No one was going to ask him how he was doing.

Smile, serve the customer, wish them a nice evening: that was the ritual he had to follow in order to get through the night without collapsing. He wasn’t even sure why he was there, behind the counter, that night. Was he really hoping someone would stop him and convince him to stay alive?

Bastian had promised himself that if someone asked how he was feeling, he wouldn’t kill himself. But with half an hour left on his shift, he realized it wasn’t going to happen. Truthfully, he’d known it from the moment he left his house that evening: the whole "how are you doing?" condition was just an excuse to shift part of the blame onto others.

No one cared about him, but he wasn’t angry about it, it was nobody’s fault. It felt as though he had been created as a background character, existing only to fill space in other people’s stories. Nothing was going to change the fact that no one owed him that simple question: How are you?

He felt awful, and he had no one to tell.

Getting back home was an empty, blurred trip. He barely remembered when he said bye to his co-workers and the moment he left the pub. 

He barely remembered saying goodbye to his co-workers or walking out of the pub. He didn’t remember waiting for the bus, or buying a ticket. It wasn’t unusual for Bastian to lose pieces of his days. Somehow, he made it to his apartment building. Passing through the entryway, he pretended not to see the letters - likely unpaid bills - shoved roughly into his mailbox. He started crying in the elevator. Dying at twenty-one was tragic, and it was sad that no one was going to miss him, aside Paulie. He would have stayed alive for him alone.

His little dog greeted him wagging his tail, as every other night. After closing the apartment’s door behind himself, Bastian got down on the floor, caressing Paulie with one hand and wiping his own tears with the other. Paulie’s tail slowed: he was a dog smart enough to realise something was wrong with his friend. He was staring at him as if he wanted to ask: “what’s happening?”.

“I’m so sorry”, Bastian whispered, a faint sad smile on his face. “You have been a good friend, you know?”

He wasn’t going to leave any note, but if his dog had been able to read, he would have written a letter just for him.

A few minutes later, he locked himself in the bathroom.

With trembling hands, he emptied two blister packs of pills onto the edge of the sink. Two dropped onto the floor and disappeared under the washing machine, so he clutched the rest in his fist - were they going to be enough?

He allowed himself one last cigarette, sat on the toilet next to a little window, opened an inch to let the smoke leave the room. He tried quitting smoking for a few months, but none of that mattered now. He deserved that last one.

He smoked half of it before stubbing it out in the sink. He opened his hand, looking at the small white pills. Through wet sobs, he swallowed the pills little by little. There were too many for a single take.

Pretending he couldn’t hear his dog scratching the door was the hardest part.

You have been a good friend, you know?