She’s gone now, isn’t she? Denial tried to stray me from the reality that, yes, she was dead. I heard about her suicide, her overdose of pills, but never why, as that was what got lost along the way. There were things, things I never got a chance to tell her, and still I don’t understand why someone with a perfect external life would end that perfection. I looked at the gray stone in front of me, adorned with flowers from every single one of her friends. Why did she do it?

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I never thought I would ever need to pay attention to anything a teacher said. It was homeroom, when I was frantically studying for the upcoming chemistry test. “...commited suicide from an overdose…” I looked up, then at the only empty seat, first row, second seat. Then at all the people letting their emotions be blotted up with tissues to consume their tears. I looked at her desk again. Later that day, I took my chemistry test. Later that week, I got my score, a 78. But never again did she come to school after that. Never.
Would she have passed that test if she had the chance to take it?
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I was going to ask her out. All my friends said that, because I was a guy, I had to make the first move. But still, I couldn’t help but being scared. But it was the wrong day. Someone else, someone smarter, someone better in every way had asked her out too. I turned away and didn’t bother, because why would I anyway? But I learned a few weeks later, once she gone, that she said no.
What would she have said if I had asked her?
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I never came back. Two whole months of people still caring, people still crying, regret haunted me. Could I have stopped it? Could I have maybe made her happier in a way? I loved her smile, the one forever plastered on her face. Was that fake? Did she get tired of smiling for people? I didn’t know. I never even knew her that personally, that well enough. We were friends, but she never told me anything. I bet she never told anyone. So after those two months, I decided to skip school. I walked away from troubles. I’d go home sometimes but most of the time I was “at my friend’s house.”
Did she ever show any of us, her “best friends,” her real smile? Ever?
---

But I stood there, waiting for the answers to come to me. Was she set free of what caused her to want to die? How… how could she be satisfied with an end like that? How could she let herself go without asking any of us, anything? So I placed the bouquet of flowers I would have gotten her right next to that gray stone. I don’t understand, and I doubt the secrets behind her choice will ever be revealed. She left all of us clueless, and… I wish she could have told me… then maybe…

But sometimes… things are not understandable.