My Best Friend

Part 1.

It was a Monday afternoon, I had just finished a day of school. I would typically go home and do homework, but I haven't had it in me to actually complete any homework lately. Instead, I took a walk to my best friend's house to sit there and admire her work ethic, wishing I was more like her. Senior year was supposed to be filled with opportunities and joy, instead, it's filled with despair, hopelessness, and embarrassment.

Her name was Milissa and we have known each other for our entire lives, but we just became really close freshman year. We competed ruthlessly in middle school, to a point where hatred clouded our minds and our goal was to defeat one another. I hated her guts, I knew she was better than me. Milissa had a better home life than me, had a better everything. Not only was I competitive with her, but I was completely envious. The only reason we actually started to become friends freshman year was because someone knew came to our school and they completely crushed us. Compared to this new kid, Domenic, we were no match, so we decided to hate each other less and to actually have conversations that weren't strictly trash talk. Plus, we realized that we had lots in common, we liked the same tv shows, the same music, and the same hobbies, so perhaps a friendship between us could work.

I reached her house and let myself in, she typically leaves the door unlocked since she's automatically expecting me. Her parents aren't home yet, they're both at work, but her mom will be home sooner than her dad. As I look around, everything around her house gives me every reason to continue my envy of her. Of her perfect house, of her perfect family life, I still don't hold a torch to her academics, she does way more extracurriculars than I do, plus, she's more social, she has more friends, overall, she is a better person than me. I picked up one of her family pictures, she has three siblings, one older brother and two sisters, one older and one younger. I went to her basement and let out an exhausting hello as I placed myself in her bean bag chair. She didn't hear me, her head was buried in her government book as she was diligently studying for this week's exam. I sighed and looked for some cigarettes in one of the closets. "Good luck finding them there, I moved them to this desk drawer since no one but me actually uses the desk. Here." She said without turning around while throwing the pack at me. She knows this routine of ours probably better than I do. I pulled out two cigarettes and as I placed one in my mouth and I asked if she wanted one to which she responded prestigiously about how she's had a change of heart and wanted to do better in her life and that she only has those pack of cigarettes in her room because of me. ugh. As if her life could be any more perfect. I said whatever and stuffed the pack in my bag, it's not like she'll actually notice these are gone.

After hours of me sitting there in her basement wasting my life and senior year away I get up mention that it's late and that I should probably go home. As I was heading up the stairs I feel a slight pull on my arm, the pull a distressed seven year old gives when they fret about your absence. I look back, confused, to see Milissa using both of her hands to latch onto my small right wrist. "What are you doing?" I say in an almost chuckled manner, baffled at her childish action. She responds instantaneously, "don't go. stay, please" without making eye contact at all. My confusion only grows and I told her that I have to go home, if I don't my parents will end up sending out a police search. She looks as if all of the world's stress has turned into an edible pill and she took it and now the effects are sinking in. I saw the painful effect my last sentence had on her, I began to reassure her about no matter what happens, what she does, what I do, whatever happens, I care about her because she is my best friend, and frankly, my only friend. She let go of me and proceeded to let me walk up the rest of the stairs undisturbed.

As I got home I immediately went to my room to sleep. Instead of sleeping, I laid there, fully awake and aware. I couldn't sleep at all. I hate nights like these, but whenever they happen, I call Milissa and we talk until either of us passes out. The time was around eleven thirty at night so I knew she still had to be awake since she spends all day and night studying. I called three times, no response, and I was still wide awake. I decided to go to Milissa's and crash at her house, I've done it plenty times before. I took my crossover bag with me and left a note for parents explaining detail to detail where I was going, why I was going, what time I left, and when I will be back.

Her house isn't too far from mine so it took around 8 minutes to arrive. I entered through her basement door that her and her family forget to lock and headed up to her room. I tried to be as quiet as possible, worried that she will hear something, think it's an intruder, and end up making everyone in the house anxious. Or better yet, she might be so worried, she'd end up hitting me, thinking that I'm the killer. I approached her bedroom door, slowly grip the doorknob with my right hand, and gently turn the knob as I push the door open. As I walk in the room I'm welcomed by a large air of smoke in my face. I begin to mumble to Milissa why I am here and make a joke of her quitting cigarettes while I look for the light switch. My hands frantically feel the wall's texture to find a raised surface, the light switch. My head automatically lifts up as the lights turn on and I see my eyes pulled to the center of the room to see Milissa's neck hanging crookedly from her body as the rope propels her body upwards from the body. I stood there, indulging this situation. Ideas start to form in my head, ideas like she could have just began to hang herself so she might still be alive, and that this could be a joke like how Veronica fooled J.D. in the movie Heathers. When she falls into the bed as a deadweight with no emotion when I finally found a way to get her down, a small note falls out of her pocket, folded up into tiny pieces. Before I opened the letter, I gathered her mom, dad, and her younger sister to be there as I read the letter. I saw the restraint in her family's eyes, them resisting the urge to break down and cry. I felt sorry for them. How could they pick now to neglect their feelings when one of their daughters died? Oh god, my best friend died.

I read her letter, which really wasn't a letter, more of, her literal last minute thoughts. Either way, I appreciated this, I needed this, it was a step to closure. Out of the two of us, I always thought that I would be the one to kill themselves, I was wrong, and she proved me wrong again.

"I thought I okay. Everything was fine. I was fine with my group of friends, or at any situation where i wasn't alone. Alone, I was a wreck. I would cry myself to sleep everyday. The pain kept recurring, never leaving me alone. I became so afraid, afraid of myself. I did things without much thinking. I stopped relying on my others. I became this impulsive numb being, I became a robot with human skin. I no longer felt any emotion, I was stuck in the same routine of waking up after a sleepless night to go to a school that basically had my death planned out once I signed up for my first class, to go home, study and do homework that made no sense to only repeat these actions again and again. I couldn't take this unbearable pressure anymore, it's too much. It feels like suffocation all the time, I can't go a day without having the urge to jump off the building. I can't do any of this anymore. It hurts to live, it hurts to continue. Forgive me, and understand that I never had the capability to take on this life. -Milissa"

My god, my best friend died, the person I envied the most died, and I know I could have prevented this if I stayed at her house. Her suicide only further proves our uncanny similarities because that week she killed herself, I planned my suicide. My best friend killed herself and killed the part in me which radiated vindictiveness and malice. My best friend died and I felt better. Milissa tied the noose, but i was the one who told her to do it.