It had been three days since you last saw your friend. And for that time span, you didn't hear anything from him. You began to worry. It was not like him to be gone without so much as a word.
You tried texting him every twenty minutes or so, but there were no replies.
Before lunch, you tried again. This time you rang his phone. However, your call went straight to voicemail.
"Hey, it's Ron. What's up?" You felt chills hearing your friend's voice. You surprised yourself to think that you actually missed that son-of-a-bitch.
"I'm sorry I can't answer right now. I'm kind of... busy... busy watching porn. So don't disturb me. Just leave a message!"
You cracked a smile. That bastard. He still hadn't changed his answering machine. Would he ever grow up?
"Hey, asshole," you greeted after the beep. "What shenanigans have you been up to these past few days that you would leave your best friend here in this god-forsaken place all by himself? What kind of friend would do that, huh? I'm hurt."
Still smiling, you switched the phone on the other ear. "But lucky for you I'm willing to forgive you. A drink would suffice. So what do you say?" You looked at your watch. "Let's hang at around seven?"
You waited.
But there was only silence behind the other line. The silence however was eerie and heavy for some reason. You couldn't understand it but you felt a pang of sadness in your chest. The smile on your face slowly faded. "I miss you, buddy. I'll see you soon, okay?"
You hanged up the phone.
You went on your usual routine. But the thought of your friend never left your mind. Something bothered you. And you couldn't be at ease about it.
You decided to check on his desk to see his things. Maybe he left something that would explain why he was absent for a couple of days. Or maybe you just wanted to be there, to somehow feel his presence. You didn't know exactly. You didn't even know why you were checking his notebooks and books on his drawer.
Inside his drawer, you noticed a little book entitled Mga Kirot Ng Kapalaran! and slowly pulled it out. It was a KikoMachine Komiks you gave him as a birthday present.
Feeling nostalgic, you sat on your friend's chair and flipped the pages. You were on page 39 when you noticed something weird.
Your friend never wrote on his books. He treated them like prized possessions so you knew he would never taint his books even with a dot of ink.
So you wondered why on that particular page the phrase "be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle" was highlighted by a fiercely drawn circles around it.
You took a breath and continued to turn the pages. You were almost at the end when a white piece of folded paper fell from the book.
You put the book down, bent your knee and reached for the paper on the floor. For an unknown reason, the said paper felt heavy in your hand. Feeling uncomfortable, you stood up, took a shaky breath and slowly opened it.
To your surprise, it was a letter written by your friend dated four days ago. His handwriting was somehow different. You knew it was his, but there was something about the letter itself and the manner of writing on that piece of paper that's unsettling. You also noticed a couple of stained circles, like dried tears of some sort.
Was he crying when he wrote this?
You gathered enough strength and read what was written on the letter.
**Dear Self,
I'm sorry that you tried so desperately to fix others, when your own hands were shaking. I'm sorry that I didn't give you enough time to heal, that I let you seal the wounds of everyone else while your own were bleeding.
I'm sorry that there were days that smiling hurt but you forced yourself to laugh so that no one had to worry about you. I'm sorry for not allowing you to cry when you needed it. I kept you holding everything in until it bottlenecked and you felt like your head would explode.
I'm sorry that people couldn't understand how your mind works. You were a nice guy. But even the nicest guy has his limits.
What most people didn't understand was that contrary to your sanguine facade, your mind is a frail little thing. You tried to play it cool, but when people constantly ignore and hurt you, you are also capable of getting mad. Mad at people. Mad at everything. But most of all, mad at yourself. What's worse was that when you get mad, you get sad. Extremely sad. The feeling of anger shatters the wall you put up in your head to protect your mind from your demons.
I'm sorry that I couldn't do anything when the wave of numbness weakens your knees and thoughts of self harm flood your mind.
I'm sorry that you gave all your time and effort to people that didn't give the same amount back. I'm sorry that there were nights when you cried yourself to sleep and no one bothered to understand why. You wished you had never woken up. I'm sorry that I couldn't disagree sometimes.
And I'm so sorry that I didn't love you like you deserved to be loved, that I didn't love you more than I hated myself.
I'm sorry.**
You felt your heart beat uncontrollably in your chest as tears ran down your eyes. Holding the letter in your shaking hand, you immediately went out and drove to your friend's apartment.
That idiot. What did he do?
You remembered the last time you talked. Late night, four days ago, you were at a bar you had been going in with him for years. It must be the beer clouding your memory but you remembered him telling you he was going for a while.
You held the steering wheel tight when you remembered asking him where he was going.
He just smiled at you. "Somewhere peaceful."
At your drunken state, you wrapped your arm around his shoulder. "I'll go with you, buddy."
"You can't," he smiled, unwrapping your arm from his shoulder. "I'm going somewhere you can't follow."
You blinked, not following what he was saying. "Well, fuck you, then."
He stifled a laugh. "Will you miss me?"
You rolled your eyes and drank your beer. He threw his head back and just laughed at you. He then wrapped his arms around you and hugged you real tight.
"I love you, man."
"Gayyy."
And that was the last time you ever saw him again or ever heard his laugh.
You pulled over to his apartment. Without even turning off the engine, you went straight to your friend's house. You banged at his door and called out his name.
But no one answered.
You started to panick. As beads of sweat formed in your forehead and your breath racing, you remembered he always had a spare key under the potted plant.
You lifted the pot and grabbed the key.
Biting your lip and with a shaking hand, you put the key in and pushed the door open.
And what you saw inside his apartment melted your knees and broke your heart.
