But what if opening up only makes the pain more real?

What if saying it out loud makes the wounds bleed all over again?

I watched with my own eyes how pain could quietly destroy a person. I stood there, helpless, wondering how to save someone who never called for help. I asked myself over and over — why didn’t he tell us? Why didn’t he reach out? Why didn’t he cry on my shoulder instead of letting the darkness consume him?

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I whispered, but his silence was louder than any answer. And in that silence, I remembered: I had been in that same place once. I realized, with a sharp, bitter clarity, that I still don’t know how to open up either.

I cry, but only after the damage has been done. Only after I’ve stitched myself back together. Only when the bleeding stops and all that remains are the scars. It’s easy to ask someone why they didn’t open up when you’re not the one suffocating under the weight of it.

Because what if opening up only makes the pain more real?

What if naming the nightmares gives them more power? What if the only way to survive is to hide behind a smile, pretending the darkness doesn’t claw at your chest every night?

What if confessing all that pain makes it more real, more seen, and more felt?

And maybe that’s why he stayed silent.

Maybe that’s why we all do.

Because sometimes, the only thing more unbearable than carrying the pain… is feeling it be known.

And by the time we realize that silence was never safety, it’s already too late to save ourselves.

Or each other.

I think about the weight of words unsaid. The phone that never rang. The messages that were typed and deleted, over and over, because saying “I’m not okay” felt too heavy to carry.

I imagine the moments he might’ve almost reached out, fingers trembling over the screen, before convincing himself it wasn’t worth it.

That he wasn’t worth it.

I wonder how many times I’ve done the same.

I wonder how many people are living like ghosts, walking through their days with smiles that don’t reach their eyes. Carrying burdens they never let anyone see. Drowning in a sea of their own thoughts, screaming silently for someone to notice but terrified of what might happen if someone actually did.

Because acknowledging pain makes it real.

And what if, after baring your soul, the world keeps spinning like nothing happened? What if you spill everything, the hurt, the fear, the exhaustion, and all you get in return is an awkward silence? Or worse, pity? What if you open up, hoping for rescue, only to realize no one can pull you out of the abyss except yourself?

What if vulnerability doesn’t heal you, but breaks you even more?

I keep thinking about the last time we hung out together before I saw him unconscious in the hospital bed. How he ranted about his schoolwork, about how tired he was but laughed anyway, like the weight of everything wasn’t suffocating him.

The way he laughed at me, eyes crinkling at the corners like he didn’t have a storm raging inside him. I keep wondering if that was his way of holding on, to leave behind a memory of light in our minds, instead of darkness. As if, even when he was drowning, he wanted to shield us from the weight he carried.

I hate that I understand it.

I hate that I do the same thing.

I hate how pain isolates us. How it whispers lies in our ears, convincing us that no one would understand, that no one could handle the full truth of what we feel. So we suffer in silence, hoping someone notices the cracks, but terrified they actually might.

And we mourn the ones we’ve lost, not realizing we’re mourning ourselves, too.

Because pain is contagious.

Because silence is suffocating.

Because sometimes, the most heartbreaking thing isn’t that they didn’t reach out… it’s that we understand exactly why they didn’t.

And we still don’t know how to save ourselves.