The Secrets Hidden In The Scars

      Meanwhile, Helene and Jessica are walking in the city and talking about Peter’s problems and current bad condition. The girls are losing hope to help their friend and find out what became the reason for his sufferings that he does not want to tell them about.       “It seems like there’s no hope that we'll be able to help Peter,” Jessica says with sadness in her eyes.       “Every day, I’m losing hope that we’d be able to help him,” Helene sighs heavily, tightly holding the belt of her purse that is hanging on her shoulder. “I know I should help him but have no ideas…”       “Agree, we shouldn't have hoped we’d meet his friends and ask them for help someday.”       “I know… Realizing that we’d be able to do nothing kills me. Even having a great wish not to give up, I realize I’m powerless in front of what’s killing Peter so fast.”       “But on the other hand, if we give up and let him keep killing himself, we may lose him someday. Who knows what his depression and habit to cut himself for the reason or without may lead to.”       “Gosh, your words are like a knife in my heart…” Helene says quietly, putting her hand on her heart and exhaling slowly. “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost such a close person to me. My life would lose meaning… Nobody would fill the hole I’d get after losing Peter.”       “You know, friend, sometimes I think you’re worried about him much more than I am,” Jessica frowns slightly. “No, I understand you and I are his friends, but you’re worried about him too much. You’re kind of ready to sacrifice your time to take care of him like a child.”       “Ah, Jess, you know that Peter has always been my very close person and best friend.” Helene sighs heavily and looks at what’s around her. “I know many men, but I don’t feel as good with them as I do with him. That man has always known what to do to make me feel better and never left me in trouble. I should’ve just called him and said ‘help’ for him to come to me immediately. And now I wanna help him, but don’t know how to do it ‘cause Pete wanna say nothing and has withdrawn himself from me.”       “I wanna help him, as well. But I’ve never seen someone worrying about their friends as much as you do. Yes, helping friends and supporting them is the most important thing in a friendship. But you shouldn’t give a damn about everything and spend your time only with one man.”       “You don’t understand, Jessica…” Helene shakes her head. “You’ve just never met such an amazing man, for whom you’d sell your soul. And who would do the best to make you happy.”       “Gosh, Helene, you mustn’t have your world go around Peter. There are many other men, who would be way better and not suffer from depression for an unknown reason.”       “Real friends don’t leave you in trouble, even in the hardest case… Even when someone withdraws them… So, I’m not gonna leave Peter! I know he needs me, even if he doesn’t say it! My heart tells me I’ve gotta be with him not to let him do stupid things.”       “You can do nothing, get it!” Jessica replies confidently. “Peter is on the bottom! Nothing can save him! And we’ll never find his friends, who don’t probably know what to do to him.”       “Don’t dare to say it about him!” Helene throws a little gloomily. “We can still save Peter! We’ve gotta believe the solution will be found! Maybe, we’d be lucky and meet his friends and try to explain the situation someday.”       “You know, I don’t think it’s possible. Even if you and I watched all movies with that actor, nothing would change. His name wouldn’t help us meet him and the second pal of Rose on the street.”       “You know, friend, although I’m making sure that this situation is hopeless, I think a miracle happens when you don’t expect it. If we stop believing and hoping, something good will happen at the last moment.”       “Oh, yeah, that actor will come to us from heaven, and you’ll talk to him about Rose’s condition. Wake up, friend! Magic happens only in movies!”       “I must do it, Jessica!” Helene sighs heavily, looking at Jessica with pity in her eyes. “I must save Peter! I’ll die if I lose him! That man is what I’m living in this world for! And for his quiet and happiness, I’m ready to do anything. Anything, friend…”       Jessica frowns slightly and glances at Helene, whose too strong care and anxiety about Peter’s condition make her have lots of questions.       “Helene, tell me honestly: do you really have only amicable feelings for Peter?” Jessica asks confidently. “Or do you feel something more for him?”       Helene, getting a little nervous and white, looks at Jessica surprisingly, and her eyes start to run from one side to another.       “Erm, Jess, what kind of question?” Helene wonders in a little shaking voice. “Erm… Why? Why do you think I feel something more for Peter?”       “Well… You’re just worried about him so much… And that’s why I sometimes think you’re interested in Peter not only as a friend but also as a man. I have a suspicion that you’re in love with him, but you don’t wanna confess it…”       “No…” Helene glances aside sharply. “You’re wrong… I’m not in love with Peter…”       “Ah, friend, I think you’re lying to me,” Jessica shakes her head with a mysterious smile. “I’m not blind and can see your eyes shine when you look at him. And what kind of tenderness you talk about him with…”       “Jessica, please, stop saying bullshit,” Helene says tiredly, hesitantly looking at Jessica. “I only love Peter as a friend… As the best and closest friend, who takes a special place in my heart.”       “Honestly, I’ve suspected that you aren’t indifferent to Peter for a long time. But I just found the courage to ask about it rightly.”       “It’s just your suspicion. Peter and I are just good friends.”       “C’mon, Helene, think about it! Maybe, your grandmother is absolutely right when she says you should look at Peter as a man. I’m sure she sleeps and dreams of you becoming the wife of that blond and getting surrounded by love and care.”       “Grandma is just worried that I’m already twenty-four, but I’m not still married, and don’t even date anyone. So, she matches me and Peter together, thinking he’s the best of all my familiar men. She thought I would’ve gotten married much earlier, but I preferred not rushing, learning, and getting a job.”       “Are you afraid he’d reject you as well as the girls, who wanted to date him?”       “Jessica, stop! Of course, it’s suspicious that Peter rejects girls so easily and refuses to make a relationship. But it may be his choice. He wanna be single – and I don’t judge him for that.”       “Uh, I feel you’re in love with that guy,” Jessica smiles mysteriously. “Not saying about his behavior, Peter is very sympathetic. A blond-haired, tall, slim person with many muscles… Many girls wanted to date him for the reason…”       “Oh, gosh, friend, you’re incorrigible…”       At this moment, Helene and Jessica come to the café where they wanted to go. But when they come close, Terrence and Daniel quietly leave it, being busy talking about something, stand near the entrance and keep talking. Helene sharply stops and glances at Daniel and then Terrence, squinting slightly and frowning. But a few moments later, she gets a little nervous and understands their faces are very familiar to her, standing in the same place as a column and looking at the friends with a shocked gaze. Jessica notices something is not right with her friend, comes to Helene, and waves a hand in front of the friend’s face, saying:       “Hey, Helene, are you okay? Why did you stop?”       “Jess, I think I said a miracle would happen if you didn’t expect it,” Helene replies, slowly moving her eyes to Jessica and being a little excited.       “Well, yeah…”       “I think the miracle happened.” Helene glances at Terrence and Daniel. “Look at those two, who are standing near the entrance to the café. Who are laughing at something.”       Jessica looks at Helene questioningly and then glances at Terrence and Daniel, not understanding why they got her friend’s attention, who got sharply white.       “So, did ya like the guys?” Jessica smiles slyly. “Did you decide to forget Rose for a while and pay attention to someone else? Nice choice, I must confess! Those guys are so handsome!”       “I don’t mean it, Jessica!” Helene exclaims excitedly. “Look at them closer! Don’t you notice anything? Huh?”       Jessica rolls her eyes for a second, but she looks at Daniel and Terrence much better. And a few seconds later, she finally realizes that at least the black-haired tall man looks very familiar.       “Helene…” Jessica pronounces, closing her mouth with a hand. “Listen, that man seems very familiar to me… Who has black hair and is wearing black clothes… I’ve seen that guy before! But I can’t remember where…”       “Jess, that’s the actor, who you and I talked about!” Helene exclaims a little louder, getting much more excited.       “What? The actor?” Jessica sets her surprised, widely open eyes to Terrence. “Helene, are you sure? Maybe, you started to go insane slowly? What if it seems to you that the actor is there?”       “No, Jess, I do know that’s him! That black-haired man is the actor, who you and I are looking for! He hasn’t changed since the times when he was acting in ‘American Love Affair’ as Mason Houston. All the same: hair, smile, chuckles! Maybe, he just became much taller and more adult.”       Jessica frowns slightly and starts to look at Terrence’s face better. While he is busy talking with Daniel, who does not also pay attention to anything. And the girl needs three or five seconds to realize that Helene tells the truth, and they have met the one they need.       “Listen, friend, you’re right!” Jessica exclaims with a widely open mouth. “That’s really him! That’s Mason! The one, who all girls were ready to cut anyone’s throat for!”       “Yes, Taylor, finally you’ve recalled!” Helene exclaims, crossing her arms over her chest. “Your forgetfulness didn’t betray you this time.”       “C’mon, stop grumbling!” Jessica smiles slyly, still looking at Terrence from head to foot. “Listen, Marshall, that guy is so pretty… So confident, proud… He is from, as people say, a special breed… Gets very attracted…”       “Agree, that actor is very confident…” Helene bites her lip with a slight smile. “I must confess that the guy is madly handsome. He’s more irresistible in reality than on a screen…”       “Uh, sorry that he’s engaged… You could meet him and try to get a chance to get lucky. How many girls would be jealous of you if you got such an irresistible man, who could drive any girl crazy.”       “Jessica, stop saying stupid things!” Helene throws gloomily. “You’re like my grandmother – you match me together with all the guys I know. Peter, who is just my friend, and that actor, who is happy with a model…”       “Okay, okay, okay, we’ll think of your personal life later…” Jessica glances at Helene. “Because I can congratulate you – you got what you wanted and met that actor.”       “Well, you said we wouldn’t find him… Here’s the vocalist of the band, which Peter left! If it’s so, the case moves off the dead point.”       “You won, I confess it!” Jessica raises her hands and glances at Daniel standing with his back turned to her. “Okay, what about the second guy, who is lower than the actor and wearing a gray coat? I don’t know him!”       “I don’t know, either…” Helene says thoughtfully, starting to look at Daniel closely. “But… The face of that guy is familiar to me, too… It seems like I’ve seen him before…”       “I can’t be sure at one hundred percent, but what if that guy is another member of Peter’s band? What if your beloved blond fought with that dude?”       “Maybe… But at first sight, he’s kinda cold, and cruel… I don’t like his gaze that doesn’t seem kind…”       “Listen, don’t ya actually remember how the guy, who Peter befriended, looked? You’ve seen him several times and could memorize him!”       “I remember that he has dark hair…”       “Well, that guy also has dark hair… Beautiful color, by the way… Dark chocolate…”       “Yup, right… But if that guy is really Daniel, I don’t understand what could connect him to such a soft and kind guy like Peter? How could they be friends if they’re absolutely different at first sight?”       “You know, sometimes opposites attract…” Jessica says thoughtfully. “Or, maybe, they didn’t befriend. They just got on well and spoke for interest in music and work in the band.”       “Maybe… But now we should care about that actor, not him. He could surely tell us everything he knows about Peter’s condition.”       “Okay, as we met that actor, what are we gonna do?” Jessica exhales sharply and crosses her arms over her chest. “We may no longer get another chance to talk to him! You wouldn’t meet a player of the role of Mason Houston from ‘American Love Affair’ on the street every single day!”       “What kind of question?” Helene wonders. “We will come to that man and talk to him.”       “What?” Jessica arches her eyebrows and slightly opens her mouth. “And what are ya gonna tell him?”       “I’ll find what to say. The most important thing is to come to him and explain who we are. And if the talk is about Peter, he’ll quickly get on well with us.”       “So…” Jessica shrugs. “If we met him, we should use this chance.”       “Yes, let’s go right now! Don’t waste time! C’mon, c’mon, move faster before they leave!”       With these words, Helene sharply takes Jessica’s hand and pulls her to where Terrence and Daniel are standing.       “Suggesting going to my home and sorting out songs,” Daniel suggests, keeping his hands in the pockets of his coat. “After we didn’t write anything, we stopped doing it at all. What if we get something this time?”       “Nice idea!” Terrence nods confidently. “And it’d be great to go to my home and take my folder.”       “So, let’s go then – it wouldn’t take much time. We’ll go on your crushed horse for a short period.”       “Get ready, buddy.” Terrence claps Daniel on the shoulder. “When I leave my baby for a repair, you’ll have to drive me in your car. And work as my personal chauffeur for a long time.”       “How insolent you are, MacClife,” Daniel chuckles, crossing his arms over his chest. “You use my kindness to the fullest.”       “But now I’m driving your precious ass in the city,” Terrence smiles innocently. “So, no claims are accepted.”       “Okay, okay, deal! Let’s go to your home, so you take your folder with songs, and then we’ll go to my home and work with what we have.”       “Hey, have you tried to write something?” Terrence moves off the place slowly and steps back from the café.       “Well, I’ve written a couple of lines…” Daniel starts to follow Terrence and smiles slyly. “But I actually had a more interesting business in the past few days.”       “Ah, yeah, you had dates with your red-haired beauty!” Terrence smiles slyly, putting his hands in the pockets of his jacket. “It’s more important than songs!”       “If not for my red-haired beauty, I’d really go insane from what’s happening now.”       Daniel and Terrence want to come to the half-crushed car of MacClife But then Helene calls the friends, confidently coming to them along with Jessica.       “Erm, excuse us!” Helene says loudly.       Terrence and Daniel stop and turn on the excited blonde and brunette.       “Yes?” Terrence reacts. “You called us?”       “Yes!” Helene nods confidently. “Sorry for bothering you, but are you from the band ‘Against The System’?”       “Well, yeah, I play in this band,” Terrence shrugs without emotions on his face. “A lead vocalist…”       “Erm, I’m a part of this band, too…” Daniel says a little hesitantly.       “You too?” Helene wonders truly, glances at Daniel, and examines his face for two seconds, frowning slightly. “Erm, excuse me, sir, is your name Daniel?”       “Actually, yes,” Daniel replies confidently. “Daniel Perkins, to be clear. A bass guitarist of ‘Against The System’.”       Helene and Jessica look at each other with their widely open eyes and slightly open mouths, getting happier that the case starts moving.       “Excuse me, sweet girls, but what’s wrong?” Terrence frowns slightly. “If you want to know the news about our band and new music, we can say nothing yet.”       “No, no, we don’t mean it…” Helene replies a little excitedly, shaking her head. “We wanted to ask you about a different thing.”       “Say, is the name of your drummer, Peter?” Jessica asks. “Peter Rose… A tall guy with blond hair…”       “Yes, it’s our drummer,” Daniel nods, looking at Helene and Jessica questioningly.       “But why do you need him?” Terrence frowns slightly.       “We need you, not him!” Jessica says confidently. “We were looking for you, the members of the band, in which he played!”       “You need us?” Daniel wonders truly.       “Please, young men, listen to us. We will explain everything… It’s very important to us two and your drummer.”       “First, we’ll introduce ourselves: my name is Helene Marshall,” Helene introduces herself and points at Jessica standing near her and squeezing the belt of her purse strongly with her hands. “This is Jessica Taylor. We are friends of your drummer, Peter, who were looking for you to talk about that guy.”       Daniel and Terrence look at each other and frown slightly, barely understanding what these girls want from them because they are so excited that they have not explained everything clearly. However, MacClife remembers that his friend mentioned Helene’s name when they came to the meeting with George Smith. And they get a suspicion that they met the girl their manager meant.       “Helene Marshall?” Daniel frowns slightly, looking at Helene better. “Excuse me, girl, have we met before? Your face seems familiar to me…”       “Your face is familiar to me, too…” Helene replies thoughtfully and frowns much stronger. “Weren’t you with Peter on the day when I met him someday?”       “Yup… That was me… So, are you Helene, the friend of Peter?”       “That’s correct, it’s me… And I think Peter has told you much about me.”       “I really heard about you, though this guy wasn’t too talkative when the talk was about his friend.”       “I thought so,” Helene smiles slightly, folding her hands in front of her. “But now you know I am Helene Marshall, the friend of your drummer.”       “Now it’s right!” Daniel glances at Terrence and slightly claps him on the shoulder. “Dude, it’s the Helene I told you about! It’s her, Peter’s friend!”       “It’s her?” Terrence wonders. “So, did you mean this Helene?”       “Yes, I told you about her!”       “Wait, do you wanna say she was the one to talk with George on the phone?”       “Erm, George?” Helene specifies a little hesitantly. “If you mean your manager, I was the one to talk with him.”       “You?” Daniel wonders.       “Couldn’t Peter answer the call?” Terrence frowns slightly. “Why did you talk to him?”       “He didn’t want to,” Helene glances down and crosses her arms over her chest.       “Didn’t want?” Daniel rounds his eyes.       “Yes, he said his phone had been ringing for a long time, but he didn’t want to take it. But after I insisted, Peter let me answer the call and find out who that was. I heard a rude man, who introduced himself as George Smith. He thought I was one of the girls he was hanging out with at clubs. And I don’t think that man believed me when I said Pete left his phone at my home. However, he only needed me to tell him that he should’ve come to the agency for the meeting with his band and their manager.”       “And you did?” Terrence asks.       “I did, but he refused to go to the meeting ‘cause he didn’t want to confront Daniel and gave a damn about the band that he left in his mind. But I persuaded him to do it and drove him to the studio, so he didn’t change his mind and make George go to his home and do nobody knew what.”       “So, were you with him when you came to the agency?” Daniel wonders. “But why didn’t we see you together?”       “Peter went to the meeting alone, but I was waiting for him in my car near the agency building. And when he talked with you, I drove him home and found out what your manager told you.”       “So, now we know George didn’t lie when telling about you…” Terrence says thoughtfully. “And that’s good you persuaded him to go. Or Smith would’ve done what would’ve made Peter experience something much worse than what we three heard from him.”       “Listen, guys, Helene and I really need your help or at least a piece of advice,” Jessica says gently. “We want to know everything you know about Peter’s condition and about what could happen to him.”       “Any little piece is important to us because we want to do our best to save him,” Helene adds confidently. “Please, help us make this situation clearer.”       “You know, girls…” Terrence looks at Daniel. “Honestly, we would also like to ask you something. We have many questions for you to make very much from what we don’t know yet clearer.”       “Yes, of course, we are ready to answer all your questions,” Jessica replies confidently, glancing at Helene, who nods. “Where could we talk?”       “Erm, let’s go to the café?” Daniel suggests a little hesitantly. “We left it a few minutes ago, but since we got so lucky, we can go back there, sit down and talk.”       “Yeah, we were going there,” Helene shrugs.       “Alright, let’s not waste time,” Terrence suggests confidently.       Two seconds later, the four turn around and go to the café. While Terrence and Daniel go behind, Jessica and Helene go ahead.       “So, I think the day is getting better…” Daniel whispers thoughtfully.       “Agree, I finally heard at least something good,” Terrence replies in a whisper. “Luck hasn’t left us yet.”       “That’s why we should always believe in the best! I knew we’d meet Rose’s friend early or late and find out everything from her.”       “Okay, I admit you’re right! And if we find out something new that can help us know the reason for Peter’s bad condition, I will take my hat off.”       “I’ll agree to get a bottle of beer as a thankfulness.”       “Deal!”       Meanwhile, Helene and Jessica are also whispering with each other, not hiding their happiness that they found those they did not think they would find.       “Wow, that’s a miracle!” Jessica whispers with a slight smile. “I didn’t think we’d be so lucky!”       “Let’s see what they can tell us,” Helene replies thoughtfully. “I wish they told us as much as possible.”       “Even if they don’t do it, we can definitely count on their help.”       “I think so. They’re definitely worried about what’s happening to Pete, judging how much they got nervous when we asked about him.”       “So, the guys know he’s got some problems.”       A few seconds later, the four enter the café, quickly find a free table near a window, and sit on it: Terrence and Daniel comfortably set themselves in front of Helene and Jessica putting their purses next to themselves. They quickly look at the half-filled café before Helene glances at Terrence and decides to start a talk hesitantly:       “Erm, excuse me, sir, but, unfortunately, Jessica and I forgot your name… Haven’t seen movies with you for ages… Could you introduce yourself?”       “No problem,” Terrence replies gently with a slight smile. “Terrence. Terrence MacClife.”       “Well, you know me already – so I will not introduce myself again,” Daniel says thoughtfully. “Anyway, I am Daniel Perkins…”       “Yes, we memorized, Mr. Perkins,” Jessica smiles slightly. “But I want to warn you that I have had memory issues since childhood. So, if I ask you your name, do not get mad, please.”       “I think we can call each other by the name. I do not personally mind…”       “Agree, it’d be much better,” Terrence agrees confidently.       “Well, alright, if you want it…” Jessica shrugs.       “Excuse us for forgetting your name, Terrence,” Helene says guiltily. “We remember your face well because we really love the movie ‘American Love Affair’, in which you played Mason. But sadly, we forgot your name… We don’t read movie credits, and we rarely follow news of the show business…”       “It’s alright, do not apologize,” Terrence waves a hand with a slight smile.       “Alright, let’s not waste time and talk about Peter,” Daniel suggests confidently, folding his hands on the table.       “Yes, sure,” Jessica nods, falls into silence for two seconds, and looks at her hands. “Let’s start with the first thing… Say, did one of you notice that Peter had been behaving strangely over the past few months or weeks?”       “We did,” Daniel nods confidently. “I mean, I began to notice… Actually, it always happened, but I started to pay attention to that one month ago. But I asked about it in my own way that he did not like, as it turned out.”       “Is that true you were laughing at him because he didn’t have a girlfriend?”       “Yes, but I swear I didn’t want to hurt him. But that’s why we had a big fight…”       “We heard about that situation,” Helene says confidently. “Peter told me what happened between you.”       “It happened on the day we came together at Peter’s home to work on songs,” Terrence adds. “But I noticed nothing suspicious about Peter’s behavior. I thought he was fine. But now we know it wasn’t a temporary sadness…”       “Didn’t you know about Peter and Daniel’s conflict?” Jessica wonders.       “That conflict happened when I had to leave for two minutes. I learned about it on the day of our meeting with the manager. Daniel and Peter said nothing until the end, but I guessed something happened between them a long time ago because… Best friends couldn’t get suddenly mad, attack each other with fists, and openly insult.”       “Right, I didn’t want to talk with Terrence about it,” Daniel confirms. “I thought we’d keep working as if nothing happened. We’re kinda men and don’t usually get mad for ages: we can beat each other’s faces and then talk quietly two minutes later. But from that moment, our work on the album was disrupted almost every day because Peter couldn’t do without insulting me and always provoked me.”       “Peter missed rehearsals and didn’t come to the studio. Or if he came and was very late. But later, Daniel and I realized Peter began to go to nightclubs and drink to hell. He suffered from a strong hangover and couldn’t work when he should’ve worked his brains. Which worked badly due to alcohol’s influence.”       “Yes, we know about his everyday hangouts,” Helene nods. “When I was at his home somehow, I saw a few empty bottles lying on the floor… I don’t know what it was: beer, cognac, vodka, or whiskey… But it’s clear Peter continued to drink at clubs and at home… He did have some alcohol stocks…”       “And on one of those days, Peter came to the studio with a hangover,” Daniel says. “He complained about the headache and refused to work again. That’s why we had another confrontation that led to a fight. Terrence can confirm it. He was the witness and tried to break us up… And that’s good he did that, ‘cause we would’ve killed each other.”       “And then our band was almost broken up,” Terrence throws his hands up. “Every one of us went separate ways and did his business.”       “Until we three got a call from our manager, George Smith, and an order to come to the agency. And when we met, Terrence and I got shocked by Peter’s appearance. He looked horrible… Just like, excuse me, dead…”       “Yes, Rose really looked very sad, broken, and depressed,” Terrence confesses with sadness in his eyes. “It seemed that he was in a long-time depression and getting closer to doing something terrible. We told him something, but Peter didn’t care and said he was no longer a part of the band.”       “So, everything started one month ago?” Helene asks quietly.       “Yes, one month ago, the tour of ‘The Loser Syndrome,’ with whom we toured in America as an opening act, ended,” Terrence replies. “And two or three days later, we decided to go to Peter’s home to work on songs. And before, we had worked at the studio, which we signed a contract with…”       “You know…” Helene slowly moves her sad eyes to her hands. “Maybe, Peter got insane one month ago, but he really got problems much earlier.”       “Yeah?” Daniel rounds his eyes. “But why did Peter always have a good mood, joke, laugh, and smile?”       “We don’t know what’s happening in Peter’s life,” Jessica replies a little hesitantly, tightly locking her fingers. “But he’s been kind of depressed for a very long time.”       “So, was Peter hiding his problems and lying when saying he was happy?”       “Yes, but I repeat, Helene, and I don’t know the reasons for his depression.”       “So, laughing could be his protective reaction.” Daniel thinks for two seconds, putting a finger on his lip. “Were Peter’s emotions fake all this time?”       “Likely, yes,” Jessica shrugs.       “But why? Is the reason his problems with girls? But he doesn’t want to date anyone and rejects those, who try to get his love!”       “We can only guess about it. But for Peter, it’s a very painful thing. He didn’t just want to talk about it, but now Rose gets enraged by these talks.”       “Hey, do you know what was happening to him when Daniel and I did not see him after the fight at the studio?” Terrence asks.       “Erm… Well… Somewhere one week ago, I went to his home… Before Helene decided to go…” Jessica glances aside. “And you know, I entered his apartment very easily ‘cause he didn’t lock the door. It’s called ‘Come in, everyone, and take anything you want!’.”       “Do you want to say the door of Peter’s apartment was open, and anyone could visit him?”       “Yes… But he said he didn’t care.”       “You tried to talk to him and find out what happened?”       “Peter and I didn’t talk because he got nuts and began to scream at me. And I got so mad that I began to laugh at his failures in his personal life. That’s why Rose kicked me out of the apartment. Grabbed me by the collar like a kitten and kicked me out. After that, I got much madder and refused to listen to anything about that man.”       “And now, as we understand, did you calm down and want to help him?”       “I’m still mad at him. But at heart, I’m still worried about him and agreed to help Helene do our best to get him out of the hole where he ended up. Still, Peter is my friend, I’ve known him since the early years… We studied together and were friends…”       “Alright…” Terrence glances at Helene. “Helene, what about you?”       “I came to him on the day you had a meeting with your manager,” Helene replies. “And I was horrified by how bad he looked.”       “We noticed it,” Daniel says quietly and looks at Terrence, who nods confidently.       “But trust me, what you saw was better. I made him put himself in order before the meeting. At least to put on clean clothes, wash his face and brush his hair. I’m silent about washing the head because he had no time to.”       “He has looked kind of white lately and even lost some weight. I think Peter looks skinnier than earlier. Even if I’ve always remembered him being slim but having quite a well-trained body.”       “Peter has always been as skinny as a worm,” Jessica confesses. “And he didn’t have such strong abs and tough biceps. He was a dead fish… If someone had put on glasses on him when he was a teenager, people would’ve hardly differentiated him from a botanic. They never have a gorgeous body. I think he’s getting back to that because he began to ‘deflate’ slowly.”       “Agree, he really lost his sharp…”       “I’ve been trying to help Peter and find out what’s happening to him for a long time,” Helene says with sadness in her eyes. “But he refuses to say something. And I’m worried about him… I don’t recognize the smiling and happy guy I met for the first time. My heart bleeds when I see him having such a terrible condition.”       Helene falls into silence for two seconds, glances at the window, and sighs heavily, locking her fingers tightly.       “Hey, I forgot to say that when I called the doorbell, and Peter opened the door, he looked like he was about to push me off the stairs,” Helene confesses hesitantly. “At some moment, I even got horrified and wanted to leave. But Peter didn’t kick me out, and even begged me to stay. He kind of wanted me to be by his side.”       “It’s strange, why did he kick one friend but didn’t kick another?” Daniel frowns slightly. “You two are his friends!”       “He just probably got sick of me and decided to get off me somehow,” Jessica assumes, glancing at the window. “Or Peter is just more attracted to Helene and doesn’t appreciate the one he’s known since the early ages.”       “No, Jessica, don’t say it!” Helene denies. “Peter did say he was very sorry and would’ve wanted to apologize to you. If you gave him a chance, the blond would make amends and ask you for forgiveness. Not just you… He’s also madly ashamed of the band…”       “Did Peter say something about the band?” Daniel asks.       “Yes, many times… He’s ashamed that the band is about to break up because of him. And he thinks he’s guilty of what happened. And Peter is definitely ashamed of you, Daniel. He would like to apologize, but is afraid you would not forgive him.”       “Though, he recently started to regret it,” Jessica notices. “Before I got mad at him, Peter had thought you were a betrayer and allegedly ruined your friendship. He didn’t expect to get a knife in the back from you, the person he completely trusted.”       “But Peter didn’t say anything about it to me,” Helene says confidently. “Yes, maybe, he was mad and really thought so. But now he says you were right in everything you said. And I think that guy is no longer mad…”       “It’s all the same in my case: at first, I was mad and wanted to kill him with my own hands,” Daniel confesses a little hesitantly, folding his hands on the table. “But now I understand I crossed the line and really betrayed him to some extent. Rose’s reaction to my actions was quite fine. I’m not surprised he eventually exploded, getting sick of hearing about failures in his personal life.”       “Sorry for being rude, but why did you actually start all of that? Why did you mock the man if you saw it was hurtful for him to hear it?”       “I swear, Helene, I didn’t try to insult or humiliate Peter. I didn’t think it was such a painful thing for him. And when we fought, I had to protect myself and not to let him hurt me. He attacked me with words and fists, and I couldn’t leave it without attention.”       “We believe you,” Jessica says quietly and sighs quietly. “Moreover, I also started this talk and hinted that he didn’t know how to behave toward girls. That’s what I regret… No matter what, I shouldn’t have gone too far… Of course, I’m still mad, but it was too much…”       “But I am not…” Daniel leans back in the chair. “After I saw Peter in such a bad condition on the day of the meeting with George, I lowered my hands. I forgot to think of what happened. And I realized I must’ve made amends for being a disgusting friend to him. And for that, I will do anything.”       “I’m glad you realized it and want to help,” Helene says with sadness in her eyes and sighs heavily. “I can’t see him in such a terrible condition and hear him calling himself talentless, brainless, ugly… A reject. Trash. An ugly person, who shouldn’t live in this world.”       “Oh, gosh…” Terrence shakes his head with horror in his eyes. “But it’s not true! Peter is a wonderful man, who will always come to help his friends.”       “Yes, yes, I agree with Terrence, Daniel nods confidently. “I’ve always considered Peter a very good man, who gives happiness to those, who are near him. I really liked speaking to him, and he helped me in hard moments. And before that conflict, we had worked together well and easily found what we would've liked. We’ve overcome so much together in the four years of our friendship.”       “Were you really friends?” Helene frowns slightly. “You’re so different! When I saw you, I wondered what could make Peter just talk to you.”       “Of course, we were friends! I had many friends, but Peter was the best one. He’s always been my close person. Almost like a brother. That guy understood me better than all my friends.”       “Don’t be mad, Daniel…” Jessica says a little hesitantly. “But at first sight, you seem a very cold and insolent man, who is ready to cut anyone’s throat.”       “Everybody says it. But those, who know me well, say I’m not the one I seem.”       “By the way, when I met Peter, he said all the same about you,” Helene confesses with a slight smile. “Rose said only good things and was happy he found such a wonderful friend like you.”       “And if not for my jokes about his personal life, everything would’ve been otherwise,” Daniel exhales slowly. “I just wanted him to meet a girl and fall in love with her. And I persuaded him to date someone… I was surprised that I didn’t know or meet any girl, who he would’ve fallen in love with, for the years of our friendship. While I had lots of girls, he didn’t have anyone.”       “I must confess that Peter wasn’t popular among girls during the school years,” Jessica confesses. “While girls literally stood in the line to some guys, nobody noticed the blond.”       “Wasn’t he popular?” Terrence frowns slightly. “But why? He isn’t ugly and stupid!”       “They just thought he wasn’t from this world. And it’s true to some extent. Peter wasn’t really similar to those he studied with. He didn’t want to be one of the gray mice and stood out by having his opinion, which people didn’t always like. Rose even tried to dress up not like everybody else did. But he had a poor choice ‘cause he had no money for good, expensive clothes.”       “It has to do with girls?” Daniel asks. “What kind of relationship did he have with boys?”       “Boys didn’t almost talk to him and even despised him. Peter’s opinion never played a major role or could actually be showered with mud. There were many cases when they literally put him back, so he didn’t stand in the way of leaders and those, who were deeply respected.”       “And how did he take it?”       “Silently. I didn’t see him trying to protect himself somehow. Pete was always silent when being insulted and humiliated. But I think even if he had a wish, Peter couldn’t protect himself. He was… So to say, a dead fish… Against those brainless guys, who studied at our school. We had jocks that were obsessed with sports without brains and a couple of fat idiots that loved eating and being a rebel.”       “Jessica, tell us, please, didn’t Peter suffer from depression during the school years?” Terrence asks thoughtfully. “I think the bullying was supposed to lead to the terrible aftermath. Moreover, you said Peter was taking it silently…”       “Well… Actually, yes… The bullying led to horrible consequences in high school. And…” Jessica bites her lip slightly. “He… Still can’t get over them…”       “Wait, do you wanna say Peter has been doing that since high school?” Helene rounds her eyes full of horror wider.       “Yes, Helene, he was doing it at that time,” Jessica nods with sadness in her eyes. “And it’s one of the reasons why Peter got caught by you on the day when you came to him.”       Terrence and Daniel look at each other questioningly, not understanding what Helene and Jessica mean.       “What are you talking about?” Daniel asks, looking at Jessica and Helene with a scare in his eyes.       “What did Peter do?” Terrence wonders. “And what has he been doing since high school?”       “Say, guys, did one of you notice that Peter had very many bracelets and bandages on his left hand when being at the meeting with your manager?” Helene asks hesitantly.       “Erm…” Daniel thinks and shrugs. “No, I didn’t notice…”       “Me too,” Terrence pronounces. “And honestly, we cared about Peter’s condition much more. Of course, we saw his clothes were rumpled and big for him, but… None of us looked at his hands and what was placed on them.”       “Excuse me, but why did bracelets get you confused?” Daniel throws his hands up. “I also like wearing a few bracelets or bandages on my hands. There’s nothing bad with it…”       “And I can put on a few simple bandages,” Terrence says thoughtfully. “Though I wear a watch more.”       “I asked you about it for the reason,” Helene replies a little excitedly. “There’s a reason… You will understand me when I tell you something…”       “Is that so serious?” Daniel rounds his eyes.       “Yes. And the case is that when I went to Peter’s home, he…” Helene cannot finish her mind and tries to hold down the tears that come to her eyes, and she starts to shake slightly.       “It’s okay, Helene, calm down, please,” Jessica says quietly, softly hugs the white Helene around the shoulders, and caresses her forearms.       “My God, I can’t believe he’s still doing that…” Helene makes a quiet sob, putting her hand on her forehead. “Even after he swore to stop doing it thousands of times…”       “Excuse me, Helene, but we don’t understand you!” Daniel exclaims. “Please, calm down, and quietly explain what Peter did on the day you met him. We understand it’s probably hard for you to say it, but we should know what’s happening, and how to help him.”       “He… He…” Helene tries to say something, breathing heavily. “Damn…”       Unfortunately, it’s very hard for Helene to brace herself to say what is like a knife in her heart. She is shaking strongly and breathing heavily, and feels tears slowly rolling over her cheeks.       “Did Peter do something terrible that you’re crying, shaking, and being nervous so much?” Terrence asks anxiously, getting every single muscle of his body tense.       “Yes…” Helene pronounces in a shaking voice. “I… He… He… He… Holy shit!”       Helene exhales sharply, closing her face with her hands and making a quiet sob, while Jessica is hugging her tightly, pressing her to herself and caressing her forearms. But two seconds later, the brunette literally makes herself say what gives her unbearable pain.       “Peter made a few cuts on his wrist…” Helene blurts out in a shaking voice in one breath. “He was cutting himself… Cutting…”       What they hear makes Terrence and Daniel deeply shocked and open their dumbfounded eyes widely. The guys get sharply white, scarily look at each other and slightly shake their heads, trying to accept what they heard. The tense silence settles in the air for a few seconds, during which Daniel and Terrence get sharply white and start to shake slightly, and Jessica tries to calm down Helene, as she is crying quietly and closing her face with her hands.       “W-what?” Daniel breaks the silence in a shaking voice. “W-what-t-t did you say?”       “Peter was cutting himself, she said,” Jessica replies quietly with sadness in her eyes. “That’s the aftermath of the long-time bullying.”       “My gosh… No… I can’t believe it…” Daniel runs his fingers of his hands through his hair and slightly inclines his head, setting his dumbfounded eyes into the distance. “No, it can’t be true… I refuse to believe it!”       “But it’s true, Daniel. Helene and I saw all of his cuts and know that he hasn’t gotten rid of this habit… And on the day when you met George, or what’s his name, Peter cut his wrists.”       “And do you want to say he was hiding the cuts thanks to bandages?”       “That’s why Helene asked you if you noticed bandages on his hands…”       “Holy shit…”       While Daniel runs his hands over his hair and understands he can barely breathe from the excitement, Terrence shakes his head and brings his hands folded together to his mouth, moving his confused look down and shaking slightly from the excitement.       “How awful!” Terrence gets horrified. “I can’t believe it! Peter started to harm himself at his wish…”       “I understand it’s hard for you to realize it,” Jessica replies with sadness in her eyes. “But Helene didn’t lie to you, and I confirm her words about Peter cutting himself.”       “But it happened once… Say it was the only time Peter cut himself. He couldn’t do that constantly.”       “But he did…” Helene makes a quiet sob, still pressing to Jessica, and moves her tear-stained eyes to Daniel and Terrence. “Peter didn’t do it for the first time. He has been doing it since high school… Jessica found it out then, but I learned about his self-harming some time later after meeting Peter. I became a witness of blood getting out of his hands…”       “Damn, that’s why…” Daniel gets horrified and quickly looks at everybody. “That’s why Peter always wore bracelets and bandages! And often pulled down the sleeves of long shirts or sweaters! I saw he wore them very often, but I didn’t pay attention to it. And the blond said he just liked wearing them. But now I understand that he wanted to hide all his scars.”       “Have you never gotten Peter caught cutting himself for the years of your friendship?” Helene wonders. “When I did it, he did that in the bathroom during my visit! Has Rose never made cuts somewhere in a bathroom of your home or his place?”       “No, never…” Daniel shrugs. “I… I wouldn’t have even thought he was cutting himself… And I’d be horrified to imagine someone… Cutting their wrists and trying to open their veins… Ugh… I’m shaking from these words…”       “Did Peter hide that he was cutting himself from you or get caught accidentally?” Terrence asks.       “Accidentally,” Jessica pronounces. “I discovered it when I found him at the back of the school all alone. He ran away from the office right in the middle of the lesson after another piece of mockery, and the teacher asked me to find him and get him back to the class. Not because he was worried. Because Rose was disrupting his lesson… So, I saw he was wincing from pain to tears. At first, I thought he felt bad, but when I saw his wrists bleeding, I got horrified… I got overwhelmed when Pete didn’t deny that he cut them with a blaze that he always had with him. Of course, I helped him treat the wound and didn’t tell anyone know about his self-harming by his plea. And I started to support him much more because I knew they treated him unfairly.”       “I did accidentally, too,” Helene adds. “I thought he was in the bathroom for too long, and something made me come to him. The door was slightly open… And when I opened it, I saw Peter sitting on the floor and had open veins on his hand. It was horrible… I nearly went insane when I saw that scene.”       “As far as we know, you met Peter one year after he met Daniel,” Terrence says thoughtfully.       “It’s true… I moved to New York from a little tower a few years ago and tried to settle and meet new people. And somehow, I met Peter, who I quickly found a common language with and then continued to spend my time with.”       “But how did you meet, if it’s not a secret?”       “I acquainted them,” Jessica replies. “Pete and I were going together somewhere and met Helene by chance. Well, I told her a few words and introduced her to the blond. And when they became good friends, we often spent time together. Marshall and I had a fun time… But I can’t say anything about Rose… I don’t know if he was happy or still kept literally dreaming of death… Because… There was a short period when Peter was holding on and not harming himself.”       “But when do you think he broke down and started cutting himself again?” Daniel asks.       “I can’t say… But after meeting Helene… Since she got him caught… At least, I didn’t see him cutting himself. And his hands were clean, without cuts. But I can’t exclude that he could break down and hide it again. Before my friend got him caught… And then Pete stopped hiding it, at least from us two.”       “Damn, I could assume anything but not the fact that Peter would be cutting himself,” Terrence gets horrified, running his hand through his hair with a heavy breath. “I don’t understand, why did we never suspect anything because he always wore lots of bracelets?”       “He always wore them…” Daniel confesses in a low voice, setting his gaze into the distance. “I’ve never seen his naked wrists… They’ve always been hidden with bandages and bracelets of different colors. And he picked up them by a cloth color, so they looked harmonically.”       “Peter was probably cutting himself when he was in your band,” Jessica assumes. “He constantly did that at the high school, but I was the only one to know it, as he tried to hide his cuts so hard. If the guys had known it, they wouldn’t have been sorry for him. Don’t get scared, of course, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Peter had tried to jump off a bridge at least once…”       “You’re starting to scare me…” Daniel confesses a little excitedly, grabbing his throat slightly with a lack of air. “Was he doing that just because the guys from his school treated him so badly?”       “It seems like it’s true… But I could also assume the reason could also be problems in his personal life.”       “And what do we do?” Terrence throws his hands up. “I’ve never had a business with those, who hurt them or wanna die, cutting themselves or jumping off a high building.”       “Me too…” Daniel pronounces quietly. “It’s actually hard for me to imagine what cutting yourself is.”       “But we must do something to help him,” Helene says quietly, calming down a little but still wiping tears off her face. “I don’t want to lose Peter. That man is too important to me. I swear I will go crazy if I learn about his death. He’s too young to die… Especially because of that…”       “Just like we don’t,” Daniel replies with sadness in his eyes. “Terrence and I tried to talk to Peter and persuade him to explain everything and let us help him, but he refuses to open himself.”       “But how many times I have begged him to stop doing it and share his sadness! But Peter doesn’t want it. Though, he doesn’t reject me and begs me to stay by his side.”       “Has Peter never talked to you about why he is doing that?” Terrence asks. “What if he dropped some hints?”       “Peter prefers keeping everything inside,” Jessica replies with sadness in her eyes. “He’s always kept… Sometimes it’s hard for me to understand what he has on his mind. Yes, I understand men shouldn’t be too open and cry like girls, but they mustn’t be silent about these problems.”       “Did you try to find a psychologist or psychiatrist for him?”       “He refuses to go to the doctor,” Helene replies. “And he doesn’t wanna take any tablets because he’s sure it wouldn’t help him.”       “But he should want to do it,” Jessica adds. “If Peter wanted to get well, he would agree to accept the help of his friends and doctors. Well… We think we must not make the person do something against his wish. Rose isn’t a psycho that is dangerous to people, and he shouldn’t be put in a mental hospital, put on a straitjacket, and get injected with a sedative. So, he has a right to decline it… Pete is not a little boy, he’s an adult man of legal age.”       “Doesn’t his family worry about him?” Daniel wonders. “Do Peter’s relatives give a damn about his condition and not try to influence him?”       “Sadly, we know nothing about Peter’s family,” Helene replies with sadness in her eyes. “He’s never told us about it.”       “Hey, was Peter born in New York?” Terrence asks. “Or did he come from another city?”       “Yes, Peter was born here. He lived in a bad neighborhood for a long time. It was something like the countryside. There were a few wooden houses, and Peter was living in one of them. And I lived with my mother in a place that was further.”       “And did you all leave that place and move closer to the center of New York?”       “Well, yeah… I moved here much earlier. I settled here and found a good job before Peter found the money and bought the apartment where he’s now living.”       “Hm…” Terrence frowns slightly, stroking his chin. “So, his family is supposed to live somewhere in this city. And it would be easier for us to find them…”       “Yeah, but how are you gonna look for his relatives if we know nothing about them?” Daniel wonders.       “I don’t know, but they should know what’s happening to Peter. Even if his friends can’t make him sure to stop killing himself, his family could impact him.”       “I doubt it. If he doesn’t hear his friends, he would hardly listen to his family.”       “He has only a mother from his family,” Jessica confesses. “But Peter was never too close to her. And there were not very good rumors about her. She was allegedly an alcoholic, who couldn’t live a day without a bottle of vodka.”       “Alcoholic?” Daniel rounds his eyes. “But why did someone think so?”       “The guys from the school believed the words of a fat guy, who saw Peter’s mother on the street with a couple of bottles of vodka in his hands. She kind of looked like a homeless lady, who couldn’t buy good clothes and spent her money on alcohol. Although that idiot couldn’t prove it, everybody believed him and started to mock Rose much harder.”       “Do you think it could be true?”       “I don’t know, Daniel. But I never saw his mother, and I don’t know how she looked. That woman was never a part of school life and didn’t speak to the teachers and parents of other guys. Well, she could come if someone had annoyed her, but I heard it never ended well.”       “But if his mother was really an alcoholic, it could be another reason to cut himself,” Terrence assumes. “She probably gave a damn about her son and cared only about where to get as much vodka as possible. Though, Peter really needed someone. Because everybody mocked him, and he was too young.”       “Agree,” Helene agrees quietly. “I could say Peter is cutting himself not only because he thinks he’s ugly, worthless, and talentless. And suffers from problems in his personal life…”       “Hey, did someone of Peter’s schoolmates call him like this?” Terrence asks.       “Yes, they called him this way,” Jessica replies confidently. “Peter probably thought that people thought it was true and began to make himself sure about it. He had nobody, who would’ve told him it wasn’t true.”       “Fucking stinkers!” Daniel swears, shaking his head, and folding his hands on the table in front of him. “They did make Peter cut and hate himself. We may lose a wonderful friend at any time.”       “You’re right, but now it's too late to find guilty people,” Jessica replies with sadness in her eyes, throwing her hands up. “It's been a while since we graduated from school.”       “If there was at least one, I would tell them everything I think about it.”       “So, what are your suggestions?” Terrence looks at everybody. “What do we do? If we don’t decide what to do, we may really lose Peter!”       “What if we four go to his home and try to talk to him?” Helene suggests. “Without calling and warning. So to say, get him caught.”       “It’s the best decision now. But I’m sure Peter wouldn’t listen to us. What if he wants to kick us out of the apartment, just like he did to Jessica? A depressive person may show aggression and not be so sweet and fluffy.”       “One against four?” Helene rounds her eyes. “I don’t think he’ll do! At least, he will not kick me out of the apartment. Peter treats me too well to show this kind of cruelty.”       “Alright, let’s go to his home right now?” Daniel suggests. “Anyway, it’s the only thing we can do. We need to let him know that we will be by Peter’s side, despite nothing.”       “Yes, let’s go,” Jessica agrees confidently. “I have no business and can go.”       “I don’t work today, either!” Helene exclaims.       “Alright, then whose car will we go in? Guys, did you come here in a car? Helene and I came here on her horse!”       “Daniel and I came here in my car…” Terrence replies and thinks for two seconds, putting a finger on his lip. “You know, going to my home takes very much time – about one or one and a half hours. So, I’m suggesting you, Helene, leaving your car at home. And then my friend and I will take you and Jessica and go to Peter. You can give us an address where to go, so we will come shortly.”       “Hm…” Helene frowns slightly. “Alright then… In this case, let’s meet in two hours near the building where my apartment is? I will do something and will be waiting for you and Daniel along with Jessica.”       “I don’t mind,” Daniel shrugs.       “Me too,” Terrence replies confidently. “I’ll take you out somewhere in one and a half hours? Would you have time to do your business?”       “Yes, great!” Jessica exclaims. “Going to Helene’s home from here takes about a half hour. So, I think we will have time.”       “Agreed then!”       “Well, alright…” Helene nods and looks at Jessica hesitantly. “Then we will go… Not to waste time… See you in two hours…”       When Helene wants to get up from the table, Jessica slightly pulls her down, tightly taking her hand, saying:       “Hey, hey, friend, where are ya going? What about the address? Maybe, you write something? Or are the guys gonna search for your home by using intuition or asking people where the girl named Helene Marshall, who wants to help her pretty blond so badly, is living?”       “Gosh, right!” Helene slaps herself on the forehead. “What an idiot I am! I will write you an address… And my mobile phone if you need to tell me something.”       Helene opens up her purse and finds a notebook and a pen quite quickly. She writes her home address and mobile address on it, tears the piece of paper out of the notebook, and gives it to Terrence, who runs his eyes over what’s written in it.       “Oh, I know where it is!” Daniel exclaims, looking into the piece of paper in Terrence’s hands. “It’s amazing, but we can quickly reach the place where I’m living from there.”       “By the way, thank you so much,” Terrence says amicably, smiling slightly after putting the piece of paper in the inside pocket of his leather jacket. “For telling us enough information about Peter.”       “Thank you,” Helene smiles slightly, closing up her purse placed on her laps and pressing it to herself. “Sadly, you didn’t tell us so much. But we’re lucky to meet you. My friend and I were trying to find you for a long time to find out something about Peter’s condition.”       “Telling the truth, we were looking for you, too,” Daniel confesses amicably. “I had a suspicion that the Helene, who George was talking with, and the Helene, who I’d seen a couple of times, were the same girl. And Terrence and I were sure that you’d make something clear.”       “But we thought we wouldn’t find you, as we didn’t have any contacts and common familiar people, except for Peter,” Terrence adds.       “But we’re lucky enough,” Jessica notices.       “Yeah, but we believed Peter had only one friend – Helene…” Daniel confesses. “However, as it turned out, he had two friends. Our goal was to find only Helene. But Peter never said a word about you, Jessica.”       “I understood that you had heard only about Helene. But I thought Rose had dinged into your ears about this girl. He considers her his very close person.”       “No, sadly, Pete barely talked about her. Well, he could barely mention her, but preferred not talking too much about her.”       “By the way, when Helene and I saw you near the café, we tried to understand who was standing with Terrence,” Jessica smiles slightly. “We recognized him shortly, but we didn’t recognize you. Helene later realized that your face was familiar to her. And if not for Terrence, we would have gone by you, not knowing you were the friends of Peter.”       “Yeah, our respectful Mr. MacClife was a famous persona,” Daniel laughs shyly. “Very popular… Especially among young girls…”       “Why was I?” Terrence wonders, rounding his eyes. “I’m still a famous man! And I’m still handsome and confident!”       “I must confess that Jessica and I love the movie ‘America Love Affair’, in which you played the starring role of Mason Houston,” Helene smiles shyly. “You were about eighteen…”       “Yeah… Seventeen or eighteen…” Terrence falls into memories that make him smile for a few moments. “I still remember the days I spent on the set. I really liked working with the team that was filming the movie.”       “You brilliantly played your role,” Jessica admires. “I think literally the whole world was worried about your character when they started to show it in cinemas.”       “By the way, you haven’t changed since those times,” Helene notices with a slight smile and thinks for two seconds. “Well, maybe, you just matured and stopped being a little boy.”       “Nice to hear it,” Terrence smiles shyly. “I’m gonna accept it as a compliment from my fans.”       “We’re really huge fans of you, Terrence. You’re attractive and incredibly talented. I wish you were noticed and loved by as many people as possible. Because hiding these talents is a great sin.”       “How could such an irresistible and talented man hide from the world?” Terrence asks proudly with a slight smile. “I would not forgive myself if I was hiding from everyone, knowing well how much I could get, and how many fans I might have.”       Helene smiles at Terrence shyly, while Daniel stares at him too gloomily, crossing his arms over his chest and wondering that his friend does not forget about himself at such a hard moment. And Jessica is not happy that her friend does not spare compliments for the idol of all young girls and succumbs to the influence of his great charm.       “Erm, okay, guys, we will better go,” Jessica says confidently. “Traffic jams may be on the road… Bye, Terrence, bye, Daniel! See you in two hours!”       Jessica quickly gets up from the table, taking her purse, and grabs Helene’s hand, while her friend barely has time to take her bag. Then the friends leave the café, going by the company of men, who step away from the door when they see the girls want to go. And a few seconds later, Daniel turns on Terrence with a sly smile, while his friend definitely has a good mood after hearing a couple of nice words.       “Ha, so, our boy matured?” Daniel chuckles kindly. “And he is attractive and talented… Okay…”       “What aren’t ya happy with, buddy?” Terrence wonders with an innocent smile. “What’s wrong with the fact that those girls like ‘America Love Affair’? That’s the movie that made me famous!”       “Aha, and when you got a couple of compliments, you puffed up like a peacock and began to praise yourself.” Daniel exhales sharply. “You found such a good time, MacClife! While the blond is about to kill himself, you’re walking like a proud penguin and rejoicing that the girls made your too high self-rating much higher.”       “Oh, Perkins, why are you crowing? You can think I just talked with my fans.” Terrence smiles slightly. “Who elevated my mood, by the way. It’s nice to know such sweet girls love me and my work as an actor.”       “Oh…” Daniel leans back in the chair. “I don’t think Raquelle would be happy if she saw you smiling cutely when that girl literally began to make you God. I dunno if she knows you’re engaged, but I’m sure if you were single, Helene would definitely charm you. You make girls as crazy as catnip does it to cats.”       “I didn’t get…” Terrence frowns slightly, staring at Daniel suspiciously. “What are you hinting at?”       “If Raquelle knows how you’re secretly flirting with your fans, you’re gonna have a grandiose scandal that will surely lead to your breakup.”       “Cut your tongue, idiot!” Terrence slightly pushes Daniel on his hip. “Stop saying some bullshit! I flirted with nobody and ain’t gonna do it!”       “See, buddy, if only some of your fans didn’t take photos of you when you smiled and rolled your eyes like a happy cat after Helene began to shower you with compliments. Someone may post these photos on Twitter or Instagram, they’re gonna be spread across the whole Internet, and you’re gonna be blamed for cheating on Raquelle. Just like when you were caught in Rachel’s hugs, and journalists blamed you for cheating on your fiancée. One of the most beautiful women in the show business, as she was pronounced.”       “You’re talking too much, Daniel,” Terrence crosses his arms over his chest. “It seems like after Rose kicked your ass for your long tongue somehow, you understood nothing.”       “What does Rose have to do with it?” Daniel wonders. “I say you should learn to hold yourself down when beautiful girls praise you. Or you’re gonna melt after some girls’ words and kiss her happily and passionately with a tongue. And Raquelle will kick your ass so hard that you will regret it thousands of times. It will be much worse than when she saw you and Rachel going so heated that you were ready to have sex right in front of everyone.”       “You know I had never had feelings for Rachel,” Terrence throws a little gloomily. “And actually, Raquelle and I learned not to get jealous of each other and have hysteria after talking with the opposite sex. Raquelle isn’t jealous of Natalia, Anna, and me, but I quietly accept the fact that she talks to you, Peter or Edward… Well… I don’t even get jealous of her and such a great womanizer like my childhood friend, Benjamin Parker.”       “C’mon, bro! Two people, who can drive an opposite sex crazy, can’t keep calm when half of the world drools over you and dreams of getting you into their beds in any way.”       “I can be taken to only one bed – the one, on which I sleep with my fiancée. I don’t care about other beds. As well as girls, whom I treat like my close friends, fans, or just familiar people. Yes, somehow, I made a stupid mistake when I cheated and pretended to be in love with Rachel for my career in Albert’s band and revenge on Raquelle for her alleged betrayal. But now I will be only with the one that I barely got back.”       “Okay, relax, dude!” Daniel says with a slight smile, clapping Terrence on the shoulder. “I’m worried about your personal life and trying to help you go on the right track.”       “Thanks for such great care, but you better worry about your happiness, soon-to-be groom,” Terrence laughs shyly. “Since you began to think of marrying and looking for a way to get Anna’s parents to like you, you need to bring the case to an end.”       “I will do, you’ll see! And you will be one of those, who’ll be invited to my wedding first. For which I will spare no money. And I will do my best to make people remember it for ages.”       “So, I will remember and remind you about it when you decide to marry,” Terrence smiles slyly. “I’ll demand my promised invitation. And I’ll even be a little insolent and ask you to make me a groomsman.”       “Who said you wouldn’t be the one? You’ll have no right to reject the suggestion of becoming one of my groomsmen!”       “Then I’ll be waiting for it with impatience.” Terrence glances aside with a slight smile. “I can’t wait to hang out at your wedding and have much fun!”       “We’ll talk about it later,” Daniel glances at Terrence smiling widely. “And yeah, maybe, you stop smiling now? It seems like you don’t care about the problems of our friend!”       “You say it like I’m waiting for something to happen to Peter.”       “Didn’t ya forget we’d have to take the girls out and go to Peter’s home?”       “Of course, I do. So, I’m suggesting that we go to my car and decide what to do in the nearest one and a half hours.”       “I’d go with pleasure,” Daniel frowns with his arms crossed over his chest. “But you did install yourself on the edge, and moving you off is impossible. Could you, my dear, get your gorgeous ass up and let me go?”       “I’ll do it now, Your Highness!” Terrence raises his hands with a laugh and quickly gets up from the table.       Daniel gets up after Terrence, who keeps laughing quietly when they go to the exit from the café.       “Terrence, stop the fuck laughing!” Daniel demands a little louder. “It’s not funny to me, and I feel lousy!”       “Erm, me too, honestly…” Terrence exhales slowly and runs his hand sharply over his hair. “I just don’t wanna think of the problems… If you constantly think of the same, you may go insane. At least, I’m about to do it… If I don’t distract myself at least for two seconds, I’m gonna have depression.”       “Well, that’s right… But I can’t think of anything good.”       “Ha, you were smiling and chucking a few minutes ago!”       “Yeah, but I don’t get better. Though I’m trying to believe in the best…” Daniel shakes his head sharply to move a little strand of hair. “However, after I discovered that Peter had been cutting himself since school times, my positive spirit starts going away slowly.”       “Agree, it struck me down, too…”       “I couldn’t think everything would be so hard. I couldn’t assume he was cutting himself.”       “Of course, I heard about those, who did the same, but I’ve never understood the meaning of that.” Terrence opens the door and leaves the café along with Daniel. “As if you’d solve your problems if you took a blaze and opened your veins.”       A few seconds later, Terrence and Daniel come to the car, which is placed in quite a large parking lot not far from the café. It’s possible to see a few more autos of different colors, sizes, and costs placed a few meters away. And some signs help people figure out where they could stop, how they could leave this place, and what the speed limit is on these roads.       “Oh, yeah, those men crushed your car hard,” Daniel says, coming to Terrence’s car, at which he looks at from all sides. “Everything’s so bad that people amazingly stare at it when going by.”       “It’s okay, I’ll leave it for a repair today, and my girl will be like new,” Terrence replies confidently, unlocking the car with a key and making sure he did it when hearing a short sound. “If we didn’t have to take the girls away, I’d go to a service center right now and agree on a repair.”       “I believe it’s gonna take a lot of time,” Daniel assumes thoughtfully, opening the door of the car and sitting in the passenger's seat. “Your car looks like a deformed piece of metal. I’m surprised it still drives after that adventure.”       “It does, but something happened to the motor,” Terrence sits in the driver’s seat and closes the door. “And the door barely closes… That’s why the display shows a notification of closing it.”       “Yeah, it seems like your friends and fiancée are gonna have ‘fun days. They’d have to share their cars with you, while you’re gonna do without your crushed old horse.”       “I hope the car will be fixed in one or two weeks, and I'll proudly be driving it in the city again.”       “Oh, buddy, wouldn’t it be easier not to spend money on a repair of this pan and to buy a new one?” You’d go to a car salon and check new autos! By the way, some new models are so cool, and their features are amazing.”       “Thanks for the advice, buddy…” Terrence gets a key into the switcher to start the motor. “But I like this car. And yeah, stop calling it an old horse, everyone! First, Edward insulted my swallow, and now it’s your turn.”       “You and your friend love old stuff!” Daniel exclaims. “Edward’s car was actually released in the 90s years of the past century, when I was lying in bed with a pacifier in my mouth. I’m surprised that thing is actually able to move. I wouldn’t be surprised if that piece of shit was destroyed somewhere in the middle of the way.”       “It’s gonna be his problem.” Terrence runs his hands over the steering wheel of his car, kind of caressing it like a beloved girl. “I ain’t gonna give my girl to that little rat for any beautiful eyes.”       Daniel says nothing and just slightly shrugs, as he puts on a safety belt, puts an arm on the door of the car, and comfortably installs himself in the passenger seat. But two seconds later, when the car is started, Terrence, who is going to put on his belt, suddenly hears the sound of his mobile phone lying in the pocket of his leather jacket.       “Oh, too bad time…” Terrence chants tiredly, lets go of the belt he has not put on, puts his hand in the pocket, and, not even looking at the sensor screen, runs his finger over it to answer the call. “Hello.”       “Hey, Terrence,” someone’s masculine, depressed voice pronounces. “It’s Peter…”       “Peter?”       Terrence moves his widely open eyes to Daniel, who immediately reacts to Peter’s name, looking at his friend with the hope of hearing something from him.       “Erm…” Terrence stutters. “Hey, Peter…”       “Hey…” Peter replies hesitantly in a very quiet and little hoarse voice that is strongly shaking from the excitement. “Say, aren’t you busy now?”       “No, no, I’m not…”       “I’d like to tell you something… If it’s possible…”       “Yes, of course, I’m listening to you… What happened?”       “Say, isn’t Daniel with you? If he is not, I’ll call him later, ‘cause I wanna talk to him, too.”       “Yes, yes, he’s with me…” Terrence hesitantly glances at Daniel, who gets nervous, being a little afraid of what he might hear and know. “If you want, I can give him the phone, and you’ll talk to him.”       “No, no, you know what…” Peter pronounces quietly. “You better turn on the speakerphone. If he’s with you, I want him to hear me.”       Terrence frowns slightly and turns on the speakerphone, thanks to which Daniel and he can hear Peter.       “Okay, I turned it on, we can hear you,” Terrence says a little excitedly.       “Yeah?” Peter asks hesitantly. “Hey, Daniel, can you hear me?”       “Yes, yes, Peter, I hear you,” Daniel replies confidently.       “Speak, Pete, we’re listening to you,” Terrence says confidently.       It’s possible to hear that Peter exhales sharply before saying something that is definitely very hard for him. And some time later, the blond finds the courage to start to speak in a shaking, exciting voice:       “Daniel, Terrence… I know you two blame me for the problems in our band. But I completely understand it and… Can’t be mad at you…” Peter exhales slowly, with a shake. “I know you’ll never forgive me for betraying the band and those, who worked with us. So, it would be better if I left it.”       “Listen, Peter, we’ve told you we don’t want you to leave the band,” Daniel replies a little excitedly. “And we aren’t even gonna think of kicking you out. You’re still our drummer.”       “Please, stop hoping I'll be back. And if you still believe I’m kidding, you’re gonna change your mind today. Sadly, you’ll have to accept my departure.”       “We’ll never do it, hear me! You can’t leave us! We promised each other to make the band famous, despite nothing. It was our common dream!”       “Yeah, I remember about the promise. But…” Peter falls into silence for two seconds and makes a very quiet sob. “Damn, guys… I don’t have the strength and wish to fight… To fight with what bothers me… I’m sick of all of this! And I can’t live like this anymore!”       “Gosh, Peter, what are you talking about?” Terrence gets horrified, feeling something not very good and getting more and more nervous. “Why are you saying it? Everything may be changed if you wanted it! It’s not late!”       “No, Terrence, nothing can be changed!” Peter replies with despair in a shaking voice and falls into silence for a second or two. “I messed up everything, and nothing can’t be changed.”       “Listen, I completely understand you probably have not the best and easiest period of your life. But you can always count on Daniel and me. We’d be happy to help you if you told us what happened and let us know what would make you feel better.”       “Nothing can help me. I made absolutely sure that I had no place in your band. And I can no longer be your friend and just speak to you. I don’t deserve it after everything I’ve done.”       “No, Peter, don’t say that!” Terrence pronounces excitedly. “You didn’t do anything terrible for us to think of you so badly! And if you did something, we’d be by your side anyway and wouldn't judge you.”       “Don’t calm me down, Terrence. I’ve decided, today is the last day I speak to you. I left the band a few days ago and am now ready to break my contact with you. To let you reach for your dream, which you two have been aiming so hard.”       “Peter, hear us!” Daniel begs in a little shaking voice. “We blame you for nothing and are ready to help you. Let’s quietly talk about everything, and you’ll explain why you wanna do this to us. I promise Terrence and I won’t judge you or blame you for something. Just give us a chance to help you and save you from something bad.”       “It doesn’t make sense,” Peter replies without emotions in a low voice. “Nothing will help such a talentless and brainless ugly person, who always messes up everything. I… I can’t take this anymore… The stinker named Peter must not live in this world. He must not poison the lives of those, who surround him, and prevent them from making their biggest dreams come true.”       Terrence and Daniel look at each other with horror in their widely open eyes and slightly shake their heads, feeling their throats get dry from the excitement, and their hands start shaking slightly.       “No, no, Peter, please, don’t do this!” Daniel begs with a heavy breath. “We’ve never considered you ugly or brainless! Why did you make yourself think of such terrible things? Can’t people, who consider you important make you sure you aren’t what you think you are?”       “Who the fuck needs me?” Peter makes a louder sob, strongly shaking from the excitement. “Everybody has their business and doesn’t wanna babysit a pathetic bastard, whose birth was the greatest mistake.”       “We need you! We need you not only as the drummer of the band that won’t exist without you but also as a wonderful friend, who’d always come to help his close people and has never stopped being as loyal as a dog.”       “Don’t make me laugh, Daniel, you’re saying bullshit. I guess, you confused me with another Peter and didn’t mean the ugly person you’re talking on the phone with.”       “Please, Peter, let’s forget everything that happened between us and talk quietly. I swear, I’m not mad at you for what happened, and I wanna keep befriending you and learn to be a better friend, who wouldn’t ruin the friendship because of his long tongue. If something hurts you, I’ll no longer even hint at that. Just let Terrence and me help you get outta the depression. We do know you need help and are ready to give it.”       “Give a fuck, guys, and keep living happily,” Peter exhales heavily. “I won’t believe you suddenly changed your mind and forgot that you had regretted getting in touch with such an egoistic bastard, because of whom everything was ruined to the fuck.”       “No, no, and no again!” Terrence says loudly and excitedly, with a heavy breath. “I’ve never even dared to think of something bad, and I've always considered you a wonderful friend, who hasn’t betrayed me even once.”       “I did, Terrence. I ruined the dream of you and Daniel of becoming famous as musicians. You thought you were very close to your goal. But I got excited and began to mess up everything and make you and our team angry. Because of me, George almost killed us and was so furious. I’m the only one to blame for everything.”       “Yes, I…” Daniel pronounces hesitantly. “I really blamed you for that… But now I understand you aren’t guilty. Your depression and the thoughts you’re obsessed with are the reason for that. I don’t doubt you wouldn’t do that if you were fine.”       “Right, we’ve always known you as a responsible and hard-working man, who's always had lots of ideas and been able to make anyone’s mood better,” Terrence adds confidently.       “Gosh, what kind of bullshit!” Peter throws gloomily. “Guys, stop calming me down! You both know who I really am! You know you can’t rely on me. I’ve never done anything good. I can’t be a friend… And I shouldn’t promise anything ‘cause I'll forget it later and do nothing.”       “Please, Peter, stop thinking about it,” Terrence begs with pity in his eyes. “Forget everything some bastards told you! They don’t deserve your attention and experiences. You’re an amazing friend surrounded by lots of good friends, who are always ready to support you. Anyone could tell you a secret with the thought that it wouldn’t be known to anyone else. Daniel is right – all of your words and actions are just the aftermath of your condition. You’ll see, when you get better, you’ll think differently.”       “You don’t know what’s really happening inside me, Terrence. I’ve always considered myself the one, but I hid it not to be a whipping boy. But everything has a limit. So, I have reached mine and can no longer live with what’s been destroying me for many years. After what’s happened lately, I finally realized it. I no longer get pleasure from what I’m doing.”       “Didn’t you get a little happier after four years of our friendship?” Daniel wonders. “Were you doing it by force and dreaming of getting off me or Terrence as soon as possible? Remember, we spent a cool time together! How much fun we had! I never had such a cool time before! It was one of the periods in my life. I’m really glad I got a friend like you.”       “No, no, I wasn’t doing it by force…” Peter replies quietly. “I also liked spending time with you and really distracted me from my problems and could get all my demons out of my head for at least a few hours. But sadly, that time is gone… I think you’re gonna spend a cool time with Terrence, who can become a more wonderful friend of yours than me. Maybe, someday, Edward will show up, and you’ll also become his close person. You’re gonna have a lot of time together. And I’d be glad if you met new people and befriended them.”       “But I wanna spend time with them and you. We’ve been friends for so many years, overcome so much together, and helped each other in hard situations thousands of times. And now is a wonderful moment when I can prove that I’m really sorry about what happened.”       “Don’t do it, Perkins, it’s worthless. You’ll no longer see or hear me. Because I don’t want to live anymore… Live in this fucking cruel world, in which such an ugly and talentless man like me shouldn’t exist. This is my goodbye talk with you.”       “No, Peter, please, don’t say that!” Terrence shakes his head with horror in his eyes, breathing heavily enough. “What are you gonna do? Just don’t say you’re the fuck gonna die…”       “I want,” Peter says quietly but confidently. “My time has come. And I’m ready to do it. Today. Right now.”       The excited Terrence scarily looks at Daniel, who closes his mouth with his hands with his widely open eyes and shakes his head.       “No, Rose, no!” Daniel yells desperately. “Don’t even dare to think about it, hear me! Don’t dare to hurt yourself! No tablets or blazes! No!”       “Don’t stop me, Daniel, you and Terrence will change nothing,” Peter replies in a low, shaking voice. “I should’ve done that a long time ago. But I always delayed it and was scared… And now it’s time to put all my fears aside and go where I won’t get tortured by suffering.”       “Please, Rose, stop! We can still help you! We can go to your home now, so we can talk about everything quietly. I promise we’ll find a solution to your problems and do our best to make you feel better.”       “Forget about me, guys. I don’t deserve your attention. Do your business and don’t worry about me…” Peter exhales slowly, talking in a calm voice that is strongly shaking from the excitement and getting more hoarse. “I’m gonna feel good in another world… And I’ll feel nothing… I’ll do what many people want so badly… Those, who want me to die… Those, who I’ve betrayed… Those, who regret getting in touch with such an egoistic bastard like me…”       “Peter, please, don’t do stupid things…” Terrence jabs excitedly, shaking from the excitement stronger and stronger every new minute and feeling it’s quite hard for him to breathe. “I’m begging you, hold on… Hold on for me and Daniel… I promise, we won’t leave you in trouble. We have no right to lose you and let you kill yourself. We need you, Pete… As a drummer and as a friend… Please, get all the thoughts of self-murder outta your mind and put aside everything that you can hurt yourself with. We’ll…”       “Sorry, Terrence, but I can’t…” Peter pronounces with despair. “I’ve decided everything… And I called you to say farewell and thank you for everything you’d done for me. You’re an amazing man, who can always advise something clever and good. I’ve always admired you… You’re my role model… And I think you’re very lucky to be engaged to such a wonderful girl like Raquelle. Please, buddy, take care of her. The poor girl has overcome too much and needs true love and attention. But I know you can give all of that and even more.”       Peter falls into silence for two seconds, breathing too heavily from the strong excitement, not being able to hold his tears down but trying to hold on. While Terrence and Daniel look white and cannot believe their worst thoughts are about to come true.       “Although you and I didn’t fight and have always gotten on well, I want to apologize to you for having to do your best to save the band and keep it alive,” Peter says and makes a couple of sobs. “Sadly, everything was worthless. But I appreciate what you did to save your child.”       “We all tried to save the band,” Daniel says with sadness in his eyes and swallows up nervously, locking his fingers tightly. “Every one of us did our best to solve our problems.”       “You did, Terrence did, but I didn’t do. I betrayed you and can no longer stay in your band and keep being your friend. No hurts… It would just be too unfair…”       “No, Pete, don’t say that!” Terrence begs in a little shaking voice. “You’ve never betrayed us.”       “I did, MacClife, don’t dare to deny it. Why do you care about the man, who should’ve been kicked out much earlier? If not for problems, you would’ve recorded your first album and gotten ready to go on your first worldwide tour.”       “If you leave the band, it will no longer exist!” Daniel says confidently. “We refuse to work without you and will give a fuck about our dream to help our friend.”       “Oh, Dan, Dan…” Peter exhales slowly. “You can think anything of me and curse the day we met. But since I have to die in a few minutes, I want to apologize to you for behaving like a real psycho. I didn’t wanna make you disappoint in me and hate me to death. On the other hand, I understand you were absolutely right in everything and reacted the way you were supposed to. And even if you keep blaming me for ruining your dream… It would be much easier for me if you forgave me. It’d be easier for me to die…”       “Please, bro, change your mind!” Daniel begs with pity in his eyes, breathing too heavily. “You must be strong! A man never gives up! Just hold on! Wait for a while: we’ll go to your home right now and talk about everything. Just do nothing ‘till we come, hear me! Hold on!”       “And yeah, guys, please, don’t think your band will not reach anything without me.” Peter makes a couple of sobs. “You two are really talented and able to conquer the hearts of many fans. And a new drummer will do their best to deserve your trust and befriend you. Our managers will find someone. Start a casting and choose the best one.”       “No, Peter, we don’t want a new drummer!” Terrence says confidently. “We want only you! We want you to stay with us and be a member of the band that we will make famous all together!”       “Nope, guys, it won’t happen. The story of ‘Against The System’ shouldn’t end after my departure. It must go on. Make my last wish come true – prove to George that you can do much more, and he shouts at you and calls you idlers for no reason. I do believe in you and know you can do it.”       “No, bro, you won’t do stupid things!” Terrence replies excitedly, strongly shaking his hand and knocking at the steering wheel with his fingers. “We won’t let it happen!”       “Don’t try, guys, it’s too late,” Peter says with despair. “But I’m glad you agreed to listen to me from the start ‘till the end. For me, saying my last words to you before finally saying goodbye was very important to me.”       “You’re scaring us, buddy,” Daniel says anxiously. “We can’t lose you…”       “Thank you so much for the amazing friendship that connected me and you. I’m really grateful to you for the time we spent together. I managed to relax and feel happy, at least for a while. Thank you to every one of you…” Peter says nothing for two seconds, literally choking from a lack of air. “Daniel, thank you for becoming my best friend. Almost like a brother… For four years of the strong friendship that connected us. Despite nothing, I truly wish you happiness and want you to be happy with Anna. Don’t leave that girl, ‘cause I see how much she loves you. You’d hardly meet someone else like her… And you, Terrence, I wish you happiness with Raquelle again. She’s a wonderful girl, whom you’re very lucky to have. Thank you for all the good things. Be happy.”       “No, Pete, please, don’t do stupid things…” Daniel begs and swallows up nervously. “We need you…”       “Bye, friends!” Peter says very quietly, almost in a whisper. “Thanks again for listening to me. And I hope you aren’t mad at me… I don’t hate any one of you and will die with the good thoughts of my brothers… Buy, Terry… Bye, Dan… All the best…”       “Wait, Peter, listen to me…” Terrence jabs.       But Terrence does not finish his thought because he hears beeps on the phone that let him know Peter ended the call. Being overwhelmed by what they heard, Terrence and Daniel look into the distance with their widely open eyes full of horror for a few seconds. And then they look at each other and barely shake their heads.       “No, no, I don’t believe it…” Daniel says in a shaking voice. “I don’t believe what we’re afraid of so badly is about to happen. No…”       “He said it absolutely seriously,” Terrence replies confidently, tightly grabbing the steering wheel with his shaking hands. “It seems like Rose really decided to kill himself.”       “Fuck, I didn’t think everything would be so hard!” Daniel claps himself on the forehead sharply. “I thought the girls and I would come to him, quietly talk about everything and persuade him to tell us everything. But it seems like we can do nothing…”       “No, Dan…” Terrence shakes his head, looking into the distance. “No! We still have time! We can’t lose him and won’t do!”       Terrence glances at Daniel sharply.       “I’m going to Peter’s home right now,” Terrence says confidently, quickly putting on the safety belt. “Without Jessica and Helene.”       “Yeah, we’ve gotta go without them,” Daniel nods confidently. “If we waste two more hours, Peter may kill himself.”       “No, we must come in time! I will be driving as fast as the traffic rules let.”       “Let’s not waste time! We can’t let Peter do any stupid things and lose him! I won’t forgive myself if I let him die so easily.”       “Me too…” Terrence wants to get a key into the switcher and start the car, but finds out he had done that before Peter called. “We’ll go on a short road, so we can quickly go to his home.”       “Anywhere!” Daniel exclaims a little louder with a heavy breath. “We must come in time and take everything, with which he can kill himself by force. We delayed this trip for too long because of cowardice, but now it’s time to do it.”       “Fuck, if only nothing happened to him…” Terrence begs, closing his eyes for a second. “If only nothing happened to him…”       Terrence turns on the first speed on the gearbox, quickly leaves the parking lot by driving backward, turns the car on, and goes on a wide highway. And while MacClife presses the pedal as strongly as the traffic rules let, Daniel and he truly hope they will come just in time and save Peter from what he is going to do.       

***

      Peter turns off his phone and leaves it in his room. It’s possible to see tears in the blond’s red, puffy eyes. They slowly roll over his white cheeks, and he wipes them off at times. It seems that the man has lost a couple of more kilograms in the past few days and looks much skinnier, losing his gorgeous body that many girls admired. His thin arms and legs are strongly shaking because of the stress or a lack of food caused by the fact that his appetite has lately gotten worse.       And now Peter is getting ready to deprive himself of life and get rid of all these terrible tortures, believing he would feel better in another world. Making this decision was very hard, but the man believes dying is better than experiencing what’s happening. He has taken too much pain. Nothing makes him happy anymore. He does not even want to try to look for a solution to his problem. Peter does not doubt that even if Terrence and Daniel go to his home, they will be able to do nothing because he will have been dead.       After the talk with his friends, Peter takes a pen and a piece of shabby paper from the writing table, on which there is a total mess. He quickly writes something on it, sobbing constantly and shaking strongly because he realizes that he is spending the last minutes in this cruel world. The man does not even check the note’s grammar, goes to the bathroom slowly but confidently, and pins it on the door handle, just making a hole in the piece of paper. Then the man looks around the small hall of his apartment for the last time, from which the broken vases, bottles, and many other things that the excited man threw them after they stood in his way. After pumping a lot of air into his lungs, Peter enters the bathroom, closes the door, and locks it with a locker. There is a plastic box of razor blades that have lately been used not for shaving the beard that got more noticeable on his face in the past few weeks.       Making quiet sobs and having tears in his eyes, Peter takes the pack with a shaking hand, leans on the cold wall made of white tiles with his back, and slowly slides down, bending his legs at his knees. He cannot find the courage for a few seconds and is literally choking with tears, which he does not hide, with a strong shake in his whole body. The man swears at himself for delaying this moment and not being able to get ready and open his veins. No, he does not doubt that he wants to kill himself. He just got obsessed with cowardice and hesitation, which do not let him do such a desperate thing.       “C’mon, ugly, do it…” Peter makes himself in a shaking voice and makes a loud sob. “Stop being a coward and at least kill yourself well! C’mon, scumbag, due! Die! DIE!”       Peter sharply puts the box of blades on the floor and sobs, as he runs his shaking hands over his face, which already has a horrifying shade of white, even though he has not touched his wrists yet. The man feels his skin sharply get goosebumps because he is wearing a thin t-shirt, sitting on the icy floor, and leaning on the cold wall with his back. However, he is already used to it because it’s lately been very cold in the apartment. Now it’s as cold as it is in the fall time, and it makes the temperature in the apartment that would make anyone sad much lower.       But some time later, Peter finds the courage to do what he wants and stop suffering. Barely holding down tears coming to his eyes and still crying like a girl, the man slowly takes lots of bracelets of different colors off his hands, throwing them on the floor, and takes the box with the blades. The man unconsciously makes loud or quiet sobs and breathes too heavily, feeling how fast his heart is beating, and the sound of it echoes in his head.       Still calming himself down by thinking he would feel better in the world of dead people, and nobody would suffer after his death, Peter takes one of many blades and looks at this or his wrist like charmed for a few seconds with his terribly red and wet eyes. He understands that he starts to shake much stronger, and it’s getting harder for him to breathe. The man did not think dying would be so horrifying. He believed it would be as easy as making a few cuts on his hand.       “I’m sorry…” Peter pronounces in a shaking voice. “Forgive me, those, who didn’t want it… But I can’t take this anymore… I wanna die… Hope you wouldn’t grieve at all… Or mourning wouldn’t last long… Farewell… Girls… Boys… Live happily…”       Two seconds later, Peter pumps much air into his lungs and, biting a bullet and constantly making quiet sobs, slowly brings the blade to his wrist with a shaking hand and hesitantly makes not a very deep vertical cut. Pain immediately gets through his hand and makes him literally double over. But for Peter, it’s kind of nice to some extent because it will be the way to his “happiness” that is waiting for him in another world.       Blood starts to get out of the wound, and some time later, its drops fall on the blond’s jeans and the cold floor because he slowly puts his hand on his laps, leaning on the wall with the back of his head. Peter puts on a slight smile because he realizes that the end of his suffering is getting closer slowly but confidently. He is very glad everything will end very soon. Somewhere at heart, the man understands he is behaving like an egoist towards his friends, whom he betrayed and is betraying now by trying to kill himself. But Peter got sick of pretending and telling everyone he was truly happy because it was the lie that was hidden from those, who knew him, for so many years.       Still making quiet sobs at times, Rose watches his cut hand like charmed for a few seconds. And then he brings the bloody blade closer to the hand more confidently and makes a deeper vertical cut. This time, he feels a stronger pain, and the blood flow is getting stronger. It’s leaving his skinny, deathly white body. However, the blond takes this pain too hard and calms himself down by thinking it will be over in a few minutes, and he will stop feeling and hearing anything. Peter raises his head with closed eyes, shaking strongly and feeling that he is getting deprived of his blood, his sufferings, pain, sadness, hate, and offense at himself. The man feels the end of his disgusting life is getting closer. And he will no longer betray, disappoint, or upset anyone.       After watching the bleeding wounds a little and realizing it’s not enough to kill himself, Peter takes the bloody blade in his cut, bleeding hand and makes a couple of deeper vertical cuts on another hand that has not been touched yet. There are already many old wounds on it. The burning, unbearable pain hurts the wrist, and blood gets out of the new wounds on the other wrist much stronger. Rose can barely take it and is about to scream at the top of his lungs, clenching his free hand into a hard fist, strongly gripping the blade in another hand, and barely making himself take it. He does know that this pain will be gone very soon, and he will feel very good. While his hands will be bleeding, the blond will not feel it, as he will fall into infinite darkness. He just needs to wait a little.       This torture is freaking strong and unbearable. Even if Peter calls the memories of someone he loves and smiles, it lets him know about it and immediately brings him back to reality. It looks like something that nobody would like to survive. Of course, the man knew he would have to suffer much before death, but did not think it would be so hurtful. Now, when he is about to die and leave this world, it’s much harder when it was when he was making cuts on his hands just because he allegedly deserved to feel pain and… Got kind of used to it and stopped understanding living with pain is not normal.       The white tiles on the floor and wall in the bathroom get covered with bright red blood that Peter looks at like charmed. He finds this color very beautiful and imagines his sufferings and pain just got out of him and gave him a strong relief. Meanwhile, blood keeps flowing strongly, and the man is losing strength, starting to see things a little blurry and feeling a terrible weakness, slight dizziness, and a bad sense of nausea in his throat. If Peter tried to get up, he would probably instantly fall to the floor because of his weak legs, which are not able to hold his weight. However, even sitting is a little hard for him. He wants to lie on the cold, bloody floor. But the blond is not going to do it yet because he feels his body has not lost enough blood.       That’s why, clenching the piece of metal covered with his own blood as tightly as possible, Peter makes two or three cuts on his wrists. That’s why the blood flow gets much stronger and dirties the floor and his t-shirt and pants. Rose’s strength leaves him fast, everything goes blurred before his eyes, a terrible coldness spreads all over his pale body, and the fingers of his legs and hands that are hard to bend and straighten up get cold and dump. At some moment, Peter does even get a little scared because he stopped feeling his body and kind of became paralyzed. But Rose is not going to help himself and keeps waiting for his eyes to close forever, and for him to fall into an endless sleep that nobody will ever wake him up from.       While he starts to realize that he is getting closer to his death, Peter decides to recall all moments that have happened in his life for twenty-five years. Not so many nice moments have happened. But some memories have always warmed him up and made him smile. He barely finds the strength to smile, but these nice memories make his trip to another world easier and weaken the unbearable pain. A bigger part of good memories is connected with Daniel and Terrence. He has been connected by the strong friendship with Daniel, who became very close to him. That man has always been like his own brother, who always helped him in hard moments. Despite nothing, Peter still treats Daniel well and wishes him luck in his life and relationship with such a wonderful girl as Anna. Terrence is someone like an older brother to Peter. The wise man, who can give wonderful pieces of advice, and who the blonde got closer to for a few months. Peter truly wishes Terrence luck in his musical career and happiness in his relationship with Raquelle, whom the blond considers an incredible person. And he hopes someday this beautiful and harmonic couple will have the same amazing children as they are.       It’s been kind of forever since Peter cut his wrists so deeply that they have no clean areas. By this moment, he has already lost literally half of his blood. The bathroom, the walls in which are fully covered with a bright red color, got absolutely blurred. That’s why he starts to think he is losing his vision slowly and is about to become blind. But on the contrary, it becomes a sign that he is getting closer to dying. At some moment, he tries to raise a hand and get up a little, but his heavy body sharply drags him down, and his weak legs cannot hold his weight. The blond’s eyes start closing slowly. At first, Peter tries to resist it and keep them open, but later gives up and lets them close. The strength leaves him, and he is so close to losing consciousness. Due to his strong weakness, Rose cannot sit and lies slowly on the cold floor, right into the big pool of bright red blood, with which his clothes and disheveled blonde hair.       The mind is getting empty quickly, as if his brain was turned off. He is getting more and more dragged into infinite darkness. It squeezes Peter into its strong embrace tighter and tighter. And a few seconds later, consciousness finally leaves him. The deathly white body is motionlessly lying in the pool of blood. And a little piece of metal, which he had been holding in his hand, falls near his relaxed, bloody, and cut hand.       

