Mom,

I can’t. I can’t do this anymore.

It all hurts too much. I’ve tried to keep going.

To keep fighting. To just make it another day, but I Can’t anymore.

I’m tired. I am just so tired.

I thought that for once, someone was finally starting to understand,

that someone was finally starting to see things from my perspective, but that was a lie.

A fallacy. No one will ever understand.

Love,

Jinyoung.

As JB read over Jinyoung’s letter, he couldn’t help the few tears that escaped his eyes. He knew he had made a huge mistake. As he sat in Jinyoung’s room and stared at everything around him, it felt like the world was crashing down around him. Jinyoung’s mom had let JB in for just a few moments while she gathered some things to take up to the hospital with her. JB could see it in her eyes that she blamed him in part for what had happened, and honestly he also blamed himself. This was his fault, if only he had done the right thing. He knew Jackson was wrong, he knew Jackson had started with Jinyoung for no reason, but he was his friend and didn’t it make more sense to have his friend’s back than to have the back of someone he had just started getting to know? Didn’t it make more sense to value the history of his friendship with Jackson than the newness of discovering more about Jinyoung? He knew he had made the completely wrong decision, but there was nothing he could do about it. He placed the letter in his pocket when he heard Jinyoung’s mom approaching the room. He knew she had seen it, and after the cops had gone over the house, they didn’t think it was necessary to take it with them. What had happened was pretty cut and dry.

“JB?” she called out.

“yes ma’am?”

“I’m heading to the hospital now”

“OK, I’ll be on my way” he stepped out of her way as she walked into the room but for some reason his feet wouldn’t move any further. He hadn’t said anything to her and he couldn’t just leave without saying anything at all. He could not imagine what was going on inside of her head. Jinyoung was her only child and this must have been tearing her up for sure.

“Jinyoung’s mom…”

“yes?”

“I’m really sorry…about all of this”

“yeah, me too”

“Is there any news?”

“As of right now, they’re just trying to keep him stable. His vitals are all over the place”

“Damn”

“His letter…I read it. I just don’t understand. I don’t understand it at all”

“he was finally starting to believe in me, he was finally giving me a chance and I let him down”

JB stepped away from her as the weight of his faults crashed down on him. It was like a sledgehammer to his back and the weight of his guilt took him to his knees, but he didn’t want to breakdown in front of her. He had never wanted her or anyone for that matter to see him cry, but he couldn’t help the tears that rolled down his cheeks. He didn’t want to look at her but when he did, there wasn’t any of the  blame that he thought he would see. The realization that JB did care about her son in his own way, stopped her from placing the blame on him. JB did care about Jinyoung. From the things he had learned about him and the things he still wanted to know, Jinyoung not existing in his world was suddenly a scary thought.

Maybe it was because of the scars he had seen on Jinyoung or the fact that he was so fragile to everyone around him, but something about Jinyoung called out to JB and begged him to answer, to protect him, to make sure everything was okay, and in that, JB had failed. He wanted to be there for Jinyoung but he didn’t know how. He didn’t know how to be a friend to him when everyone in school would call him crazy for even speaking to him. He wanted not to care, to say that what they thought didn’t matter, but the opinions of the flock could change everything instantly and he didn’t know if he was strong enough to survive being an outsider.

“He’s been through so much. He’s had so much hurt in his life. He must be so tired” Jinyoung’s mom said as they made their way out of the house.

JB wanted to go to the hospital, he wanted to see him but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. From what Jinyoung’s mom had told him, it was just a constant fight to keep him alive at this point and JB couldn’t be brave enough to go there and watch Jinyoung endure such a balancing act. He just wanted to wake him up and shake him. Make him realize how big of a mistake this was, make him understand that it did get better and that there were people who genuinely did care about him. That he wouldn’t always have to carry around such pain, but why would Jinyoung believe him when he had turned his back on him when he probably just wanted someone to be on his side?  JB pulled the crumpled note out of his pocket and as the beautiful cursive style writing was stained by his falling tears, he told himself something had to change. Something was going to change.

JB could feel the stares he was getting as he walked into school the next day, word had spread fast about Jinyoung’s suicide attempt and everyone knew they were partners on the project for Mr. Park’s class. Apparently, Ji Min had been at the hospital with her sister when Jinyoung and his mother had gone in. She wasn’t being facetious but she had texted one person and just like that, everyone knew. JB just wanted to get the day over with, he had promised himself he was going to go and see Jinyoung after school. He was going to be the friend to him that he should have been in the first place. It was unusual, but the sight of his group of friends made him cringe instead of making him feel better as it usually did. They all had their first class together and he could only imagine what they were thinking about Jinyoung. He saw Jackson walking toward him and instantly got pissed, he knew Jackson’s suspension was over but he just couldn’t imagine him being there at school while Jinyoung was in the hospital.

“Hey man, did you hear? That loser tried to off himself” Jackson sneered when he got to JB.

