"What?"
Phils question was just a whisper, almost inaudible. But Pj could still make out what he had asked.
"He shot himself in the head"
Pjs voice was filled with hurt, even though Dan was still alive. Every word of that sentence - pained him.
People kept telling Pj how lucky Dan was to survive, how rare it was to recover from such an injury. But they missed the point, they missed the fact that Dan had done that to himself. He had grabbed a gun, directed it towards himself and pulled the trigger.
He had tried to kill himself and he was still alive, Pj didn't even know if Dan thought that he was lucky.
Because he knew as much as the people at school, the strangers that had heard he rumors. He didn't know why Dan did it, how he felt or how he was feeling now.
He hadn't visited, hadn't talked and hadn't seen Dan for almost a year and knowing that the exact same boy used to be his best friend just like Chris - hurt.
Pj knew that it was his own fault, that he deserved to feel guilty and hurt. He made a decision he wasn't proud of, a decision he regretted almost as much as not calling Dan on May 22nd.
"Is that why?" Phil didn't need to end his question, they knew that he was talking about Dans disability to walk properly.
"I think so" Chris said shrugging.
There were no tears falling onto the wooden floor as suspected. Pj and Chris had cried enough in the past eleven months and Phil just didn't know Dan that well.
But the air was thick and heavy on their chests, unspoken words and unanswered questions filled it with suffocating silence.
Phil didn't even try to assume anymore, everything he wanted to know was something he didn't want to hear at the same time. His brain didn't fill the gaps in Dans story and neither did Pj or Chris.
Maybe it was for the best, he thought.
Maybe it was good to not know every little detail.
Deep inside he still couldn't believe what he just had heard. Deep inside he desired to know everything about the brown haired boy, he just met.
But there was that border he didn't dare to cross this time, a border he had never seen before.
He couldn't ask Dan about his suicide attempt.
"You've talked to him right?" Pj asked carefully.
Phil nodded, realizing that they hadn't talked to Dan since the accident.
"Did he seem okay?"
The fear was visible in the curly haired ones eyes.
"I don't know, why don't you just ask him?" He couldn't tell if Dan was okay or acted normal, he met him just four days ago.
Pj sighed quietly.
"We can't just ask him"
And he was right with that, after what they did, they couldn't just go back to where they were eleven months ago.
"Try it at least, I mean you were friends"
"Exactly, we were. We let him down, he probably hates us" Chris said swallowing heavy, as the realization hit him.
Dan probably hated them.
A thought that reoccured in their mind every so often, a thought that might've caused the whole not visiting thing in first place.
Pj didn't dare to speak it out loud, because he knew how Phil would react, what he would say. Everyone always answered the same thing, sometimes adding a "probably".
"You were not the reason."
But how could they know. How could Chris know that they didn't do anything wrong, that they didn't say something that might've triggered it.
Pj could never forgive himself if he was responsible for what Dan did just in the slightest bit.
So how could he have dared to visit him in the hospital, when he might be the one who brought him there.
How could he call, text or just see him, when it was possible that Dan would try it again afterwards.
Pj feared nothing more than being a possible trigger for his former best friend and so did Chris.
"What if you would just go to him now?"
Chris was about to snap at him, throw another stupid excuse at Phils head, he just couldn't stay calm when it came to Dan. But before he could even open his mouth, Pj cut him off.
"It's not that easy, what if he doesn't want to see us, what if it'll make things just worse for him?"
"What if it won't?"
