Everything happens for a reason, that class you drop by chance, or who you partner up with in class. On April 26th, 2014 everything in my life changed, I lost one of my best friends. If that wasn't bad enough, the reason I lost him was because he wanted to die, suicide. In the beginning of September 2013, I filled into my sixth hour class with dread and ambition, anxious to see who would occupy me in Global Studies, a class about the world. In that class, I had a couple friends. I wouldn't have considered us close friends, but I wouldn't have considered us distant either. Their names were Lloyd, Scott & Jose. While learning about continent after continent we slowly got closer. Accompanied by our friend, Danielle, who was not in that class, we became a little click of sorts. Everyday after school we'd snapchat each other on the school bus, the obvious mode of transportation for those with working parents. Everyday Scott & Danielle would sit together, so we'd get joint snapchats from them. Watching them together was like magic, I've never seen two people understand each other like they did. Neighbors & first loves, that's all it takes for two people to become close. At that time, they had been broken up for a while, but you knew they still loved each other. You could see it in their eyes.

On November, 22 2013 Scott, Jose and I started our first group chat on Facebook. An action that seems so small to most was one that completely changed my life. On this day, I left to tour Europe so this was our mode of communication. It was great being able to talk to them outside of school all the time. They became like family. We soon realized that we were missing Lloyd in this group. So we changed to iMessage, so we could include our Facebookless friend. This group slowly became my rock, we told each other everything. Through this, Scott was always distant, but we just thought that he wasn't one who opened up easily. In the beginning of January, we started a project in Global Studies on an asian country of choice. Of course, Scott, Lloyd, Jose & I chose to work together. Our country was China. Me, being the only girl, took over as the "dictator" of the group. I assigned everyone roles & due dates throughout the project. This drove Scott insane, he wanted to be in charge. He "rebelled against the dictator" in a joking way, but he always got his work done on time. When it came time to present, it was obvious that I put just a little bit more effort into our slideshow then the rest. But to get extra credit, Scott made a 5 minute paper replica of the Great Wall Of China. He got two points of extra credit, someone so simple but yet it happened to drive me insane. I wanted the extra credit. After some deliberation and teasing, Scott being the nice guy that he was gave me those two points. Taking his points actually makes me feel like crap now, since he's gone.

This assignment marked the end of that class. A class that I had just happened to take by chance. I had taken band for four years before sophomore year. In high school, band was sixth hour, the hour of global studies. By chance, I just had happened to drop band for a semester, something I believe that must have happened by fate so I could have been in global studies with Scott, Lloyd & Jose. Slowly after second semester began to creep on, the amount we all chatted began to dwindle. Around the time of spring break, Scott & I became partners in Alg 2. We did all of our assignments together & he always graded my homework in class. It was great. We had a system. At this time, our group chat had almost become obsolete. We had all gone our separate ways but we still had this underlying bond that kept us together. Every once in a while, I would go up to Scott in the hall & just give him a big hug. I don't know why, I guess I was just a hugger.

On April 24th, I had no idea this day would have importance in my life, but it was the last time I talked to Scott. In alg 2, we talked about how he was reading a huge book, and how his hair was getting long. He told me he was getting a haircut on the following Wednesday. This was just a generic conversation between us, I never thought I'd have to remember all the details, especially because I needed to recite them back to a cop on the following Monday. April 24th was a Thursday. A normal Thursday. That Friday was also a normal Friday, I went to the school play with a couple friends. Scott wasn't at school that day, I thought he was just sick. I wasn't too worried about him, I was going to text him to see if he was okay, but I forgot to. We were supposed to go to the play together that Friday, but those plans fell through as the week went on.

On Saturday, April 26th, I went to work in the morning. I was at my parents golf course, my happy place, it was the start of the season so the trees were just beginning to perk up, and the grass was just turning green. It was beautiful. After having the course for nine years, it still took my breath away every time I saw it. Around four pm, something began to seem off. People began tweeting things like "rest in peace" & "goodbye Scott". At first I wasn't too alarmed, I just assumed it was someone's relative or something. But then a distant friend of mine, Josie, told me they needed to call me, and this is when I realized that this was my friend, Scott, who died. I briefly told my mom, & I ran out to the car. I just sat in the passenger seat of my mom's ford flex crying. Josie called me and confirmed my worst fears. I then called Lloyd, who was figuring out at about that same time. We just sat on the phone together, not talking, I just sat there crying hoping this was all some kind of sick joke. I still just hope this is some kind of a sick joke. Shortly after my mother took me home, my phone blowing up with calls & texts from people giving me their condolences because they knew how close we were. Lloyd, Jose and I were in shock.

