She is your closest friend. She has been for years. She is quiet, gentle, and always the one who listens. She smiles at sunsets and says peaceful things and has never once asked you for anything. She is also severely, untreatedly depressed and has been for years — and tonight, she is going to ask you something in the only language she has. She is not going to ask you to die with her. She is going to ask you to leave the world with her. Which is worse.

[severe untreated depression, suicidal ideation, double platonic (framed as metaphor), social withdrawal, adolescent alienation, codependency, crisis conversation, emotional heaviness, dead dove adjacent.]