Remembering a Friend

Trigger Warning: Attempted suicide and mention of death

I was so close to reaching the bottom. Then I could finally be with my best friend, Jasmine. As soon as I would get there, I would let my breath out and it would all be over. Memories of Jasmine flooded her mind as she reached the end. As soon as she touched, a force was pulling her up. No! This can't be happening! she was doing everything she could to make this thing let go of her. Her head broke the surface and she was coughing.

"How could you! Why did you save me?!" She starts crying "I wanted to be with her!" She looked to see what saved her. It was a stranger. She has never seen him before. He had bright blue eyes and light brown hair. He looked about her age.

"You just can't go and kill yourself!" The stranger yelled back at her. He then grabbed her by the arm and pulls her on the boat. "You can't just go and do that... you need to talk to someone about it. It would make you feel better." He let go of her after they were both on the boat. "My name is Josh, and can you tell me what you were yelling about?"

She looks at the ocean struggles to talk. “K-Katherine. That i-is my name. And I just wanted to be w-with my best friend. She p-passed away from a d-drunk driver.” 

Josh looks at her. “Come on. Let’s get to shore, my house isn’t far. We need to get you dry before you get sick. I live in a house full of girls, so we could find something that fits you.” She looks up at him and nods. Once they get to the shore, he points to a house near them. “I live close to the shore. So I went fishing today, that is when I saw you when you were in there.” He jerks his head to the ocean. “But, let’s go this way.” He grabs her hand gently and pulls her to the house. Once they were inside, they went up to Josh’s room. “Hold on a second. I can ask my little sister for some clothes. She is small, and you look about her size.” He left the room for a moment and came back with some clothes. 

Katherine takes them goes to the bathroom and changes. She comes back out and sits on the bed. “Thanks. I’m sorry for causing you so much trouble. You should have not had to save me. I was being stupid.” 

“It’s fine. The important thing is that you are ok and that you are not sick right now. But…”, he paused to think about how to say it, “can you tell me what your friend was like?” 

“She was the most out-going and the most beautiful person you would have ever met. She loved to be outside and loved to be with her friends. I have known her since we were both in the 3rd grade. I was having a hard time, so she helped me.” Katherine starts to cry but continues. “She was always there for me. And I tried to always be there for her. Last year, when we were sophomores, We were coming home from the movies with two other friends. A driver was speeding and hit us. I thought that we were all okay. So I asked everybody if they were ok, I got an answer from everyone, but her. That is when I knew she was not okay. I was hoping that she was just unconscious. The paramedics took her out of the car and tried to save her, but they couldn’t. They declared her dead on the scene. Today has been one year since her death. It has been hard for me… so I thought I could have ended my suffering. I wanted to join her.” 

“Oh… I see. I am really sorry about your loss. You know. I have an idea. Let’s go out and do whatever she loved to do. What were some of her favorite things?”

“Okay,” She smiled a little, “She loved to go to the summer fair. We would ride all of the rides. She liked to go to the movies, we would watch whatever scary movie there was. But her all-time favorite thing to do was to look up at the stars.” 

“Today is the last day of the fair. We can go and ride all of the rides. Then we can go to see a scary movie. I know a very good spot to go watch the stars. It is far away from the city so we can get all of the stars.” 

“It sounds good. But, before we go, you still have to get changed.” Katherine says smiling

“Ya... Let me go do that real quick.” Josh leaves and comes back in dry clothes. “Come on! We have stuff to do!” Katherine gets up off the bed and follows him to the car. After they were both in the car, Josh kept asking questions about Jasmine. Katherine would answer then thoroughly. This made her happier. 

Once they got to the fair, they went and rode all of the rides. They got funnel cake and cotton candy after they were finished. By the time they got to the movies, all of the food was gone and they were laughing, having a good time. They went in and got their tickets, got some candy and drinks and watched all of the scary films that they were showing. After watching them all, it was 11 pm. 

Josh looked at her and said, “It is finally dark enough to go and see the stars.”

Katherine looked up at him with bright wide eyes and smiles. “How far away is it?”

“About 30 minutes away.” They got into the car and Josh started to drive away from town. “How long would you and your best friend look at the stars?”

“Until dawn... We would go out once it got dark and stay out in the field behind her house and talk, laugh, and have a lot of fun until it was light out.” She watched outside, seeing the houses become distant and not showing up as often. She tears up a little while memories of her and Jasmine flood her mind once more. She realizes that they are away from town and the car is stopped. She looks over at Josh and he is smiling. 

“Here we are!” They get out of the car and Katherine looks up at the sky. 

“There are so many stars!”

“Yeah there are a lot, but this is not where we are going to look at them, I know a. Follow me.” Josh leads her to a hill about a mile away from the car. “ here we are. Now, we can lay here and look at the stars until morning.” Josh lays down a blanket and they sit next to each other, looking at the stars.

“Thank you so much for helping and spending this day with me. Jasmine would have thanked you.” 

“You’re welcome. I am glad that I could spend this day with you.” 

They smile at each other and looks back up at the stars.