The Only Thing That Stopped Him
One day in the seventh grade, my friend slipped a note into my locker. It was signed very fancily, and the handwriting was uncharacteristically impeccable. In homeroom, I took it out of my binder to read it.
The friend who gave me the note must have seen me open it because he basically tackled people to get it back. I put it in my binder and refused to give it to him until I read it.
When I got home that afternoon, I finally pulled out the note so I could read it in peace. Apparently, my friend’s extreme social awkwardness ran a bit deeper than I thought it had, and he talked about how his lack of other very good friends had pushed him to the breaking point.
I texted my friend and told him that we could both be awkward together, and really who needs that many friends? He never replied. One year later, he texted me out of the blue. He wanted to talk about the note.
I had given it back to him the day after I read it and completely forgotten about it in my tumultuous eighth-grade year. Apparently, the note was a very subtle clue that he was going to end it all that night.
My text was the only thing that stopped him. He said if I had read it an hour later, he’d be gone. Story credit: Reddit / Ultimate_Chimera