Within moments of me getting home, the strangest thing happened, the bomb truck pulled into my driveway. They turned around and parked outside my neighbors driveway. I just kept yelling "what the hell" over and over again. I just lost one of my closest friends & now theres a chance my neighborhood could blow up, great. Turns out my neighbor found an old World War Two grenade in a chest that was given to her late husband. Within thirty minutes everything was cleared up, and it turns out the pin was still in the grenade so it wasn't going to be diffused anytime soon. After these turn of events, I just went and sat on my porch. I sat on my spider wed covered  porch and just talked to Lloyd on the phone for about an hour. After that, my mom made me come inside. Then my parents forced me to go out to dinner. My parents took me to a condolences dinner two hours after my friend died. I was forced to sit in a restaurant holding back tears all because my parents wanted to go out to dinner.  All this time I was just so sick of being around people who had no idea what I was going through. All through dinner my parents told me a plethora of stories about how their friends died in fluke accidents, but I promise you that is not like losing a friend to suicide. After this horrendous dinner, I knew I couldn't spend the whole night home.

At nine, I made my mom take me to my friend Katie's. She was in our school play, and it got over with at ninish so I met her at the school. Everyone there was so somber, some of the kids couldn't even perform because they were so shaken up. We were just a group if red eyed teenagers exchanging hugs. After the play ended, Katie and I attended a memorial bonfire for Scott at our friend's Cole's. Cole had been close to Scott for many years. We were joined at this bonfire by many of Scott's closest friends, and a group of cast members. Cole had his pastor at this bonfire, something that would normally have comforted me, but it didn't this time. This event was something that really shook my faith. Standing around this bonfire, we sang songs like "Hallelujah" and I never knew that something so simple could comfort me like that. Watching 16 year old boys sing wearing sunglasses at ten o'clock is nothing I'll ever see again. We all decided to walk to the nearest gas station to get milk and some cups. Some of Scott's oldest friends shared the information that Scott constantly drank milk.

Once we got to the gas station, and the milk was obtained we stood in the parking lot drinking our milk quietly. After about five minutes of being there, these kids pulled up. They were about 25. Graduates of our little school. One of them must have been doped up on something, because they started questioning the kids who still had their stage makeup on. And he almost got in a fight with our friend Austin. Austin got a perfect ACT score that year and was a scrawny soccer player, so obviously he was not the fighting type. One this kids friends apologized, and they left. We were still there in the parking lot. I was waiting for Danielle to show up. She was Scott's best friend and I knew she was taking this really hard. Right before she got there, my ex-boyfriend showed up. This was quite awkward and was one of the factors that made this night one of the weirdest nights ever. He was buying condoms for him & his girl of choice. Still really awkward for me, because we broke up because I refused to "put out". One Danielle showed up, she jumped out of her car, barefoot and in pajamas and we just embraced in a big hug. Slowly everyone joined us. And we just stood hugging in the Shell parking lot. Her eyes were filled with tears. Soon after, we were kicked out of Shell, for loitering.  We walked back to Cole's and went our separate ways.I went back to Katie's house, and I just remember sitting there crying as she held me until 2 or 3 in the morning. At this point I knew the worst of it was not over. In the morning my mother came and picked me up early, she decided we needed to go to church. At this time I was still questioning my faith, I had to. How could someone have let something like this happen to such an amazing person. It was unbelievable. But I sat through church, holding back tears. This would be the last time I would go to church until the end of November, seven months later. After an extremely uneventful mass, I went over to Danielle’s. We had to be together, at this point it felt so surreal we just needed to see each other. After a few surreal hours at her house, Danielle and I went to the school.

