Dennis had fallen asleep on the bed when he suddenly heard the door open. He was a light sleeper, so anything could have woken him from slumber, especially a door opening. When he heard the door open, he cringed inside because he thought it would be the Anderson Girls. But it wasn’t. It was Elliott.590Please respect copyright.PENANA11OCGB7MXo
Elliott was looking at him, smiling.
“Did you get tired or what?” he asked.
Dennis just shrugged.
Elliott walked over to the bed and sat down next to him. Normally, Dennis would have moved away, but he didn’t. He didn’t seem to care about Elliott sitting next to him. The only thing that was on his mind was: “I almost killed myself, I almost killed myself.”
Elliott sat a glass next that he had been drinking out of on the nightstand next to the bed. He now was frowning.
“It sure has been a horrible night,” Elliott said. “I’m not sure if you know what happened, but damn was it a travesty.”
Dennis nodded.
Elliott looked at him and asked: “Do you know what happened?”
Dennis nodded.
“So you know who was killed?”
Dennis nodded.
Elliott shook his head. “As I said, it was a travesty. Freeman was one of the only friends that I ever had as a child. He and your father were like brothers to me. They were a very important part of my life.”
Dennis did not nod this time.
“Your father may have already told you,” Elliott said. “But Freeman had done him a very good favor as a child. Freeman acted as protection to him from others who just loved to be horrible to him because he wasn’t as fortunate as the rest of them.”
Dennis already knew that. He’d only heard the story about dozens of times.
“And now Freeman is gone forever,” Elliott continued. “It’s quite tragic to think about. Any death is tragic. It doesn’t matter whose it is. And of all the people whose death to happen tonight, it just had to be Freeman.”
And mine could have happened tonight as well, Dennis thought.
“I hate to acknowledge this,” Elliott said. “But from what your father told me, you don’t like to be around others. And that is not good at all.”
Dennis suddenly had a feeling what was coming. Elliott was going to give him a long speech about how it’s not good to be nonsocial and could lead him to becoming a loser in the future. It was going to be the same speech that Dennis’ father had given him countless times.
“You, of course, know about Freeman’s past choices,” Elliott said. “But you may not know why he chose to start doing those horrible things.”
Elliott took a deep breath.
“About thirty years ago, during our senior year in high school, Freeman’s father died. He died of lung cancer due to him being a heavy smoker. This, of course, crushed Freeman. But the tragedy did not end there. That very next year, during Freeman’s first year of college, his mother died of a stroke. He now had lost both of his parents. They were the only family that he had.”
Dennis knew it would have been terrible for him to lose both of his parents, but he knew much more that it would have been just as terrible for his parents to lose him by him committing suicide.
“The death of his parents made Freeman turn into a completely different person. He was so depressed that he didn’t seem to care about anything, not people, not his college, not even his friends.
“Your father and I tried to make him feel better. We constantly reminded him that he still had his friends, and we would always be his friends. But this did not make him feel better at all. He hardly talked to us or anyone. And he hardly focused on his college work.
“Your father and I were very worried about him. We weren’t sure what the future would hold for him if he continued to act that way. I still remember what used to haunt me every night at the time. I worried that Freeman…may decide to take his own life.”
Dennis cringed inside, severely.
“But instead, Freeman just chose to start taking drugs. That was only a little less bad than him killing himself. Not long after he began taking the drugs, he became addicted to them. And before long, he was arrested for the first time for the drug usage. This caused him to be kicked out of college.
“And for the next twenty years or so, Freeman remained an addict. That’s when he did all the terrible things that caused people to dislike him. He lost many jobs and was jailed many times. Rehabilitation eventually cured him, despite him having tried it before countless times, but of course, many people never forgave him for the things that he did.
“And tonight, one of those people was so angry at him for something that he did that they chose to kill him for it. Freeman may have felt bad for everything that he had done, but that wasn’t enough for that person to not make the choice that they made.”
Dennis nodded.
“But here’s my point to this conversation. I’m quite worried about the fact that you don’t like to be around people. Freeman was the exact same way when he was a few years older than you. And this caused him to do the horrible things that he did, and those horrible things are what caused someone to kill him. I’m worried that you may eventually become so depressed that you make the same choices as Freeman did.”
Dennis nodded again. He understood everything that Elliott was saying to him.
“I don’t want what happened to Freeman to happen to you. I don’t want you to start taking drugs. And I especially don’t want you to do terrible things that will cause somebody to want to kill you.”
And I’m sure you don’t want me to kill myself, Dennis thought.
“I understand why you feel the way you do,” Elliott said. “You are ashamed that you are not wealthy. Your father felt the same way as a child. He was taunted by other children because of it. He may have grown to have the same attitude as you had he not met Freeman and I.
“And that’s my second point. As much as you think that there are people out there who love to taunt others for being poor, you’re always going to find another person that is just like Freeman and I. Your father didn’t think so, but he was very wrong. You should always socialize with others, even if their families do have more money than you. If you don’t, you may grow with an unhappy personality and start making choices you will regret to make.
“My last point is that you should not feel ashamed for being non-wealthy. Look at your father. He was the same way as a child, and look at what a good man that he’s become. He didn’t make the choices that Freeman made. His lifestyle may not have improved, but everything else about him has improved.”
Dennis nodded. It all made plenty of sense.
Elliott stood up and said: “I’d better go check on everybody in the living room. The last thing I need is two murders to take place in my house tonight.”
He picked up the glass and headed for the door. Before leaving, he turned to Dennis and said: “Remember everything I’ve talked to you about. Had Freeman had a similar discussion many years before, he would still be alive tonight.”
After Elliott left, Dennis lay back down on the bed. He had so much on his mind.
Elliott had only worried that Freeman would commit suicide because of how depressed he had been after the deaths of his parents.
Dennis was just as depressed as Freeman had been, and he had almost committed suicide.
Freeman had not committed suicide, but he instead chose to take drugs.
Dennis had chosen not to commit suicide after almost doing so. Was it possible that he may choose to do drugs in the future?
By doing those drugs, many people began to dislike Freeman. And one of those people had decided to kill him because of one of the choices that he had made.
Dennis was sure that if he did drugs, he may make the same mistakes as Freeman. And he was sure that one of those mistakes would lead to his downfall.
Dennis couldn’t even kill himself. There was no way that he wanted to be killed by another person.
Dennis closed his eyes and took a long breath.
Elliott was right about everything. This was no way to live. Hating people and not caring about anything was the very wrong way to live. Dennis knew he should have realized that very long ago.
Dennis always used to think that people would love to mess with a person if they found at that that person was poor. But he now knew that not every person had the same attitude towards poor people as the Anderson Girls. In fact, Dennis was sure that most people weren’t that way. And he had yet to even try and find out for sure.
Dennis had always hated people because the things that people became angry about were not problems as bad as a poor person dealt with. But Dennis knew that that was no reason to hate people. Elliott was right. There had to be many good people out there. And he had probably lost so many perfect opportunities to meet some of these good people by choosing no to talk to anybody.590Please respect copyright.PENANAHjTMM2UscW
Had he decided to kill himself tonight, any opportunity to make a good friend would have been gone forever.
And if he chose to start doing drugs to make himself feel happy, he would start to make enemies.590Please respect copyright.PENANA1giuOtqvOO
And it was possible that if he did drugs, then one of the enemies that he makes may want him dead.
Just like Freeman.
Dennis rolled over on the bed and buried his face in the pillows. He had a feeling that in the very same night that he attempted suicide, his attitude was going to change forever.
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