You Don't Know What You Have Until You (Almost) Lose It

You're Concerned Now?

Phil's POV*
I didn't sleep at all last night. I basically just sat on the couch. The same spot. All night. The same spot that Dan told me to leave him alone. The same spot my heart was thrown onto the floor and stomped on. The same spot I lost my reason to do anything. The same spot. I try to call Dan, though he keeps ignoring me. Once he declined it, so at least I know he's seeing that I'm calling him. I text him. Maybe he'll respond to that. Maybe. I send one more plea of forgiveness, and it takes everything I have left in me.

Dan, please stop ignoring me.

Can we just talk?

I just want to know what I did wrong.

Please, Dan. I know you're reading these.

I'm sorry. I don't know what I did to make you hate me so quickly, but I'm sorry. I still love you.

My phone vibrates. A text from Dan. I quickly unlock my phone to read it.

Stop texting me. All you're accomplishing is blowing up my phone. Tbqfh, it's annoying.

Are you kidding me? I stayed up all night calling and texting him and this is his one response? He really just used 'tbqfh' in this situation? Is that how actually small I am in his life? Is that how little I matter? This idea's been bouncing around in my head all night and day. But this, this is what makes me reach a decision. I respond.

Fine. I won't text or call or talk to you ever again. By default.

He reads it. I know he reads it. He doesn't even text back. Or he doesn't understand what I'm saying. That's fine by me. Tears are running down my face, which is odd because I feel nothing. I'm already dead inside. Why not make it official?
I stand on the brink of something I can't describe. The weight of everything seems to press down on my shoulders and I struggle to take even a single step forward. It's too much. All of it. And somehow, I keep moving. But every step costs me. The darkness grows darker; the pain grows sharper.
I make my way to the kitchen and open the cupboard we keep the flu medicine in. There's a satisfying weight in my hand, telling me the bottle is almost full. Great. I'm guaranteed to be gone within the hour. Bottle in hand, I head to the bathroom. I think of maybe writing a note, but I decide against it because it might make me have second thoughts. I open the bottle and laugh. I forgot a glass to fill with water. That's something only Phil would do. Try to overdose himself and not even come fully prepared.
I grab one from the kitchen and fill it to the brim with water from the bathroom sink. I take a palmful of pills and swallow them. Then another palmful. Then another. I repeat this until the bottle is only a fourth full and the drugs start to take their effect. I fall forward, dropping the glass and catching myself on the porcelain sink, bowing my head, my shoulders shaking. I hear the glass shatter on the bathroom floor. Ghosts of the past parade around me and within me, a sneaky reminder of the night I lost Dan, where I sat there, struggling to keep breathing when my entire body seemed to sag with exhaustion and numbed agony. I want to leave. I want to die. This world has no purpose for me and I have no purpose for it. I lift the bottle up towards my mouth, my hand shaking. And then the door to the bathroom bursts open. I turn to see Dan's face, full of shock and pure terror. He drops his bag, knocking the bottle out of my hands, the remainder of what was in it scattering across the surfaces of the bathroom.
What, Dan? You're concerned now? You're concerned when it's too late? I manage a few words.
"Fuck off." My voice is hoarse and, as if those words took the very last bit of strength out of me, I collapse. Finally. Everything is a blur. I feel somebody, probably Dan, carrying me. And then everything goes black. And I'm finally

"You die in the middle of your life, in the middle of a sentence."
                                                                                ~John Green, TFIOS