There was a mid day performance of the musical, so we knew we’d be able to get in. Sharpies in hand, we decided to go write some good byes on Scott’s locker. Something that was already attempted by some of his soccer friends. Sitting in our hallway, staring at Scott’s locker, all of these memories came to mind. Like how for “twin day” Lloyd, Jose and I dressed up like Scott, or how I’d always go up to Scott and pretend to shut his locker, because it would make him mad and we’d both start laughing. Danielle and I were joined by our friend, Kirk. The three of us just sat there crying. Shaking and crying. After I found out about his death, I did not stop shaking for four days. We wrote our goodbyes on his locker and we left the school. I returned home. I tried to go to bed early that night, because I knew Monday would be the worst, but I could not. I tried to go for a run, but about a mile in I broke down in tears, on the side of the road, I just couldn’t do it. I called up an old friend, and that just made it worse. I walked home and crawled into bed and just laid there. This was the beginning of many of days spent in bed crying.

When I awoke on Monday I knew it would be rough, but I didn’t know how rough. As I stepped off the bus, I had just happened to pass Lloyd in the halls. We immediately just fell into this hug. On my way to my locker, I saw Danielle. She was a mess. We did another one of those running hugs.We went to see Scott’s locker, the night before the janitor painted over all of our memories. This made us angry. It was one of the only ways we had to cope and they ruined it.  On our way to first hour, we broke down crying. Before first hour even started, we were sent to counseling. That Monday was a mix between counselling and crying. I think I saw four different counselors that day. First hour was rough, they read off a generic letter informing the students that one of their classmates had shot themselves. I knew Scott committed suicide, but I did not find out that he shot himself until that day, in first hour, surrounded by a bunch of people who barely knew him.

In second hour, I had english. I had one of those english teachers who always treated us more like friends than students. It was a great way to build a relationship with her, but it was an awful learning environment. That hour was full of Scott’s classmates, people who have known him since he was a baby. Coming from such a small school, most of the students had been friends since preschool. Scott was apart of that group. That hour we just sat and talked. We talked about suicide and how much it sucked, and we talked about great memories of Scott. We talked about how he had this little dinosaur hat. He had that hat from the time he was young and he wore it up until about 8th grade. Everyone had such positive stories about him. It was so nice to hear. Just being able to sit there in the comfort of people who knew him and knew how big his heart was.

As the day trecked on, there was one class I was dreading, my alg 2 class. Even though I sucked at math, I always looked forward to this class, the only class I shared with Scott. My teacher knew how close him & I were. She was standing outside the classroom waiting for me to show up. As soon as I saw her, I lost it. I started crying and I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t go into that room, I couldn’t go see his desk. It would just bring back all this pain. I just hugged her. To this day she’s still one of my favorite teachers to this day for her loving sense of compassion for her students. In that hour she took our class down to the school’s main hall. Here there was a table set up for people to write cards and memories with Scott. At the end of the week, they were going to give these cards to his mom. It was so hard for me to look at. I was a wreck. As the class was walking back to the room, I was shoved in yet another counselor's office. I was supposed to sit and talk about my feelings with someone who did not even know Scott. They yet again made him out to look like this totally depressed suicidal kid. Which he wasn’t. It was so hard to hear.

Sixth hour band was a class I shared with a close friend of mine, Erika. Throughout the past few years she has struggled with depression and with being suicidal. That hour we sat in one of the band’s practice rooms talking. We wrote letters to Scott. This is when I found out she was suicidal and I just lost it. She took his death really hard, because she knew what he was going through right before he died, because she had been there before. She overdosed on pills a couple times, and as soon as she took them she realized she was making a mistake. She threw them up, and she called 9-1-1. The thing is though, when you shoot yourself, it’s instant. In a blink of an eye you’re gone. You can’t take it back like you can with pills. That’s the hardest part, you’re just gone.
At the end of sixth hour, our principal came and got me. He told me I had to go and talk to a sheriff working Scott’s case. I lost a close friend and only three days later I was pushed into talking to a sheriff. This made me convinced that my school was led by a bunch of Nazi’s. All they made me do was explain the same stuff over and over again until every single counsler in a fifty mile radius knew exactly what I knew.

