then I called my own mother. She didn't say much, but who really has much to say when their teenage daughter calls and says

"I'm at the Joiners house, Cas has a horrible head injury and it was probably suicide. Oh, and Mr Guffney is here too"

After a few deep breaths she asked if I was going home. I told her instead that I was riding in the ambulance to the hospital with Cas and that I would text her the details.

The police officer was already on the phone to Cas' mother.

So I climbed into the ambulance and it took off, sirens blaring. I don't know where Mr Guffney went, but I didn't see him at the hospital that afternoon, or night, or even the next morning.

Mrs Joiner arrived, and she cried. A lot. Mr Joiner cried but all it did was make the doctors worry that he was choking. My mother showed up, and tried to take me home, but I refused to go and the police wouldn't let me leave just yet. So I stayed, sitting stiffly in that even stiffer hospital chair. Eventually Mrs Joiner cried herself to sleep and slumped onto Mr Joiners shoulder, who just stared blankly at the blue walls. Mum gave us hot chocolate and coffee regularly.

I don't really understand why we had to wait in the waiting room. He was dead. We weren't waiting for news that the surgery was successful or that he had died on the table. We weren't waiting for anything, except maybe the police who took their sweet time questioning me.

It was determined that I was the last person to ever see Cas Joiner alive. Which was in the morning when I knocked on the door and asked if wanted a lift to school, but he told me he wasn't feeling well so he was going to stay home. If only I had known.

But what a pathetic last interaction. Telling the girl that was your child hood best friend and who you lost your virginity to at the age of fourteen that you aren't feeling well enough to go to school and then glumly nodding as she wishes that you'd get better soon. Then maybe he closed the door and began his destructiveness. Perhaps he started with some matches or a lighter first, before moving onto the razor blades and then finally the gun.

But no matter how he chose to destroy himself, it was sad. He was lonely, hurt, and sick - the kind of sick that people don't take seriously. And he died because of that.

Or so we thought.