Fred

After staying up for most of the previous night, he couldn’t wait to grab his phone and talk to his friend. He dialed his number and waited. One ring, two rings, all the way until it hit the answering machine. “Maybe he is still asleep,” he told himself. Half the day passed and there was still no reply. It was unusual to not hear from him. He began to worry. His mom tried calming him down by saying he might be busy. It just didn’t seem right to him.
Later that night while watching the nightly news, a headline grabbed his attention. “Teenager dead in apparent murder-suicide.” It was an unusual headline for the city, but thought nothing of it until the newscaster started the story. “The shooting happened on the 800 block of Turtle Bend.” No it couldn’t be! There was no way it was him, he thought. With tears running down his face, he told his mom what had happened. Shocked, she quickly drove him over to his friend’s house, only to find the frightening yellow caution tape. His best friend had died.
That night, he couldn’t sleep, as thoughts of the times he spent with his friend. Being up all night playing video games, going to his house every morning before school, the weekend football games in Austin, all of the things he enjoyed, gone. The fact that such a happy person could snap and turn the gun against his family and himself was what worried him the most. There were no warning signs. “Why couldn’t he just come to me for help?” he wept throughout the night. It was hard for him to grasp the fact that he was gone.
He remained quiet at school, and his classmates respected that. Everyone that knew his late friend was upset with the news. The week was tough, but it got worse at the end. Saturday was the funeral. Less than a week ...

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...y still haunts him. The good and the bad anger him for what he has lost. It could never be replaced. The thoughts surrounded him. He kept telling himself he wouldn’t do it, that it wasn’t worth it. But this time was different. He didn’t try stopping himself. He grabbed the knife. Life had just brought him pain, and all he wanted was to enjoy it. His friend was taken away from him, and now he was going to get him back. He slid the knife across his neck. The hot blood combined with his tears as it ran down his body and onto the floor. In the distance he could hear people shouting. He tuned out the screams of his family and focused on what he saw as the light began to drain from his eyes. “Fred?” he asked. All he wanted was right there in front of him. Years of suffering were gone, and would soon be replaced with an eternity of being finally reunited with his friend.