After school Erika, Danielle, I and a couple others went to go burn these letters and candles out on the soccer field. Scott loved soccer. You could just see the joy and love for the game in his eyes when he was playing or talking about it. If I could remember just one thing about Scott, I’d remember his passion for everything. He was such a passionate kid. Since he was a young boy, he’d always wanted to be a pilot. He was in the process of getting into a trade school to help him achieve his goal around the time he died. We sat there and burned these letters. We also almost burnt down the soccer teams dugout as well but I mean, stuff happens. That night there was a girl’s soccer game. They decided to do it in his honor. Before the game they were going to let off balloons in his honor. I decided to skip dance to go to this game. I thought it would help being there. It didn’t. Nothing helped. After the balloons were let off, I decided to go to dance. Throughout the following months dance was the only thing that helped. That night my dance teacher gave me a big hug. It was hard fighting back tears. I was always fighting back tears, but dance helped. It cleared my mind.

Tuesday was a little bit better, less counselors. Danielle and I decided that we need a group counselling session. So we got some of Scott’s closes friends together and we filled into room 218. This was during alg 2 so thankfully I avoided yet another alg 2 class. This session helped. There were two counselors there. They helped us talk through things. Then they left us alone in the room. Here we got a chance to talk about things we loved and things we hated. We talked about how the last few days have gone down, and we talked about how we think the funeral was going to go down. It was on Saturday. We talked about how everyone was posting all over social media about how close they were to Scott or how they wish they would have gotten to know him better. Typical stuff that gets posted when someone dies. Everyone’s sad or sorry that they did not get to know the person better. We talked about how annoying it was, even though most of us were doing the same. But we felt like we had a reason to, because we knew him, or at least we thought we did.

The rest of the week stayed somber but slowly they got back and back to “normal”. If I learned anything from the counselors it was that there will be no more “normal”. “Normal” was not possible anymore. We had to relearn everything. We had to adapt to life without Scott, we couldn’t just pretend that he was still there. And that’s the thing, I feel like he’s still here. That this is just some kind of sick joke. That he’s just in hiding. And I’ll probably feel that way from now on. Occasionally it hits me and I just lose it. I just break down and start crying. It’s just like “holy s*** he’s actually gone.” On Saturday, the day of his funeral, I knew it was going to be bad, but I didn’t know how bad. The last real funeral I had been to was for my grandma, and that was many years before. One I pulled up to the funeral home, I saw how packed it was. There was so many people there paying respects to his family. One of my regrets is not giving his mom my condolences. But I just couldn’t. I had never met her before and I just had no idea what to say. Like I know even an “I’m sorry” would do, but I just could not do it. The words could not form in my head. I stood there less than two feet away from here and the words could not form. As the funeral began, I sat next to Danielle and Lloyd. Jose could not attend the funeral because he had to be in a wedding that day. Danielle and Lloyd were the only people I wanted to be with. They were in our little world. We were all so close and I needed them. We sat there and watched pictures of Scott fly by on a monitor. We saw his sixteen years of life flash by right before our eyes. As the funeral started, I was dry eyed. I thought I wasn’t going to cry. That I had been done crying. But of course I wasn’t. As soon as his soccer coach started talking, I lost it. He talked about how Scott was pulled up to Varsity as a junior, and his excitement for that. And he talked about how Scott wanted his brother’s number. His brother graduated two years ago, so him and Scott never got the chance to play together, but his soccer coach talked about how he always saw Scott practicing with his brother. His love and dedication was unmatched. He got to wear number 19 after his brother. I did not know this until this day, but I love this story. I loved hearing about Scott’s dedication to the sport.

After the funeral ended, I went back to Danielle’s. We were having a bonfire that night, and we were letting off lanterns in Scott’s honor with a group of friends. I think that night was the first time I had smiled and truly meant it after he died. I was surrounded by such a good group of loving kids, it was amazing. The stories we shared, and the memories we made were unmatched. Lighting off the lanterns was amazing. Of course there was a couple problems with the first couple, but after we got a few going, it was beautiful. That night I sat outside with friends until five am just talking. I needed this. I needed to hear all these stories of people and their adventures and about things that made them happy.

