Who died at your high school?

At the high school I attended for the first year and a half, I can vaguely remember word going around the school that some students died in a car accident. The school had well over 3000 students, so it was pretty far removed from anyone I really knew.

After I switched to middle college, there were two more instances of automobile-related deaths. The first was a friend of my girlfriend at the time. The girl was driving her brother home from a party, details were sketchy on her own level own level of intoxication. The stretch of road that led to her house was a nightmare. It had steep hills, sharp curves and a high speed limit all in the same place. Someone hit them on the downslope, they swerved to the left across the oncoming lane and slammed into a cinderblock wall. Everyone in the car died, if I remember correctly they had a third passenger with them. Whoever hit them took off and (to my knowledge) was never found. I took my then-girlfriend to the site to leave a candle a while after it happened, but it was pretty rough. The city or homeowners or whoever was in charge of repairs hadn't started yet. There were still clear tire marks and a huge dent in the cinderblock wall. I don't have a lot to say about it, because there really aren't any words. Just crying and a clear, sobering look at the point where lives ended.

The last death I knew of during High School was a friend-of-a-friend from my first high school. My best friend lived near me, but when I switched schools he stayed behind. My best friend had me, and he had his other best friend he went to school with. We all hung out together a few times, the guy was a good kid. He was smart, exceedingly kind/polite, and -aside from some acne- retained the "cute" young boy look while everyone else got hit hard by the puberty stick. He wrapped his car around a lightpole, only a few blocks from my house. I don't have much information on the how or why. At the time, nobody knew anything. There was no word that he was drinking, though many assumed that was the case. It could have been an honest accident; maybe something went wrong with the controls or a tire blew out, I never got any more details. I just got a call from someone I knew from my old high school: "[name]'s dead."

Personally, I've always secretly carried the suspicion that it was suicide. He idolized his girlfriend, from what I've heard from my friend she wasn't as perfect, innocent or faithful as he made her out to be. I knew that they had broken up a short time before that, but from an outside perspective it seemed like a foolish thing for him to throw his life away over a failed relationship. I just... couldn't think of any other way to explain it. I didn't know him especially well, but it still hit me pretty hard because I knew that it could easily have been me. I struggled throughout high school with thoughts of suicide, made worse by the melodrama of teenage relationships. At the time, I was staring blankly at light poles. I often daydreamed about pulling the steering wheel a little bit, closing my eyes and ending it all with a telephone pole or a particularly sturdy tree. I thought about killing myself all the time, and that's what struck me most. I thought, he actually went and did it.

It absolutely devastated my best friend. To make matters worse, when I offhandedly mentioned the death to my then-girlfriend (thinking she already knew), she flew off the handle because she supposedly knew him better than I did. I sympathized with her for losing two friends to automotibile accidents, but she attacked me as though I was part of some conspiracy to hide the truth or inform her last. Shortly thereafter, an unrelated incident caused her to resent my best friend. She gave me an ultimatum: it was him or her. If there was one thing I could do over again, it would be that choice. I picked her. I hated myself then, and I hate myself now. The poor guy lost one of his closest friends, and this shitbag, yours truly, turned his back.

The combination of one friend's death and my abandonment sent my best friend spiraling into drugs, alcohol and depression. His high grade point average tanked, his remaining friends left him, and he found himself floating from party to party trying to drown his pain with substance abuse. While he was doing that, I was entering the darkest period of my life so far. "Breaking up" with him was one of the most heartbreaking conversations I've ever had with another human being. I could hear the hurt, the betrayal in his voice. I've never felt such horrible wrongness in my own voice. I fucking cried, and I don't care who knows. Suicidal thoughts were near constant after that, the relationship I'd abandoned my friends for tore both of us apart emotionally. My grades tanked, my performance at work suffered, and I could hardly get myself out of bed most days. Eventually, she grew to resent me as well and I got what was coming to me when she dumped me hard for an ex.

The silver lining in this story came when I called my friend up. I figured that she'd left, so why bother living by her judgements of people? My best friend had always done right by me. I didn't deserve him back in my life after the way I treated him, but I could at least try to apologize. I hoped that I could in some way make it up to him, I owed him something.

He picked up the phone, and just like that we were on our way to reconnecting. We met up at a fast food joint's parking lot, commiserated over our downward spirals, and shared our goals for a brighter future. He told me about his past substance abuse, but also about how rock bottom made him more hardworking and determined than he'd ever been in his life. I told him about my guilt, self-hatred, depression and suicidal thoughts, but in the wake of the toxic high school relationship I felt that a great weight had been lifted; that the whole world was open and accessible and my life was worth living so that I could explore the possibilities.

Today, he's doing great. Having known him from childhood through awkward teenage years, he's grown into an actual handsome man in the way we never thought we would as geeky adolescents. He's successful with the ladies, currently dating a hot girl we knew from back in the day. He moved out, bought a car, and pays for his own apartment. He makes good money working two part-time jobs and still finds time to go to a nice state college full-time. From what I hear, his grades are good and his progress is steady. I'm proud to be his friend today, and his success inspires me to continue working hard toward my own goals.

I suppose that if there's anything to take away from this rambling, it's as follows:

  • Never drive while under the influence.

  • Don't kill yourself. It's not worth throwing away the potential. No relationship was so important or life-defining that it's worth taking your own life. Whether it's my speculation regarding Other Best Friend's death, my best friend's contemplation of suicide after losing his friends, or my own contemplation of suicide, there's more for all of us to live for than any of us could ever have seen.

  • When people say "bros before hoes", "never let a girl come between friends" or any variation of that phrase, know what it means. A friend may forgive you when you make the wrong choice, but you may never forgive yourself. And don't fool yourself into thinking the relationship is worth losing a friend. The friend will stand by you through everything, while a romantic relationship is fragile and fleeting. Your lover might ditch you tomorrow for someone younger or "better" than you; a true friend would never force you to make that choice in the first place unless it was in your best interest.

  • Keep your friends close. Treasure them. They may be gone tomorrow. Part of what makes these automotive accidents so hurtful is that they are so sudden. One day your friend is right there with you and the next morning you realize you'll never see them again.

  • From my friend to me, and on to you: Don't self-destruct in the wake of loss. My friend told me that acceptance came for him when he realized that his substance abuse was no way to deal with his pain. Instead of spending his time trying to escape, he decided he should be living well, to honor the memory of his lost friend. He's happier for it, and he knows that he's someone his friend could be proud of.

/r/AskReddit Thread