I’ve contemplated suicide before. I’ve once pressed a clean razor blade to my forearm and slid it across, but decided that there were much better ways to go about it than that. In a way it felt relieving, like the emotions I was drowning in were being purged along with my blood. The loneliness started when my parents divorced and I had to move to a town where I was an alien. I’ve been sent to therapists and counselors who failed at prying my feeling out. I hated them. They always wanted to talk. There are few things I despise more than anything else and one of them is talking about how I feel. So I pretended as though my emotions were made of Teflon. Nothing anyone said or did could stick to me.

I was a freshman in high school and knew absolutely no one; the lowest caste of social hierarchy. I had moved here during the summer after eighth grade. My old school cut back vacations and was released a month early for summer, due to construction. I had a summer break that was a month longer and didn’t have anybody to share it with. I spent ninety one days doing nothing much other than watching TV. Then I was enrolled in a new school more than twice the size of my old one. I spent everyday the same way. I would walk to school fast enough for the wind to blow my hair back and then sit through my first two classes talking only to whom I had to; usually the teachers when they called on me to answer something. Then I’d eat lunch by myself at a table that was completely empty except for me. Lunch was always my favorite part of the day, though. It meant school was half over. After sitting through my next two classes, I’d walk straight home, even faster than in the morning, never wanting to go back. When I got home, I’d sit in my room playing games on the computer. I was a reject. Every night as I lay in my bed the most somber feeling would fill my mind. I was going to sleep knowing that the next morning I would wake up alone.

Midway into the first semester, I was walking toward my diversity education class when I was approached by a tall kid with long mangled black hair. I stopped and looked up from my feet and recognized him from three of my classes. His name was Max. He was much taller than me, had tan skin, a big round nose with small beads of sweat, and thick protruding eyebrows. His facial features up close were startling. “Uh, where’s our class?” he said to me in a deep, hesitant voice. I thought for a moment that he might be joking, but I answered him anyway.

“Um, it’s right there,” I replied awkwardly and pointed to the door about three meters ahead of me on the left. I hadn’t talked to anybody that I didn’t have to for so long that I almost forgot how to interact with other adolescent humans. I received a sluggish “Uh, thanks,” and continued to class while Max struck up a conversation with someone else in the hall.

At lunch that same day, as I was leaving the register and wandering my way toward the condiments, I noticed a girl from my English class didn’t have enough money to pay for lunch. I shuffled over to her as shyly as could be and reluctantly handed her my last dollar. In my mind, I was prancing over there like a gazelle, agog to be her hero and whipped out a dollar like I was Mr. Deeds. She thanked me enthusiastically and hugged me. I wanted that hug to never end. It made me feel worth something and she was cute. It’s a good thing it did end though, because my face turned red, and sweat was dripping down my temples like the spring thaw was on my head. I somehow found a bit of pride somewhere within all my depression. She invited me to her table because she thought I looked lonely sitting by myself everyday. I accepted in a humble manner even though in my mind I felt like a little kid on Christmas. As we walked toward the lunch table she sat down with her friends where it was too crowded for me. Then I saw Max sitting at the edge of the group on the far end, so I carried my food and backpack over and sat down across from him. Everyone else at the table was engaged in a conversation but me. I sat there not saying a word until I gained the courage to say something. “I need money,” I blurted out directed toward Max, though anyone listening would do.

“Why?”

“For Magic cards.”

“You play Magic?” He was happy that someone else in this world actually played that nerdy card game. I was just as delighted for the same reason and even more excited that someone would talk to me. We started talking first about Magic, then our mutual hatred toward the gym teacher and then anything else that came to mind. Everything that we talked about in those twenty minutes was like rays of sun brightening up my world. I would have talked all day if I could have. The bell rang and I went back to my normal routine, but this time I felt like a person who fit in. For almost six months, I spoke to almost no one, including my family, and now someone opened up to me who wasn’t the voice in my head. I felt like smiling.
I had made plans to not live to see morning after that night. I figured making it as painless and as quick as possible was the way to do it. I studied my dad’s movement when he opened his gun safe to go hunting and memorized the code. 40-42-11. I thought it through the night before and a bullet seemed the most simple, but what happened during the day changed my mind. I made a friend. He was big and goofy looking, but who cares? He was someone who had something in common with me and was willing to talk to me. He saved me. I wanted to die in the least honorable way possible to stop my loneliness and instead found a friend. Maybe it all happened by chance, maybe because I was so depressed, I made a last effort to make friends, maybe it was God. Whatever it was, I changed my mind. I went to school the next day looking forward to seeing Max.