“Joshua . . . attempted . . . suicide.”
They didn’t know if he was going to survive, his pulse was so weak.
No, no, no. Joshua, no.
Everything begins to flash before my eyes. What did I do wrong? Where did I fail? Why, Joshua? Guilt was the first feeling to fill my heart. It had never, ever crossed my mind that he could do something like this. He didn’t look depressed, he didn’t . . . I . . .
Arriving at his house, the ambulance speeds past me, and I fall to my knees in the snow. Joshua’s neighbors come over and put a coat over me. I clutch my chest, breathing heavily. My mother hugs me from behind.
“It’s okay, sweetie. It’s okay, he’ll be okay.”
“Mommy, I. . . . It’s my fault. . . . I stopped talking to him. . . . He . . . ” I can’t breathe, and I can’t stop crying.
The taxi ride to the hospital is silent, except for the sound of my sobs. With my head on my mother’s lap, I pray. I pray that he survives. This is not supposed to happen. This is a nightmare. My best friend couldn’t have done that, my Yoshi . . .
Arriving at the emergency room, I run over to his parents. They look devastated. Their eyes are swollen, and the pain is evident on their faces. As soon as they see me, they burst into tears. I join them, hugging them.
Wiping away my tears, I softly push away.
“What happened?”
His mother shakes her head.
“After seeing in the New Year, he went to his room. We tried calling him, but he didn’t answer. I thought he had fallen asleep and went to see.” Her voice breaks, the pain clear on her face. “He took so many pills. He was so pale. My baby.” Her husband hugs her. “My baby looked dead.”
The agony and pain reflected in their faces are so hard to see. I can feel their despair and guilt. Where did we fail? What didn’t we see? Maybe everything or maybe nothing. Joshua might have given us signs, or he might have given us nothing, but still this feeling of guilt, of failing him, eats away at us all.
Suicide . . .
An almost taboo word. One that nobody mentions and no one likes to talk about. It’s not pleasant, much less comfortable, but the reality is that it does happen, that there are people out there struggling who need help. And I was naive enough to think that it only happened to other people, that it would never happen to someone close to me.
I never suspected that Joshua would do something like this.
Please, Joshua, don’t die, I beg, closing my eyes. I’m here, I’ll never leave, I promise. Please don’t go, Yoshi.
Minutes pass, hours, I lose track of time. The doctor comes out, with a face that makes my heart clench in my chest.
Please . . .
The doctor sighs.
“He was very lucky. We pumped his stomach, and he’s very weak but stable.”
Relief floods through my body. If it wasn’t for my mother holding me up, I would collapse to the ground. The doctor talks about referring him to a psychiatrist and a lot of other things, but I just want to see Yoshi and make sure that he’s okay and that he’s not going anywhere. I need to talk to him and convince him that he can never do anything like that again, and to apologize for pushing him away, and for not trying to make things right between us.
Maybe if I had been . . . he wouldn’t have . . .
Maybe.
The doctor tells us that Joshua will be unconscious for the rest of the night, and that we can go rest and come back in the morning, but none of us move. My mother gets us an empty room where we can rest. This is her hospital, and everyone knows and respects her. She’s one of the longest-serving nurses in the place.
My mother caresses my hair as I rest my head on her lap.
“I told you he’d be okay, baby. It’s going to be all right.”
“I feel so guilty.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Raquel. Blaming yourself won’t do you any good, now you just have to be there for him, to help him get through this.”
“If I hadn’t pushed him away, maybe—”
“Raquel, people with depression don’t always show what they feel.” My mother interrupts me. “They can appear happy even if they aren’t well. It’s very difficult to help them if they don’t ask for help, and sometimes for them asking for help makes no sense because life has lost meaning.”
I don’t say anything. I just stare at a window in the distance, watching the snowflakes fall. My mother caresses my cheek.
“Get some sleep. Rest. It’s been a hard night.”
My eyes burn from crying so much. I close them to try to sleep a little, to forget, to forgive myself.