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My Best Friend Needed Help And I Let Her Be This Time: What She Did Next Will Haunt Me For Life

( words)
*For representational purpose only.

Today was my best friend Ananya’s ‘barki’, or what you would call a completion of a year of demise. We knew each other since childhood, and we were literally so inseparable that our teacher had to actually assign us seats in different corners of the class. 

Ours was a friendship everyone envied and even the worst storms of life couldn’t break us. Or so I thought. Ananya helped me picked up the pieces of my life when my parents got divorced and dad decided to leave us forever to marry his mistress while mom was busy securing us financially.

My biggest regret of life will remain as a burden with me as I failed her when she needed me the most, by continuing to nurse my own wounded pride and refusing to acknowledge her agony.

We were 16 at the peak of puberty as the hormones continued to rage on inside our bodies. Since she was blessed with the good genes of her family, she was really pretty while I, on the other hand, was just a girl-next-door type. She was quite a beauty and attracted the attention of quite a lot of many guys except the one she really wanted to attract.

His name was Himanshu and he was definitely one of the most handsome and brainy ones. He was an all-rounder. He performed well in everything – be it football or mathematics. He had a reputation of using and treating girls like objects but my warnings fell deaf to Ananya’s ears as she was head over heels for this guy.

At last, on one summery mid-morning, our class teacher came in to shuffle our seats to curb the nuisance and noise and much to Ananya’s boundless joy she was made to sit next to Himanshu while I sat two seats away from her.

I was highly critical of his reputation and mannerisms, like a typical best friend. But seeing her so happy even melted me a little.

Soon, it was common for the “three” of us to sit together during lunch, or him escorting us to our buses. One day, he even dropped in on us during a shopping spree of ours. With her, he was always his charming self while with me, he was courteous and formal. It was common knowledge that they were almost dating. But they weren’t.

One day, as they sat together, I could see that Ananya was not her usual bubbly self. But instead, she looked low and depressed. Thinking it to be a flu or an occasional fight in her home, I brushed it aside. During the recess of the same day, the most outrageous thing imaginable happened to both of which destroyed us forever!

Himanshu went on to propose to me publicly that day while Ananya looked on with hatred and a broken heart. As I rushed to comfort her, she pushed me away and screamed at me for no fault of mine.

The whole school looked at us as she called me names and accused me of stealing the love of her life while I hung my head in shame with tears in my eyes. All my efforts to explain my situation to her and pacify her went in vain. Finally, I resigned myself in defeat and this was the biggest mistake of my life.

We stopped talking and in a moment, years of friendship was just over. I longed to go to her and comfort her but my pride forbade me from doing so. It was a month later when certain objectionable and explicit photos of Ananya were being circulated in the school campus. A teacher caught hold of a bunch of them which eventually led to the principal summoning her parents.

She hung her head in shame as I looked on at her spirit broken while she refused to utter even a word in her defence. 

A week later, Himanshu came running to me saying that he wanted to speak to me urgently. He told me that Ananya was pregnant and that he was the father. I was shocked. He went on to elaborate that he wanted me help him convince her to get rid of the baby as soon as possible. My heart ached to reach out to her, to help her. But I just didn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to go up to her and talk to her and get her out of this trouble, like I always did.

In the mean time, my little sister suffered a bout of allergy and all my energies got diverted to her and the next time I heard of Ananya was in the school assembly. The principal sadly informed the whole school about her suicide. She had ingested phenyl disinfectant in her house to forcefully end her life. I couldn’t bring myself to react at the gravity of the situation. A part of me too died that day. 

The next few days passed in a blur. The only time I remember bitterly crying was at Ananya’s funeral as Himanshu stood in one corner of the room.

Ananya died due to a lot of reasons- her conservative orthodox family would have anyway banished or disowned her, Himanshu refused to accept her and she was alone and under a lot of pressure while I, as her best friend, was not by her side during the hardest of times.

I regret not subduing my pride for just once, and not calling her, or trying to convince that everything would be alright. And this is a heavy burden to carry this regret of mine.

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