Through My Window (Hidalgos #1)(93)

After a few hugs, I sit on the couch. I have nothing to do—the reality of it takes me by surprise. After welcoming the year, Joshua would always come for me, and we would go out and wish happy New Year all over the streets, with everyone awake and celebrating. I glance at my phone at the opened note on forgiveness that I haven’t finished.

Joshua has always been by my side, and these last few months have been hard without him because we have so many of our own traditions. We used to go out to play in the first snowfall of the year, welcome the kids in scary costumes on Halloween, have marathons of our favorite series, and buy different books so that when we were done reading them, we could exchange them. We had board game nights and bonfires with horror stories next to my house. We even set the yard on fire once, and Mom almost killed us.

I smile at the memory.

What am I doing?

I may not be able to trust him so easily, but I can forgive him. There’s no room in my heart for a grudge.

Without much thought, I grab my coat and follow my heart. I run out of Helena’s house and the cold of the newly arrived winter hits me, but I run down the sidewalk, waving and wishing happy New Year to everyone I meet along the way. Christmas lights decorate the street and the trees in the gardens in front of the houses. There are children playing with sparklers and others making snowballs to throw. The view is beautiful, and I realize that sometimes we get so focused on our problems that we don’t see the beauty of simple things.

Hugging myself, I start walking faster. I can’t run through the snow, I don’t want to slip and break any bones; that would be pathetic. My foot gets buried in a pile of snow and I shake it off to continue, but when I look up, I freeze.

Joshua.

With his long black coat, a black cap, and his glasses slightly fogged by the cold. I say nothing and just run to him, forgetting the snow, the problems, the emotional scars, I just want to hug him.

And I do, linking my hands around his neck and pulling him tight against me. I smell the scent of that soft cologne he always wears, and it fills me and soothes me.

“Happy New Year, you idiot,” I growl against his neck. He laughs.

“Happy New Year, Rochi.”

“I miss you so much,” I murmur.

He presses me against his chest.

“I miss you too. You have no idea.”

No.

That’s not what happened.

No matter how much I wished that had happened, it won’t change the reality.

Reality is me running through the snow with tears on my cheeks, with no coat, and clutching my cell phone so tightly in my hand that it might break. My lungs burn from the cold air, but I don’t care. My mother runs after me, yelling at me to calm down, to stop, to put on my coat, but I don’t care.

I can’t breathe properly.

I still remember how quickly my smile faded when I got the call. Joshua’s mother sounded inconsolable.

“Joshua . . . attempted . . . suicide.”

They didn’t know if he was going to survive, his pulse was so weak.

No, no, no. Joshua, no.

Everything begins to flash before my eyes. What did I do wrong? Where did I fail? Why, Joshua? Guilt was the first feeling to fill my heart. It had never, ever crossed my mind that he could do something like this. He didn’t look depressed, he didn’t . . . I . . .

Arriving at his house, the ambulance speeds past me, and I fall to my knees in the snow. Joshua’s neighbors come over and put a coat over me. I clutch my chest, breathing heavily. My mother hugs me from behind.

“It’s okay, sweetie. It’s okay, he’ll be okay.”

“Mommy, I. . . . It’s my fault. . . . I stopped talking to him. . . . He . . . ” I can’t breathe, and I can’t stop crying.

The taxi ride to the hospital is silent, except for the sound of my sobs. With my head on my mother’s lap, I pray. I pray that he survives. This is not supposed to happen. This is a nightmare. My best friend couldn’t have done that, my Yoshi . . .

Arriving at the emergency room, I run over to his parents. They look devastated. Their eyes are swollen, and the pain is evident on their faces. As soon as they see me, they burst into tears. I join them, hugging them.

Wiping away my tears, I softly push away.

“What happened?”

His mother shakes her head.

“After seeing in the New Year, he went to his room. We tried calling him, but he didn’t answer. I thought he had fallen asleep and went to see.” Her voice breaks, the pain clear on her face. “He took so many pills. He was so pale. My baby.” Her husband hugs her. “My baby looked dead.”

The agony and pain reflected in their faces are so hard to see. I can feel their despair and guilt. Where did we fail? What didn’t we see? Maybe everything or maybe nothing. Joshua might have given us signs, or he might have given us nothing, but still this feeling of guilt, of failing him, eats away at us all.

Suicide . . .

An almost taboo word. One that nobody mentions and no one likes to talk about. It’s not pleasant, much less comfortable, but the reality is that it does happen, that there are people out there struggling who need help. And I was naive enough to think that it only happened to other people, that it would never happen to someone close to me.

I never suspected that Joshua would do something like this.

Please, Joshua, don’t die, I beg, closing my eyes. I’m here, I’ll never leave, I promise. Please don’t go, Yoshi.