The following weekend was prom. Of course, it was.. I had to go and smile and pretend that things were good. I was asked to prom by a friend before Scott died, so I had to go. I had gotten my dress in the mail just a couple days before Scott died. Prom was nice though, it was a nice night to spend around my friends. For the first time I had almost forgotten all of the sadness that entered my life just a few short weeks before. This was a happy point before the sadness overcame me.

Between dance and work and school I slowly lost myself. I became over gulped with things. I couldn’t heal from my loss, the loss just consumed me. This was the start of my depression. I couldn’t focus on school anymore. My GPA dropped from a 3.7 to a 3.2 in just a month. Whenever I was home, all I did was sleep. Sleeping was my happy place because there’s no pain there. When you’re sleeping, you don’t have to think about painful things, because you’re living in your subconscious. From April 26th to the last day of school was the darkest point in my life. There was a few days where I came to class late because I was crying. Thank goodness my teachers understood. I even resorted to drinking during school a couple times. This is when I was for sure at my lowest, and I can promise you that alcohol numbs the pain. But once that wears off, the pain is still there. The pain never leaves, but every once in a while, it sure is nice to numb. Even if it’s for an hour.

Once summer started, things got better. I wasn’t forced to go to a place that reminded me of Scott five days a week. I started being happy again. I was finding my new normal. On July 1st, I turned sixteen. Getting my license gave me a new outlook on life, and a new freedom. With this freedom came the occasional suicidal though. I just thought about crashing my car into a tree, or swerving into the other lane and hitting a car head on. And that’s the thing about depression, some days are good and some days aren’t. I had just lost a friend and the grief overwhelmed me to the point of where I thought about ending my life the same way. I never actually did crash my car or do anything to harm myself. Because I am stronger than that, I knew that I could not put my close friends through this again. But it was really hard, those thoughts were really prominent. But slowly things got easier. The new “normal” was easier to find. Thank goodness I have surrounded myself with such great people. Throughout the summer, I kept thinking about something Lloyd, Jose and I made in January. We made a bucket list of things we wanted to do with Scott before the summer was over. We called it the “Scott Bucket List” and it was full of super ambitious things that we thought we’d accomplish.. but we did not accomplish any before Scott died. And I just couldn’t stop thinking about the irony of this.

As the new school year and as the boys soccer season got closer, Scott got on my mind more and more again. I kept hoping that there wouldn’t be a new kid in his locker, or wearing his jersey. There wasn’t. This made it easier. But as the soccer boys advanced farther and farther through their season, it was hard sitting in the stands not watching Scott play. And just like that it was October 16th, Scott’s birthday. This day was hard, because Scott would have been 17. On his 16th birthday Jose, Lloyd and I were so obnoxious about it. The thing is, everyone says that they love birthdays, until it is their birthday and everyone’s all like “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” apparently people don’t like that in the moment. On Scott’s 16th birthday, I gave Danielle Scott’s sweatshirt that I still had from January. She loved it, we just sat there with Lloyd crying in the school parking lot.

This year, the boy’s soccer team almost made it to states, and I just couldn’t stop thinking about how Scott would have loved to have made it to the regional semi final game. It broke my heart going to those games and watch them play without Scott. I just hoped they were going to make it to states for Scott. They lost the game before State Semi-Finals.

On October 26th, it was the six month anniversary of his death. I was dreading this day for a long time, because I knew it would suck. But the thing is, it didn’t suck as much as I thought it would. I spent the day with my boyfriend, someone who made me happy. And the happiness canceled out the sadness. This was the first time that the sadness did not seem so scary anymore. The “normal” was beating my depression. My depression was leaving. Of course, it’s been back since then. But its been few and far between, it’s not everyday like it was. And I’m just so thankful for the people I have in my life.. because without them I don’t know if I would have been able to handle all of this on my own. Being able to easily find happiness in my days have made everything better. And even though things will never be how they were, I know that there's light in my life each and everyday. In the past month, I’ve started going to church again, and I re-found that light, a light that was so prominent when I was a child is now back. I’ve begun to see the light of life after high school and the promises to a good future. And of course I’ll always have the memories of sophomore year to make me smile and cry from time to time.