***

      Terrence and Daniel quite quickly came to the high building, in which Peter’s apartment is, being terribly afraid they might have no time to save their friend. The closer they were getting, the stronger the bad presentiment they were feeling. After leaving the car in a little parking lot where there are some cars, Terrence turns off the motor and quickly gets out of the car along with Daniel. Then he locks it with a key, not caring that everybody goes by and stares at his half-broken car questioningly. Including two old women sitting on the bench next to the entrance to the building and seeing Peter’s friends coming here. And who say something that the guys do not pay attention to.       “So, guys, did you decide to visit your pal Rose?” one of the women asks. “Who has not left his apartment for a few days!”       “Yeah, you have finally come here!” another woman adds. “You should better visit that guy often! Rose has become suspiciously quiet and has not even fought with his neighbors in the past few weeks.”       “Hey, young men, we are talking to you!” the woman resents much louder, seeing Daniel and Terrence not reacting to their words and quickly coming to the entrance. “Or were you not taught to say, ‘hello?’”       “Gosh, what children have grown up in! They can’t even say just ‘hello’ to those, who are older than them! What do their mommies and daddies teach them? Or did these children become so stupid because of the Internet and computers that even a strong slap or a belt would not help them?”       “Oh, c’mon, Hillary!” the woman throws her hands up. “Rose is an insolent and non-educated man and finds the same friends. He resents much more than us and always swears at my cats that do nothing bad to him.”       “Agree, Marta,” Hillary nods confidently. “But he has been lately quiet and unseen. Nobody has seen him leaving his apartment at least once. Well… Only when his friend with dark hair came here… They went somewhere, and she drove him home two hours later. That’s all, since then, Rose has been as quiet as a mouse.”       “Oh, friend, as his pals came here, they will do something bad now. When friends of that blond-haired one come here, we do not better go home in the next three hours.”       While the woman named Marta and Hillary keep swearing at Peter and resenting that his friends came here, Terrence and Daniel enter the building and come to one of the elevators that MacClife calls by pressing the button.       “Oh, those old women can’t calm down,” Daniel says tiredly. “They always find a reason to swear at Peter for something and resent that we come here. And one of them is too obsessed with her cats that shitted all corners.”       “Yeah…” Terrence agrees. “They’d better leave that guy alone… Or are only old women living in this building?”       “It seems like that’s what makes them angry. They have no men and decided to take it out on the blond, who has fought with almost everybody but one lady. Who is living in an apartment in front of his home.”       The elevator opens its door, and Daniel and Terrence quickly enter it. MacClife presses the button with the number of the floor they need and is waiting for him and his friend to be in the right place.       “Oh, I dunno what about you, buddy, but I have a bad presentiment,” Daniel confesses with anxiety, leaning on the wall of the elevator with his back.       “Me too,” Terrence replies quietly, leaning on the opposite wall of the elevator with his back and raising his head. “And I’m a little scared ‘cause I’ve never spoken to such people as him. Who wanna kill themselves…”       “Honestly, I ain’t sure I’d quietly watch what we might see if Rose already cut himself. I don’t know if I can brace myself, overcome the stupor, and do my best to help him.”       “I also ain’t sure I’d be able to watch it, but we should do it. You know I was driving as fast as possible. And that’s good there were no traffic jams on the roads, and we came here quite quickly.”       “I know…” Daniel raises his head, sighs, and runs his hand over his face. “But I get goosebumps on my body when I think we might see Peter with cut hands.”       “Let’s hope we came in time and would be able to call an ambulance. I know it’s hard, but we’ve gotta be strong for our friend.”       “You’re right… Absolutely right…”       After the elevator stops on the right floor and opens its door a few seconds later, Daniel and Terrence leave it very quickly and take some distance down many halls, in which it’s possible to see many doors with numbers that specify the number of every single apartment. The friends quickly come to the door, behind which there is an apartment of Peter. Assuming they could see anything, even the worst and most disgusting things, Daniel and Terrence hesitantly look at each other, and Perkins rings the doorbell. They wait for the reaction for a few seconds, but do not get a reaction. Terrence tries to ring it again, but nobody reacts again.       “Fuck, what’s happening there?” Terrence asks himself, nervously shaking his leg and keeping his hand on the doorbell. “C’mon, Peter, open the door! Open!”       “Hm, it’s strange…” Daniel frowns slightly, shifting his weight from one foot to another and breathing heavily. “He always reacted to a doorbell quickly. I waited literally for a few seconds before he opened the door.”       “I wouldn’t be surprised if we had to break the door. We should get into the apartment in any way if we wanna save Peter.”       “Maybe, he isn’t at home and left?”       “You did hear what those old women said! Rose hasn’t left anywhere for a few days, and nobody has seen him for ages. Those ladies definitely know everything about everyone.”       “Ah, yeah, it got outta my head…” Daniel claps himself on the forehead. “Stupid assumption…”       “Holy shit, Rose, open the fucking door!” Terrence demands a little louder, ringing the doorbell again. “We know you’re there! Open the door, buddy! Perkins and I wanna talk to you!”       Terrence rings the doorbell several times, literally shaking from the excitement that gets obsessed with him stronger and stronger. But at this moment, Daniel unconsciously glances at the door handle and, rounding his eyes, sharply claps Terrence on his hand.       “Wait, wait, Terrence, stop ringing.”       “What’s wrong?” Terrence frowns slightly, moving his questioning look to Daniel and stopping to ring the doorbell.       “I thought…” Daniel pronounces thoughtfully. “The door handle… What if…”       Daniel comes closer to the door and presses the door handle carefully. So, the door opens easily with a slight squeak. Terrence stares at it surprisingly, rounding his eyes, and looks at his friend, who also looks surprised.       “Of course, I should’ve guessed it before!” Terrence exclaims. “Helene and Jessica said Peter stopped locking the door, and they easily got into his apartment.”       “I thought about it when looking at the door handle,” Daniel confesses. “I guess the girls gave us a tip.”       “Yeah… How strong his depression is that he forgets to lock the door and doesn’t care that anyone may come here and steal something?”       “Now we know it’s very strong… Since he started to cut himself regularly. And has been doing that since school times.”       “Ugh…” Terrence shakes slightly. “I’m even afraid to imagine how hurt it is.”       Silence settles in the air for two seconds, and then Daniel hesitantly looks at Terrence and swallows up nervously.       “So what?” Daniel asks hesitantly. “Go?”       “Yup…” Terrence pronounces in a little shaking voice, staring at the door with eyes full of horror. “Go…”       Daniel opens the door very slowly and enters the apartment first. Terrence follows him hesitantly and closes it, so anyone else does not come here. They see a hall painted in dark shades, in which there is a total mess, and some things are thrown anywhere. Outside clothes that were carefully placed on a few hooks pinned to the wall are now lying on the floor right near a few pairs of shoes, many of which are not cleaned from dirt. A small table, on which some things were placed before, is turned upside down and half-cracked. Moreover, there is also a cracked mirror and a few pictures that were hanging on the wall but are now lying on the floor. Dirt sticks on the soles of shoes because the floor is very dirty and has not been cleaned for a long time.       The guys look around with widely open eyes, being truly surprised by such a great mess in Peter’s apartment. Everything is lying everywhere, and pieces of some things that were supposed to be thrown off after getting broken are lying on the floor as if it should happen. Moreover, there is not a very nice smell in the apartment of something rotten and decayed.       “Ugh, holy shit…” Daniel winces strongly. “What is this?”       “What a mess!” Terrence exclaims. “Did you and I really go to Pete’s home? It seems like I came to a dump… There is a total mess here, and it smells freaking disgustingly! As if rots died here! Or cats of that woman came here and shitted everything.”       “I’m starting to doubt it’s his home…” Daniel takes something from the floor and looks at it for two seconds. “It’s unlike Peter. He always loved when everything was clean at his home and placed in its place. And he often resented that I had chaos at my home.”       “Agree… He was always demanding in it and couldn’t take it when at least one crumb was on the floor.”       “Right… I remember Rose threatening to kill me if he found at least one crumb when we decided to eat something. The blond cleaned this place every day and wiped off dust several times per day. Something dirty and dusty literally got him irritated.”       “But now he has forgotten about his principles and quietly treats this mess.” Terrence glances at a broken pot with a little plant and ground that are now lying on the floor. “Of course, I’m not such a squeamish man, but I think it’s too much. I think a dump of homeless people is way better than this apartment is.”       “You noticed it right… Look, everything that was placed on shelves or tables is now on the floor. As well as…” Daniel glances at pieces of a broken vase and stares at it surprisingly. “Some broken vases…”       “Not only…” Terrence sees a couple of broken bottles of alcohol lying somewhere in the corner of the hall. “It seems like the girls were right when they said he was drinking at home. A couple of broken bottles are lying there…”       “It seems like it was cognac…” Daniel assumes thoughtfully, frowning slightly. “Very good, just saying… I love it, too… I’ve got a couple of bottles at home…”       “Did Rose stop drinking at clubs, but start drinking alcohol at home?”       “Damn, only he didn’t become dependent on it. I wouldn’t be surprised if the rumors about his mother-alcoholic were true, and Peter is taking after her and drinking himself.”       “I hope it will not lead to that…”       Terrence looks around the whole dark hall again, in which there is a very dim light bulb, and then decides to take off his leather jacket and hang it on a hook. While Daniel also decides to take off his cost and leave it in a hall, MacClife slowly goes further and keeps looking around, being quite nervous because of what he sees and breathing in and breathing out rarer because of the bad smell in the apartment.       “I wonder, when did Peter clean this place the last time?” Terrence asks, slightly moving a part of the broken vase placed in one of the corners and seeing a noticeable web. “Spiders did even start to build a web… I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw cockroaches here.”       “They are doing,” Daniel replies, glancing down, seeing something little, light brown running a few meters away from him and noticing another cockroach that is creeping on a wall. “Hey, I see one… And another cockroach is creeping on that wall…”       “Yeah… Everything’s too hard… I didn’t think depression could destroy a person so hard that they don’t have a wish to clean up the home and is ready to live in dirt and with cockroaches.” Terrence sees dirty and shabby t-shirts, sleeveless shirts, and a few pairs of jeans on the floor and takes some things that he looks at with disgust, wincing from their disgusting smell. “Oh, Peter would better wash his clothes… They smell like a mix of rotted eggs and sweat…”       “That’s right…” Daniel winces, closing his nose with a hand when smelling one of the t-shirts that he takes from the floor after stepping on it accidentally. “He was never a rotted skunk and always watched himself. But excuse me, it’s terrible! Holy shit, I will choke now!”       “Listen, I’ll go to close all the windows… Or we’ll run away from here in two minutes.”       While Terrence enters every single room and opens all the windows that open with a quiet squeak as they are quite old, Daniel slowly goes to the kitchen and starts to look around.       “I don’t like all of this, buddy…” Daniel says thoughtfully. “I didn’t think everything was so hard.”       Daniel hesitantly opens some lockers, in which he finds almost nothing from food, but sees many crumbs of something wheat. Moreover, it’s possible to see loose cans of coffee, barley, rice, macaroni, and spices in some lockers. Something falls over him after he barely opens one of them.       “There’s a total mess in the kitchen, too,” Daniel adds, getting overwhelmed by what he sees and shaking off everything that fell over him. “Everything is turned and loose in lockers…”       Terrence comes into the kitchen and glances at a half-open refrigerator.       “There’s almost nothing in the refrigerator,” Terrence says, takes a bottle of milk, opens it, smells it, and winces as it smells not very well. “Fuck! Milk has expired and smells!”       “No matter how strong the temptation to eat something is, I wouldn’t advise you to do it,” Daniel replies thoughtfully, opening a box with an unknown cereal and wincing from its smell. “Or we will surely get poisoned by this rotten food. I wouldn’t love to be in a hospital and clean my stomach every five minutes.”       “You’re right, don’t taste it if you don’t wanna get an upset stomach…” Terrence sharply puts the bottle of milk in the refrigerator and closes it. “And there’s actually nothing to eat… But the blond doesn’t care about it…”       “I have a feeling that he doesn’t also wanna eat this smelly and expired food.” Daniel takes a little pack of cereal and finds out it’s already expired. “Maybe, that’s why he’s lost so much weight and turned into a stick.”       “If he has depression, it’s quite possible…”       After checking a few more lockers and everything that is placed in them, Daniel and Terrence slowly, hesitantly leave the kitchen and stop in the hall, getting more horrified by what they see.       “You know, when we came here, I got kind of creepy,” Terrence confesses and looks around with rounded eyes. “This atmosphere gets me horrified.”       “Absolutely agree,” Daniel agrees confidently. “It’s kind of dreary here… But when I went to Pete’s home before, it was nicer to be here. I dunno… Maybe, it’s happening because there is a total mess and so much dirt. Maybe, if we cleaned everything up, it would be a better place.”       “Oh, dreary is too soft to say. There are places where you feel good. But there are those that make you feel something bad and sad. And now, Peter’s apartment makes me feel much lousier than I felt yesterday when Raquelle and I tried to get off those men.”       “You’re right, buddy…” Daniel tightly embraces himself with his arms and rubs them, feeling that he feels terribly cold. “Ugh, and it’s very cold here… I got terribly cold and don’t literally feel my fingers.”       “Yeah, it’s very cold here…” Terrence agrees confidently. “Not only because of the open windows… It was cold here before.”       “I’m surprised Rose hasn’t caught a cold if it’s so cold all day long here,” Daniel wonders, going to Peter’s room. “And yeah, there is a total mess in his room, too: the bed is not made, some things are lying on the floor, and literally everything he has is lying on the writing table.”       Terrence also enters Peter’s room and quickly looks around.       “We’d have to spend very much time sorting everything out,” Terrence assumes. “And if you and I don’t do it, nobody will care about it. Well… Maybe, only those girls…”       “It’s out of the discussion…” Daniel nods confidently. “Peter won’t surely do it…”       “Hey, about Peter…” Terrence glances sharply at Daniel and turns on him. “You and I checked almost the whole apartment, but we haven’t found him.”       “But we haven’t checked the bathroom! And I’m sure he’s there! He has no place to go!” Daniel exhales sharply. “If only he hadn't come up with the idea of jumping out of the window. Find a place in the city and jump from a bridge… Or go up to a tower and perform a free flight with his head down.”       “Perkins, don’t say stupid things!” Terrence throws gloomily, crossing his arms over his chest. “Let’s better go to the bathroom! Stop walking here like we’re on an excursion!”       Terrence turns around sharply and quickly goes to the bathroom, while Daniel follows him. Standing in front of it, they see the door is closed, and when MacClife presses the handle, it does not succumb.       “Holy shit, locked!” Terrence exclaims excitedly. “So, he’s there!”       “Hey, Peter!” Daniel exclaims loudly and knocks at the door. “Are you there? Open the door, buddy! Let’s talk about everything!”       At this moment, Terrence glances at the door handle and sees a shabby piece of paper hanging on it.       “Hey, look, it’s a note,” Terrence says, quickly gets the note off the door handle and turns it on. “I guess it’s from Pete…”       “I hope it’s not what I’m thinking about,” Daniel exhales slowly, looking into the piece of paper in Terrence’s hands.       “I’m afraid, yes… Read carefully…”       The friends’ suspicions get confirmed because this is a death note that Peter had written before he decided to kill himself.       “If you’re now reading this note, I’m not alive anymore… I can no longer live the life that I lived for twenty-five years of my fucking life. Sadly, this cruel world didn’t give me anything but suffering. Nobody will know why I did it. My secret, which nobody else knows, will go away with me. I’m sick of hoping that something will change for the better. And I can’t look into the eyes of those I betrayed some time ago. I mean my close friends… Who became like my brothers… They counted on me, but I ruined their dreams. Yes, Daniel and Terrence, I mean you. I know you’re reading this note, and I'm asking you to accept the fact that I’ll no longer be with you. You heard everything I wanted to tell you on the phone. So, there’s no meaning in writing a long letter and apologizing for what happened thousands of times. I’m very sorry… Forgive me… And farewell… Stay happy…”       Reading the note, Terrence opens his dumbfounded eyes wider, and Daniel closes his mouth with a hand with the same eyes and shakes his head. And then the friends look at each other and at the door handle at the same time.       “It’s a death note…” Terrence gets horrified. “He said farewell to us…”       “No, no, I don’t wanna believe it!” Daniel jabs, sharply shaking his head and looking at the excited Terrence or the locked door with dumbfounded eyes. “He couldn’t do that! We couldn’t be late!”       “Peter, open the door now!” Terrence loudly knocks at the door, breathing a little heavily. “Peter, can you hear me? Open the door! And throw any sharp things off! Now!”       “Don’t do stupid things, brother, I’m begging you!” Daniel begs loudly, clapping on the door. “We can help you! Just tell us what we can do!”       “Fuck, did he already commit a suicide attempt? Peter!” Terrence gives the note to Daniel and strongly presses the door handle, which refuses to succumb.       “I guess he locked it inside,” Daniel assumes, breathing heavily because of the excitement that is getting stronger and understanding that his muscles are shaking.       “We have no time to think of keeping things in this apartment safe,” Terrence replies confidently. “We must break this fucking door! Waiting for a locksmith would take a lot of time. We’d hardly have time to help Peter.”       “It seems like this door opens from oneself…” Daniel puts Peter’s death note in the pocket of his jeans and claps on the door with his hand several times. “We could try to break it with a leg or slam the weight against it.”       “I’ll try first…”       Terrence slams his weight against the door, but it does not work, and he gets only a little pain in the shoulder. However, the man does not pay attention to it and tries to break it again.       “C’mon, buddy, don’t stop,” Daniel encourages. “The doors in Pete’s apartment are very weak. If you really want, you can strike them out easily.”       “But it seems like we’ve gotta work hard…” Terrence replies, energetically rubbing his painful shoulder.       “Lemme help,” Daniel also slams his weight against the door two times and meets a failure. “Yeah… We’re gonna work hard… But we must do it.”       “Let’s try together: for example, I try to break with a leg, and you slam your weight against it?”       “Yeah, let’s do it…” Daniel nods confidently.       Daniel and Terrence slam the weight against the door by one or try to break it with a leg. They have to do the same thing several times before they understand the lock is getting weaker, and they need to apply some effort to strike the door out. At some moment, Daniel hits the area under the door handle with a leg – and the door sharply opens. Some little things and a part of the lock fall to the floor with a crush.       The friends literally run into the bathroom and immediately get shocked and fall into a stupor after what they see. Almost the whole floor and a part of the wall are covered with blood, colorful bracelets are thrown everywhere, some of them are covered with a bright red substance, and a small box of blades that are thrown in the bathroom is lying somewhere in a corner. And the motionless Peter, who is kind of not breathing, is lying on the bloody floor. The blade, with which he cut himself to half-death, is placed near his hand. His wrists are fully covered with lots of blood, his eyes are closed tightly, and his motionless body has turned deathly white. The man’s clothes and blond hair are also dirtied with blood, in which he is literally drowning.       Terrence strongly shakes with horror in his eyes and grabs his hair, and Daniel screams loudly and closes his mouth with his hands. The guys getting sharply white fall into a stupor for a few moments and cannot move, breathing heavily and understanding what they were afraid of so much happened, and they did not save this man from death in time.       “Fuck, Peter!” Terrence shouts loudly and, putting all his fears aside, immediately rushes to Peter, gets down on his knees beside him, carefully turns him onto the back, and slightly shakes him by the shoulders. “Peter!”       “No, buddy, what did you do?” Daniel gets horrified, runs to Terrence a few moments later, gets down on his knees in front of the dying Peter, shakes him by the shoulders, and claps him on his cheeks. “Can you hear me, Peter? Peter! Don’t dare to die! Don’t dare!”       “No, Peter, you can’t die…” Terrence pronounces in a shaking voice with horror in his eyes and slightly claps the unconscious Peter on his cheeks. “C’mon! C’mon!”       “Fuck, did we come late?” Daniel gets horrified with his widely open eyes. “He does really look as white as a dead man!”       “Cut your tongue, idiot!” Terrence throws loudly and excitedly, checking Peter’s pupillary response, and then gets to feel a pulse on Peter’s neck. “Thank God, he’s alive yet! There is a pulse, but it’s very weak. I can barely feel it…”       “Oh, how much blood has he lost?” Daniel asks, swallowing up nervously and breathing heavily enough, and looks around the whole bathroom. “It’s everywhere!”       “And it’s still flowing out!” Terrence glances at one of Peter’s cut wrists and sees a strong flow of blood still getting out of the deep wounds. “If he loses a little bit more blood, he’ll be dead.”       Terrence, breathing quite hard and already getting his hands dirty with Peter’s blood, glances sharply at Daniel two seconds later.       “Daniel, call an ambulance now!” Terrence jabs loudly. “But I’ll try to stop the blood at least ‘till the doctors come.”       “Erm…” Daniel stutters, being in a deep stupor.       “PERKINS, NOW!” Terrence screams at the top of his lungs. “CALL AN AMBULANCE!”       “Erm… Y-y-yes… I’m calling…”       Daniel sharply gets up on his feet and, looking at the deathly white and terribly cold Peter with dumbfounded eyes, tries to find a mobile phone in the pocket of his jeans with a heavy breath. Meanwhile, Terrence tries to support his friend’s life somehow, but gets confused because of the excitement for some time and forgets what he needs to do to give first aid. And later, Perkins feels up the phone in his pocket and types the number of the emergency server.       “Emergency server, what can I help you with?” a middle-aged woman asks clearly.       “Please, ma'am, we need an ambulance…” Daniel jabs excitedly, breathing quite heavily and feeling his legs getting weak, and his throat getting dry. “Now… A man, twenty-five years, a suicide attempt… He opened his veins…”       “A suicide attempt? Does the victim have a pulse?”       “Yeah…” Daniel puts his hand on his forehead and then runs his hands through his hair. “Erm… Yes… There is the one, but it’s very weak…”       “How much blood has the victim lost?”       “Much… Very much… He’s literally drowning in it… And his hands are still bleeding…”       “I understood it… Call the address where I should send an ambulance car.”       Daniel does not react at once and tries to catch a breath. But he quickly braces himself, thinks, and calls the wrong address, but then fixes himself.       “Alright, I accepted your call,” the operator says quietly. “Can you soak some cuts out in the water and wrap the wrists to stop the bleeding until the doctors come?”       “Y-yes…” Daniel replies in a shaking voice. “We will… Do… Just send an ambulance right now…”       “Do not worry, sir, I will immediately send an ambulance car to the address you called.”       “Thanks a lot… We are waiting…”       Daniel turns off the call, puts his phone in the pocket of his jeans, leans on the wall with his back, raises his head, and closes his eyes, feeling his heart beating like crazy from the excitement and a strong shock.       “An ambulance will come now…” Daniel says quietly and swallows up nervously. “They told us to wrap his wrists in wet cuts…”       “Great,” Terrence pronounces collectedly. “I thought we should’ve done it…”       Looking at the bright red blood, Daniel suddenly gets worse. He understands that he starts to feel nausea in front of this substation, with which the floor, the walls, and even a part of the bath are dirtied, and feels dizzy. It’s hard for him to stand on his feet, and he gets a lump in his throat that he cannot swallow up. The man already felt bad after seeing so much blood and the deathly white Peter lying on the floor with open veins. But he literally made himself forget it and remember that he must have helped his friend, whom he betrayed to some extent. And now Perkins cannot control his condition and understands that he is about to lose consciousness at the side of the blood. Moreover, everything goes blurred before his eyes, and he feels a terrible weakness that is getting stronger.       Daniel is pressing himself to the wall with closed eyes and his head raised and does not hear Terrence. Who frowns slightly when seeing his friend is indifferent to what’s happening at some moment.       “Daniel, what are you standing like an idol?” Terrence resents. “Come on, do something! Or do you think I’m gonna support Rose’s life not to let him die by myself? Perkins! I’m talking to you! Can you actually hear me?”       Daniel getting sharply white would not probably react and would keep fighting with a wish to faint. But Terrence being resentful of his friend’s indifference gets up sharply, runs to him, and shakes him up, taking him tightly by the shoulders.       “Get out of the stupor!” Terrence demands loudly. “Stop standing like a column! Wake up now!”       “Second, buddy…” Daniel pronounces weakly, putting his hand on his forehead, breathing too heavily, and being barely able to stand on his feet. “Second… I don’t feel good…”       Daniel starts sharply sliding down the wall with a very quiet moan. But Terrence does not let him fall and grabs him tightly under his arms, rounding his eyes and making a quiet gasp.       “Hey, hey, Perkins, c’mon!” Terrence exclaims. “Did you go insane? Hey!”       Terrence slightly claps Daniel on the cheek while his friend gets literally kind of green and is breathing heavily enough.       “Hey, Daniel, don’t dare to fall into a faint!” Terrence demands loudly and shakes the weak Daniel strongly by the shoulders. “Hear me! Perkins! I can’t do everything by myself!”       Terrence growls quietly.       “Do I have to wake you up, too?” Terrence resents. “You found a good time to faint!”       “It’s okay…” Daniel pronounces quietly, breathing a little heavily and closing his mouth with a hand with a feeling of nausea. “It’ll be gone now… It’s okay…”       “Breathe deeper, as deep as possible. C’mon, buddy, don’t forget to breathe…” Terrence slightly claps Daniel on the shoulders and grabs the guy under his arms because he starts slipping down the wall because of weakness in his legs and dizziness. “Perkins! Perkins! Quiet, quiet! Hear me! Hey! Don’t dare to pass out! You look as white as a dead man! Stay with me! Hey!”       Terrence clicks his fingers in front of the face of Daniel, who looks quite white and feels strong nausea in his throat.       “Don’t dare to faint!” Terrence jabs. “Can you hear me? I already watched Raquelle yesterday! Watching and waking you up would be too much. Hear me! Daniel! Daniel!”       Daniel shakes slightly, exhaling slowly and grabbing Terrence tightly by the shoulder, grabs his head and shakes it sharply.       “Oh, fuck…” Daniel pronounces faintly. “Sorry, dude… I just never saw so much blood before… It’s something new to me… I feel better…”       “Look, Perkins, if you faint here and make me deal with this by myself, you’ll regret it,” Terrence says confidently.       “I will not faint, calm down… Alright, I feel much better… Just a one-minute weakness…”       Terrence exhales sharply and slightly claps Daniel on the shoulders, saying:       “Okay, come to yourself quickly and help me. Walk a little and find something, in which we could wrap Peter’s wrists. I saw something in his room.”       “Well, no problems…”       “Go, go! We must stop blood right now!”       “I’ll find something now!”       Daniel quickly gets out of the bathroom, while Terrence stays with Peter, not being able to stand in the same place, and nervously walks in circles in the bathroom.       “Why, Peter, why?” Terrence wonders, breathing heavily and pulling his hair strongly. “Why did you do it? We were ready to help you and wouldn’t have judged you if you’d said what happened! Fuck, why, why?”       While Terrence keeps walking in circles and breathing heavily from a strong excitement, looking quite white and a little scared, Daniel literally runs into the bathroom one or one and a half minutes later with two towels in his hands. He takes them, turns on the warm water, and washes the towels out. Perkins looks around the whole bloody bathroom again, getting kind of used to the sight of blood. However, he still looks scared and tense. At some moment, he throws a hesitant gaze to the unconscious Peter, watches him for two seconds, slowly gets down on his knees beside him, and touches his shoulder, clapping on it and squeezing it slightly.       “Damn, Peter, why did you do it?” Daniel asks with sadness in his eyes. “Why were you pretending to be funny and sanguine all this time while you were not fine? Why didn’t you tell me what happened to you? For so many years that we’ve been friends, you’ve never hinted at your problems! Why?”       But Daniel does get an answer and can hear only a strong flow of water getting out of the faucet, and a heavy breath of him and Terrence, whose hands are shaking slightly while washing out the towels. And when he squeezes them a little, MacClife gives one of them to Perkins, saying:       “Wrap the wrist that’s closer to you. But I’ll do it to the wrist on another hand.”       Without any words, Daniel and Terrence wrap Peter’s wrists tightly in the wet towels that immediately get covered with a bright red color, absorbing the blood that is flowing out of the open veins. Of course, the friends are not sure that it will help them stop the blood, but they did what the operator of the emergency service told them and now should wait for an ambulance to come.       At some moment, Terrence runs his hands over his face with a slow sigh, while Daniel, breathing heavily, slightly grabs his throat and dirties his gray sweater with the blood he got on his hands. A little later, the friends press himself to the wall with the back, raise their heads up, and say nothing for two seconds, just trying to catch a breath and paying no attention to the terrible coldness that gets through every single cell of the body.       “Damn, I thought today would be quiet…” Terrence confesses with a heavy breath. “I still can’t come to myself after yesterday’s events, but now here’s another shock…”       “You know…” Daniel pronounces quietly. “Of course, I knew I could see anything here and get shocked. But something like this…”       Daniel shakes his head, leaning on the cold wall with the back of his head.       “I didn’t also think everything would be so terrible…” Terrence replies. “But if we’d known about Peter’s habit of cutting himself, we would’ve done our best not to let him do it.”       “I’m starting to regret not coming here earlier. And I regret paying no attention to his strange behavior and not finding it suspicious. We should’ve seen something wasn’t right.”       “But I must confess that he was hiding it well. If this guy couldn’t pretend, I would bite him through and understand he’s lying.”       “Now we know how strong depression he had,” Daniel quickly looks around the whole bathroom, takes a couple of Peter’s neon bandages lying together, and looks at them, seeing they got covered with blood, in which they were lying. “And all these bracelets and bandages were hiding the cuts.”       “Yeah…” Terrence picks up one of the bracelets of a darker shade and looks at it. “And to hide them, he was ready to put on all the bracelets and bandages he had.”       “They covered his wrists… I never saw only one or two bracelets. He always wore several ones.”       “Oh, it doesn’t matter now,” Terrence says tiredly. “It’s too late to regret and blame someone. Now we have only to hope for the best.”       “I know… It’s the only thing we can do…”       Silence settles in the air for two seconds, during which Terrence looks around and gets much more horrified by the fact that almost the whole bathroom is dirtied with blood.       “Holy shit, there’s so much blood here…” Terrence notices thoughtfully. “The floor, the bath, the sink, the walls… We’re gonna wash it all for hours…”       Terrence glances at his hands and then his black jeans and sweater with half-rolled sleeves, noticing they are also covered with blood.       “And my clothes and hands are in the blood,” Terrence adds, runs his hands over his cheek, and understands he also has blood on his face. “And my face, too…”       “I’m all in blood, too,” Daniel notices, also looking at his hands and clothes, and swallows up nervously. “Fuck… I don’t know how I’m gonna wash it off…”       Daniel glances at Terrence sitting next to him and looks at him quickly from head to feet.       “At least, you got brains to put on total black,” Daniel adds. “But I have a gray sweater, on which tracks of blood are clearly seen. And I’m gonna have to wear it for a long time. Nobody knows how long we’re gonna stay in a hospital.”       “Peter’s clothes aren’t better…” Terrence replies with sadness in his eyes, glancing at the half-dead, unconscious Peter lying on the floor and not almost breathing. “Look, he’s all in blood…”       “I see…” Daniel throws a little scared look at Peter and then looks at Terrence, rounding his eyes. “Hey, do you think we came in time? Or it was too late? I don’t like his appearance… He’s terribly white and quite cold…”       “Let’s hope for the best… But the most important thing is that Peter is breathing and has a pulse. So, we can still save him. The doctors are supposed to come soon.”       “If only he held on 'till the doctors’ arrival…” Daniel expresses hope quietly and takes Peter’s hand tightly with both hands. “Hold on, buddy, the ambulance is coming…”       “We promised we wouldn’t leave you and will keep our promise,” Terrence adds softly but very confidently, clapping Peter on the shoulder. “Wait for a while, bro, it’s gonna be okay…”       Silence settles in the air again for a few seconds, during which Terrence and Daniel look at the terribly white and cold Peter with sadness in their eyes. And then MacClife sets his gaze into the distance and, bending his legs at his knees, runs his hand covered with blood through his disheveled hair.       “Hey, we need to call Peter’s friends and tell them he tried to kill himself,” Terrence reminds quietly. “They should know it…”       “Right!” Daniel exclaims, rounding his eyes. “I forgot about them!”       “They’re probably waiting for us… But we had to come here without them. We should call Helene and tell her about it. She wrote her address and mobile number.”       “Right…” Daniel looks into the distance and then glances at Terrence. “Will you call, or should I talk to them?”       “Let me talk to them and try to calm them down when they. But you stay here and meet doctors if they come right now.”       “Okay,” Daniel nods. “I’ll stay with Pete and watch him, don’t worry.”       Terrence looks at Daniel with sadness in his eyes, slightly claps him on the shoulder, glances at Peter, quickly gets up, and leaves the bathroom, while his friend stays with the blond and looks at him a little guiltily, wrapping Rose’s neon bandages in his hands. MacClife goes to the hall and finds his mobile phone and a piece of paper with Helene’s number in the pocket of his jacket. Then the man goes to Peter's room and types the number with a shaking hand.       “Hello,” a feminine voice pronounces quietly.       “Erm, good afternoon…” Terrence replies a little hesitantly. “Can I talk with Helene Marshall?”       “It’s me. Who are you? What can I help you with?”       “It’s Terrence MacClife. Two hours ago, my friend Daniel and I talked to you and the girl named Jessica.”       “Oh, yes, Terrence, hello! I was waiting for your call. So, what about going to Peter’s home? Jessica and I are ready and waiting for you! Are you coming?”       “Erm…” Terrence stutters, looking around the whole room. “No… Sadly, we can’t take you out…”       “What? So, will we not go to Peter’s home?”       “Listen, Helene, the case is that the plans of Daniel and me changed at the last moment. We had to go to Peter’s home without you.”       “Really?” Helene wonders, getting very nervous because of a bad presentiment. “But why didn’t you tell us you would come to him? We could go to him all together immediately! I would’ve taken my car away from the parking lot later!”       “If Peter had called us earlier, we would’ve probably gone to his home all together. But he called us some time later after Jessica and you left the café, and Daniel and I got into the car.”       “Peter called you? He told you something?”       “Yes… He asked me and Daniel for forgiveness for everything that allegedly happened because of him. We tried to make him sure that we weren’t mad at him and were ready to help, but Peter refused to accept our help and let us know we heard him the last time. And when he said farewell and turned off the call, Daniel and I got scared that the blond would do something to him and decided to go to his home without you.”       “Oh, my gosh!” Helene gets horrified, starting to breathe heavily. “He did that? Please, Terrence, say, did Peter do something to him? Don’t be silent, I’m begging you!”       “I will tell you everything, Helene…” Terrence replies in a little shaking voice, running his hand over his hair at times. “We were lucky that we easily got into Peter’s apartment because he didn’t really lock it. At first, we read the death note, in which Peter apologized to all of us. And then we realized he was locked in the bathroom, barely broke the door, and then…”       Terrence falls into silence for two seconds, breathing a little heavily from the excitement and understanding he is shaking strongly.       “What happened?” Helene asks loudly, excitedly. “I’m begging you, tell me what happened to him! Don’t say he cut himself again!”       “Worse, Helene…” Terrence sharply exhales. “Peter wanted to kill himself and cut his wrists with a razor blade. When Daniel and I found him, he was unconscious.”       Helene starts to shout loudly and cry bitterly, constantly repeating it cannot be true. Hearing it, Terrence’s heart squeezes, and he swallows up nervously. The man can hear Jessica starts to calm the girl down, asking her to calm down.       “Helene, I’m begging you, calm down,” Terrence says softly, grabbing his throat with a free hand. “I completely understand that you don’t want to believe it. But it’s the truth. Unfortunately. It was very hard for me to tell you that, but you should know it.”       Helene tries to say something, but she is so shocked that she will not become be able to speak soon. That’s why Jessica takes the phone from her hands and starts to talk to Terrence.       “Terrence, it’s Jessica,” Jessica says excitedly. “Helene fell into hysteria! What did you tell her?”       “Peter tried to kill himself,” Terrence replies quietly. “Daniel and I found the blond in the bathroom with open veins.”       Jessica gets sharply white, makes a quiet sob, and shakes her head. But she tries to control herself, at least not to let Helene go insane and calm down the girl, who is crying bitterly and repeats she does not want to believe it.       “No, no…” Jessica pronounces in a shaking voice. “No… I can’t believe it! Peter couldn’t do that! No…”       “I’m not lying to you, Jessica,” Terrence replies with sadness in his eyes. “Daniel and I are at Peter’s home and found him unconscious.”       “But is he alive? Please, tell me he’s alive! He didn’t die! Helene will go crazy if Peter dies!”       “Thank God, Peter is alive and has a pulse. But it’s very weak. And Pete looks very white and cold and has lost very much blood. The bathroom is dirtied with blood, and Daniel and I got his blood all over us.”       “Did you call an ambulance? Call an ambulance now! Don’t waste time!”       “Yes, yes, we’ve called the emergency service.” Terrence glances at the door and sees Daniel coming to the hall door and meeting the doctors that just crossed the doorstep. “They just entered the apartment. Daniel is meeting them and bringing them to Peter, while I’m talking with you.”       “Great! Do you think Helene and I would have time to go to Peter’s home?”       “No, don’t go here. I think the doctors will drive him to a hospital, and Daniel and I will go with him.”       “Okay, which hospital will they drive him to?”       “I don’t know yet. But I will ask the doctors and send a message with an address to this number.”       “Alright! Helene and I will be waiting for a hospital address. See you there.”       “Sure…” Terrence listens to the sobs he hears on the phone. “And yeah, do your best to calm Helene down. It seems like she has hysteria because of Peter’s suicide attempt.”       “Don’t worry, Terrence, I’ll care about her. Daniel and you better be next to Peter and don’t leave him. Now he needs you like never ever.”       “Daniel and I won’t leave him,” Terrence replies confidently. “And we will let you know if we have the pieces of news.”       “Thanks a lot. See you in the hospital.”       Terrence turns on the call, goes to the hall, takes his leather jacket off a hook, puts it on, and puts his mobile phone in his pocket. And when he exhales sharply and braces himself, he quietly goes to the bathroom. Two doctors are already working on Peter’s wounds and checking his state, and a third one is talking to Daniel and finding out something, but glances at MacClife when he comes here.       “Hello,” Terrence greets.       “Hello,” the doctor pronounces and points at Daniel. “This man said you came here with him.”       “It’s true. We found this guy unconscious with open veins. The operator on the phone told us to wrap his wrists in wet towels until the doctors’ arrival.”       “Yes, yes, your friend explained the situation. You did everything right.”       “Say, doctor, how critical is the situation? What can you say about Peter?”       “Hospitalization is required. This guy has lost very much blood, and his wounds are quite deep. So, we will drive him to the hospital right now.”       “Will he live?”       “I cannot promise anything, but we will do our best to save your friend. And I advise you to hope everything will be fine.”       “Please, do your best not to let him die,” Daniel says with sadness in his eyes. “We want him to live.”       “I repeat, young men, I can promise you nothing,” the doctor sighs quietly with sadness in his eyes. “Your friend needs a full examination.”       “Yes, we get it,” Daniel says quietly. “We will be waiting for any pieces of news…”       “Yeah, will you go with us to the hospital?”       “Yes, we will follow you in my car,” Terrence replies politely.       “Well, alright…”       “Yeah, which hospital are you going to drive this guy to? I need to know the address to tell one person about it.”       “A central hospital…” the doctor calls the address of the hospital. “A way from here takes a little time.”       “I know, I know…” Terrence replies thoughtfully, quickly understanding what to write in a message for Helene and Jessica. “Thanks a lot.”       The doctor, who just talked to Daniel and Terrence, nods and glances at two more doctors, who check the heartbeat and blood pressure of Peter, on the face of whom an oxygen mask was put on by one of them.       “Carry him on the gurney, guys!” the doctor orders. “Faster! He has great blood loss. Every second is very important.”       The doctors quickly finish doing something, carefully place Peter on the gurney that was prepared earlier, and carry him out of the apartment, while their colleague, who talked with Daniel and Terrence, puts the medical instruments in a little case that he opens and takes with him.       All this time, MacClife and Perkins get horror in their eyes while watching the doctors carrying their friend away on the gurney. The friends also quickly wash the blood off their hands and go to different sides. While Daniel goes to the hall, takes his coat from the hook, and puts it on, Terrence quickly closes the windows that he opened some time ago and goes to his friend, taking his phone and typing a message for Helene and Jessica.       “Fuck, Terrence, move your eyes off this fucking phone!” Daniel throws a little coldly, taking a duplicate of the keys from Peter’s apartment, with which he is going to lock it. “You found a bad time to check your accounts on social networks and search for people, who tell you compliments.”       “Don’t grumble, I’m sending a message for Helene with the hospital address,” Terrence replies quietly, not moving his eyes off the phone and typing a message. “Do you think I’m so obsessed with myself that I’d do this at such a terrible moment?”       “I wouldn’t be surprised. When the doctors carried the gurney with our friend on it, you decided to check your phone. You should also send Raquelle a naughty message and ask her to please you tonight.”       “As if you aren’t dreaming of Anna pleasing you.”       “Well, unlike you, the one to be very obsessed with yourself, I think about what happened just a little and madly want the blond to survive.”       “If you think it’s easy for me, you’re deeply wrong!” Terrence replies loudly and irritably, moving his eyes off the phone and sharply glancing at Daniel. “I wouldn’t have come here if I hadn’t cared about what happened to Peter.”       “Oh, okay, okay, sorry…” Daniel replies much quieter, raising his hands up. “Weak nerves… I can’t calm down… And I wasn’t ready for that…”       “As if I foresaw something like this…” Terrence sends a message to Helene and Jessica and puts his phone in the pocket of his jacket.       “I’m afraid it’s just the beginning…” Daniel locks Peter’s apartment with a key after he and Terrence leave it. “Nobody knows what the doctors are gonna tell us after examining Peter.”       “Agree. And I think we won’t be back home soon. We should warn Raquelle and Anna where we are, so they don’t worry.”       “Yes, yes…” Daniel pronounces thoughtfully, running his hands over his disheveled hair. “I’ll talk to Anna and tell her I’ll probably be back home very late when we come to the hospital. Or call her on the way… I dunno… I’ll think…”       “I’ll also talk to Raquelle when we come there… When my brains get better, I’ll call.”       While the doctors holding the gurney with the unconscious Peter on it have already left the building where the blond’s apartment is located, Terrence and Daniel just leave it. Some people going by them look at the ambulance car and watch what’s happening with interest. And Marta and Hillary, who are still sitting on the bench, see it all and open their eyes and mouths wider.       “Gosh, Marta, aren’t they going to drive Peter to a hospital?” Hillary gets horrified, pointing at the car ambulance and the doctors with the gurney that they carefully place on the folding cart.       “Yes, that’s him!” Marta exclaims, putting on her glasses to see what’s happening far. “And his pals are there… White and terrified… As if they found out someone died.”       “What happened to him? That guy looks too bad… And I think his hands are all in blood.”       “Did he decide to open the veins?”       “I don’t know, friend… But it seems like everything is very serious…” Hillary looks at the doctors, who slightly fix the oxygen mask on Peter’s face. “Did Perkins and MacClife find him and call an ambulance?”       “I wonder, how long ago did Rose decide to kill himself? What if we had a corpse for a few days but didn’t suspect it?”       “No, I think he’s alive. Or people from a morgue would’ve come here. And the doctors wouldn’t have fumed so hard, constantly checking something and caring about him like it’s a chicken and an egg situation.”       “Although I can’t stand Peter and do judge him for acting like a whining boy, I’m sorry for him. At least because he doesn’t have a personal life, which he would get busy with. And leave me and my cats alone.”       “Maybe, those idiots wash his brains and make him sure to live his life if he survived?”       “Let’s hope for a miracle.”       At this moment, the doctors carry the gurney with Peter in the car and get into it quickly. And Daniel and Terrence come to the auto of the latter, being too excited and shocked by what they had to experience and see.       “We’ve gotta wash the blood off in the bathroom later,” Daniel says, getting into the car after Terrence unlocks it with a key. “Clean everything… Wash the clothes… Throw the broken things off…”       “No, buddy, being there is forbidden to you,” Terrence replies confidently, sitting in the driver’s seat. “Or someone’s gonna have to call an ambulance for you if you decide to pass out again.”       “Stop saying stupid things!” Daniel throws gloomily, closing the door and putting on the safety belt. “You found a bad time to joke!”       “I’m serious, dude!” Terrence also closes the door and gets the key into the switcher. “You immediately got white after you saw lots of blood.”       “Hey, I don’t fear blood!” Daniel protests. “There was just too much of it. I wasn’t just ready to see what you could only see in a horror movie. Or at a Halloween night…”       “Yay, Perkins, you got me really surprised. I didn’t think you’d faint at the sight of blood. You’re so self-confident and insolent, but you fear blood…”       “I don’t faint at the sight of blood! Stop thinking up! I just felt bad from the smell in the apartment. So, that’s why I felt dizzy and nauseous.”       “Buddy, I saw everything well,” Terrence replies confidently, putting on his safety belt and waiting for the ambulance car to go on the road first. “If I hadn’t shaken you up and shouted at you, Pete wouldn’t have surely gotten your help. And he would’ve been unconscious for nobody the fuck knows how long.”       “Oh, Terrence, sometimes you’re so annoying…” Daniel moans tiredly. “And as headstrong as a donkey… And you swear at Raquelle…”       “You can deny it as much as you want.” Terrence decides to take a bottle of water from the section on the driver’s door and drink some water that wets his throat nicely. “But now I know your little secret – you fear blood and faint at the side of it.”       “By the way, when I had to give blood samples in a hospital, I could quietly look at that and see a jar getting filled with it.”       “Wait, Daniel, when Peter gets well, I’ll ask him if he knows about your fear of blood.” Terrence closes the bottle of water tightly and puts it in the section. “And if he doesn’t, I think I can give him a reason to mock you to take revenge on you for laughing at him.”       “Stop being a pain in my ass,” Daniel throws gloomily, crossing his arms over his chest. “I’m gonna have to spend nobody the fuck knows how much time. But if you keep telling some stupid jokes about me, I can’t guarantee that you’ll live ‘till tomorrow.”       “Okay, okay, I’m silent!” Terrence raises his hands up. “Go to hell! You better find a bottle of water in the section of the door and drink a little. You’d get better…”       “Finally, I heard at least one good piece of advice from you in the past few minutes.”       Daniel really finds another bottle in the section of the door, opens it, and drinks a lot enough, feeling a little better after the cold water wets his throat. And when the ambulance goes on the road before the eyes of people passing by and closely watching everything and Hillary and Marta sitting on the bench, MacClife follows them and tries to keep an eye on them.       Now Terrence and Daniel do not care that people are going to learn about Peter’s suicide attempt very soon, and articles about it will be published on the Internet and in magazines. They do not care about George, who might start another scandal after finding out what happened. The guys care about the condition of their best friend, whom they are ashamed of because they did not decide to help him much earlier. If not for their hesitation, the guy could have been saved from such a desperate thing.