"You should get to school or you'll be late." He insisted with a light-heartiness.  Still keeping up this optimist act he'd been pulling at for the longest time.  That act was his defense mechanism, the only thing that helped him cope with his life. I already knew and seeing him trying to keep his emotions bottled up in order to protect me pained me the most. He was here, right in front of me. Yet why did it feel like he wasn't? I wanted to scream at him, demand him to tell me what troubled him, open himself up to me so I could take his pain away, but instead I opted for a head nod. "Will you be okay?" I asked. He smiled, his eyes didn't. "Get going." Was all he said. Instead of asking anymore questions or making anymore attempts to prompt him, I simply obliged. I looked back at him one last time and noticed the sadness in his eyes as he saw me out. Yet he was still smiling. He closed the door in my face without another word, not even a spare of a glance. 

Had I not gone willingly... Had I not kept my mouth shut... Perhaps he would still be alive right now. Not laying in some morgue on a cold table with a cloth draped over his body.