Disclaimer: I don't own Drake and Josh.

Chapter One

Something terrible happened.

It was all over Belleview High School once the weekend gave way to the weekdays and Monday came about again. The only thing was that nobody really knew anything. They knew there was an attempted suicide and that the kid had tried to take their own life but beyond that they weren't told anything else. They didn't know the identity of the person who did it and could only guess, trying to find anyone who was unexpectedly absent when they should be here.

It didn't matter though.

It seriously didn't because they would never truly know because kids were absent each day from school and they were sick or they had some type of appointment that they couldn't miss. How they were going to find out was beyond Josh. And even if they did know then the reason would be even slimmer because even he wouldn't know and he thought he knew everything there had been.

He was wrong.

He was so deadly wrong and now it was too late to go back and change anything. He wanted to. Why would anyone want to take the cowardly way out when they were going to graduate some months later? Not that the person was a coward. He really wasn't and that was what got onto Josh because this person was one of the strongest people he had come to know and if they couldn't go on, how was he?

He could see people staring and he quickly shut his locker wishing his mom and dad would have let him stay home from school today. They had wanted him to stay in fact but decided he was losing too much school as it was. Megan was a little pale that morning and got to stay home from school but then again she was taking it a lot harder as well.

He sighed.

He honestly wished there was more that he could've done for them. If only he had seen this coming so he could have stopped it but when someone wanted to die then what signs were there? Someone who wanted to live would send so many red signals because they were losing themselves but someone with nothing else holding them back wouldn't let themselves be caught. It was sad but it was also the cold reality that Josh was reliving every day of his life.

What could have happened? What was he thinking when he felt that there was nothing else in this world that could convince him that his life was worth living? But more importantly why did he suddenly decide that living just wasn't worth it anymore? There was so much that Josh knew he had missed because someone couldn't go straight from being popular, well liked, and in the prime of life to some depressed being so intent to end his life-and Josh wasn't going to think about what happened. He still was in denial and was hoping he'd wake up and he would admit that he and Megan played a horrible prank on him but more importantly he wished he was okay.

"Hey."

Mindy didn't suspect much but she knew something was wrong. Drake hadn't been at school all week and now that he thought back, he knew Drake didn't like school less than the next person but he treated this place as a time to nap and impress the ladies. People loved him and the fact that he truly looked so pale just wasn't Drake.

"Hey Mindy," Josh felt like this was wrong. Drake should be here greeting Mindy like he usually did. He remembered suddenly and his mouth went dry. He didn't like it and he wished that Drake was here now because he always knew what to do.

"I heard about the incident that occurred this past weekend," Mindy told him and Josh could only hope she didn't keep talking about it. He couldn't stand it. "It was awful, but they're not actually labeling it a suicide yet because the person is in the hospital and-"

Josh actually tore his eyes away from her to grab the rest of his books from his locker for the next three classes. Mindy seemed to notice that he wasn't interested in the conversation at all and huffed silently crossing her arms.

"Josh look it's not that I really want to talk about it because I've heard horrible things. I heard the one who did it took their parents' pills, stabbed themselves, hung themselves in the garage, and the last one was by slitting their wrist. I've heard so many rumors about it that I'm about to go crazy! How are you feeling about this anyways?"

"It was most certainly a suicide," Josh found himself saying despite the cold numb feeling inside. "What do I feel about this Mindy? I feel somebody just destroyed their family's lives by being so selfish that they didn't think what taking their own lives would do to them."

Mindy nodded although she frowned.

"I hope you know that you haven't really been okay. Want me to come over later?"

Josh thought of this many times since he came back to school. He knew people would want to but he couldn't do it. He couldn't just let everyone know what happened yet because he was still getting used to being so alone. He was alone and it felt so empty.

Honestly, he didn't want Mindy there because he was contemplating how it was that he thought he could live this way even though he did for a few weeks back in junior year. He had been done and had even went as far as convincing himself he would be better off but he knew this was a lot worse than that could ever be because he didn't-there was no way of forgiveness now. There was no I'm sorry and I didn't mean it before everything was the same.

He let Mindy hug him and he gave her a small kiss on her cheek before going the opposite direction of Mindy. He needed to get his mind off of all of this even for a few hours and if Calculus had to be that distraction he would gladly take it. It would be easy anyways since he knew they didn't share a class. No, he didn't have to imagine what the empty chair meant like in physics when he wished that Drake would speak up and remind him that they were partners like he had before. It was just really unfair.

He found that the class wasn't helping though.

For the first time in a long while he truly felt alone and nobody could ever understand how he could feel.