When the first chuckle left Jackson’s mouth, JB was already in motion, he grabbed Jackson by the collar of his shirt and slammed him into the wall of lockers as hard as possible.

“Dude, what the ?!!” Jackson yelled.

“What the is your problem? Are you so ing hateful that you could seriously find something funny about the fact that someone almost died?” JB asked.

“What the has gotten into you man?” Jackson was shocked to be attacked by his best friend. By now they were drawing a crowd but JB didn’t care because he was burning mad.

“What’s gotten into me? You’re sitting here acting like this is funny, when the reason he’s in the hospital right now is because of us”

“Us?! You’re ing delusional man. That loser made his own ing decisions”

“Because of everything he’s had to go through. Can you seriously be so callous?”

“I don’t even know what that means, but I do know this. He did himself and everyone else here a favor. He ‘disappeared’, just you told him to. So don’t ing blame everyone else for that you yourself set into motion”

JB knew Jackson was right, he had told Jinyoung to disappear.

“and what’s your excuse?”

“excuse me?”

“What’s your excuse, Jackson? What exactly did Jinyoung ever do to you?”

“Nothing, but…”

“but what? It was convenient? No one in this ing place ever had a problem with him until I said I did. No one thought anything of it, no one noticed him until I said he was a problem and then everyone hopped the on it”

“So what?”

“So what?! Grow a ing brain and make a decision for yourself”

“What are you like best buddies now? He spends one day at your house and you’re the leader of his damn fan club?”

“I’m just trying to finally do what’s right”

“and for what? A little too late, don’t you think?”

Jackson pushed JB’s hand away from his shirt and fixed his crumpled clothing. JB thought he was going to take a swing at him, but he didn’t. He couldn’t reply Jackson because honestly that was his fear, what if it was too late? Not even considering Jinyoung wasn’t going to make it, but what if he decided that JB was just another disappointment in a long list of disappointments? What if he decided that getting to know each other wasn’t worth it anymore?

“ you JB” Jackson said and walked away so did the crowd that had gathered.

JB thought he was alone and as his head hit the locker in front of him, he felt a small hand on his shoulder. He turned around to see who it was and saw Ji Min, the girl who had spread the news in the first place. He could see the apologetic look on her face, He knew none of it was her fault. Everyone would have found out soon enough anyway.

“I’m really sorry about all this JB” she said.

“It’s not your fault”

“Yes, it is. If I had kept quiet…”

“They would have found out anyway”

They stood in silence for a while. JB didn’t really know what to say so he slid down the locker and sat on the floor, everything was so messed up.

“My sister broke her arm. That’s why we went up to the hospital to begin with. She fell out of our tree house and fell on it, so my dad rushed her to the ER”

JB didn’t know why Ji Min was telling him all that but he didn’t interrupt, as she sat down next to him he could see that he wasn’t the only being torn up by the situation, that maybe he wasn’t the only one who cared.

“We had only been at the hospital about ten minutes before Mr. Baek and  Jinyoung’s mom came rushing with him. Mr. Baek was carrying him and he was soaked through. I thought that maybe he had fallen or something, but he wasn’t moving and his mom was hysterical” she continued.

JB gulped as he relived the situation through Ji Min’s eyes, he could hear her getting choked up as she continued.

“They were screaming for a nurse or a doctor and everyone was giving her the cold shoulder until they saw Jinyoung wasn’t moving. After that, everything was a blur. My parents were with my sister, so I got as close as I could, but…you know?”

“yeah”

“The police came not long after and they questioned the hell out of her. She was crying and crying, but they kept asking her questions after questions, even after Mr. Baek told them to back off”

“what happened with Jinyoung?”

“They pumped his stomach. I overheard his mom when they were asking her questions, she had an old bottle of soju and between his pain pills and some pills she had laying around…”

“oh my God”

“yeah it was horrible. They kept him sedated, or he went into a coma”

“His mom told me they’re fighting really hard to keep him stable. It’s touch and go right now”

“That’s horrible. Why would he do it?”

“Things are hard for him. You have no idea how hard they are”

“That’s so sad”

As she wiped a tear away from her eye, JB couldn’t help warming up to her a little bit. They had never been close before, they both run in different circles but JB was seeing a side of her that was warm and kind. He knew he wasn’t the only one who let the voices of his peers sometimes make decisions for him and maybe that’s why Ji Min never reached out to Jinyoung before. She didn’t have a mean bone in her body, but no one wanted to be an outcast.

“Oh I’m late for English” Ji Min said.

JB helped her to her feet and they went their separate ways, JB headed to his math class and just tried to get through the day. It was bad enough that he had already had an altercation with Jackson that morning, he could feel the stares as he walked into his class, from those who had been around to witness or those who had heard about his bout with Jackson but he just didn’t care, he didn’t have to explain anything to them and he wasn’t going to.

Later that day, the moment everything stopped. JB was in shock. The only sound in the room was the working machines kept in place t