The wind ached beneath his feet. The airy gusts dispersed his thoughts, and propelled him towards the one action that changed my life, forever. In the moment, I thought it might be better to watch him, to look on as the conflicting opinions inside his head forced pitiful creases upon his brow. Today, I would give anything to go back and change the events that followed. I would do anything, for just one opportunity to talk to him, to listen when he talked to me. I could have done so much to stop my brother’s suicide, but I did nothing.
He jumped, if that’s what you’re wondering. It was mid-morning June 16th when my brother lead me up to the rooftop of our forty floor apartment building and told me what he was going to do. I can remember it vividly.

We were on the roof of our apartment building.
“Sarah, I’m not gonna lie to you— my life sucks, and I hate everything about it. I hate school, I hate my friends, I hate my home, and I don’t wanna live anymore. I’m gonna make it stop, all of it. I need to do this.”
And then, the first tears shone on his cheeks. I would never have seen if it weren’t for the sun, which beamed above us at that exact moment, a flicker of light. The beads of water reflecting off his ghostly complexion, like flames burning holes in his soul.
I was shocked into silence, none of this could be true. I stepped backwards, reaching with my hand behind me— fumbling to find the door-handle. I had to run and get help, and I had to be fast. I grasped the warm, metal knob and pulled. Nothing. I pushed. Nothing. I turned around to face the door, heaving my shoulder into the door. Nothing. And then I realized what he had done.
A snicker, then words. “It’s locked. You don’t come up here often, so you wouldn’t know. All doors that lead up to the roof are one way only. You can’t turn back without a key. This key.”
So he had had the key I needed. Where could it be, I wondered. I needed to get back to Mom and Dad before he did anything stupid. I couldn’t let him do this to himself.
I turned around, and walked towards him. There was no use fighting with a piece of cheap metal, I needed to help my brother. I took the few steps that would close the distance between us. When I stepped up to him, I looked into his eyes for the first time in a while. We hadn’t really spoken in weeks, I realized. Our different interests continued to push us in opposite directions, and while home, schoolwork stopped us from spending much time together. When I looked into his eyes, I saw something there that wasn’t my brother. A new glint. A bad, sad, terrible shine to the dullness of his eyes. Why hadn’t I noticed this before.
“You can’t do this, Jake,” I choked out between frightened, shallow breaths. “How can you do this? You’re happy, you’re not sad. You can’t be sad.” But, even as I said those words, I knew they weren’t true. I couldn’t remember the last time I saw my brother make a joke at the dinner table, or smile, or hang out with his friends. He wasn’t happy then, and it had most likely been a long while since he was.
“I’m so sorry, Sarah. But I can’t keep living like this,” Jake replied. His voice was calm, relaxed. He was not worried. He had thought about this before, I could tell. The idea wasn’t new to him.
“No, Jake. Please, just come back to the apartment with me, and we can talk about this.” I hoped something I said would stir some kind of emotion inside of him. But, I knew that nothing I could do would save him. He had decided to do something I could not change.
“Why did you bring me here, anyway?” I asked.
“Because I love you, and I needed you to know that I am doing what is best for me,” he said. Those words were not at all assuring, although it seemed like a decent enough goodbye for Jake.
Jake walked toward the ledge, balancing on swift strides that didn’t belong to him. The Jake I knew wouldn’t do this to himself. This wasn’t my Jake. This wasn’t Jake at all. This was somebody else’s brother, not mine. My brother wasn’t like this. He couldn’t be like this.
But, he was.
“Jake stop!” I screamed, but he didn’t listen. I screamed again, hoped that he would hear me and change his mind about all of this. “Jake! Listen to me, Jake! Stop! Please!”
I didn’t run towards him. It would never have helped.
By that time, Jake was standing with both feet loosely balanced on the thin ledge. There was nothing between him and his death.
And, then he jumped. He didn’t turn around before he did it and whisper a teary goodbye, or race back to me and hug me— he did none of those things. He never even so much as looked back. And then he jumped. His blurred outline fell out of my sight, and he was no more than a memory.

That is how I remember his suicide. I don’t think of that person who killed himself, as my brother. My brother was the nice, kind boy who I grew up with. The boy who helped me bake donuts for Mom’s 42nd birthday when he was seven and I was four. The boy who showed me around school on my first day of kindergarten, and helped me learn my ABC’s when the teacher said I needed extra help. The boy who always used to play checkers with me on snow-days.
That boy was gone long before Jake committed suicide.