The Unborrowed Book

In college, I knew a guy named Kyle.

He was one of those people who felt easy to be around. Long blonde hair that fell to his shoulders, an open smile that made you feel welcome without trying. He was funny in a gentle way. Artistically wired. A genuinely good guitar player—the kind who didn’t show off, just played because it made him happy. We ran in the same circle. We partied together. Laughed together. He was never the loudest person in the room, but he was someone you were always glad was there.

He had a girlfriend. I knew that much. I also knew it wasn’t always smooth. But I wasn’t the kind of person who pried, and he wasn’t the kind who volunteered pain. We talked about music, books, ideas. Not wounds. Maybe that’s where this story actually begins.

One day, out of nowhere, he showed up at my dorm room.

He had shaved his hair off.

All that long, blonde hair—gone. It was jarring. Not because it looked bad, but because it felt like a signal. Like something had already ended and I hadn’t been paying attention. He didn’t cry. He wasn’t dramatic. But I could see it in his posture, in the way he stood there unsure of where to put his hands. Something in him had collapsed.

He muttered something about his girlfriend cheating on him.

I didn’t know what to do with that. I didn’t know how to sit inside someone else’s pain without trying to redirect it. So I did what I always did back then—I shifted the conversation. Gently. I asked about something safer. We talked about books. About ideas. About nothing that hurt.

It turned into a long conversation. One of those talks that feels meaningful in retrospect, even though it didn’t feel momentous at the time. I remember feeling relieved. Relieved that he seemed calmer. Relieved that we had landed somewhere neutral.

I told him he could borrow the book I was reading when I finished it.

He smiled and said he’d come by next week to get it.

Then he left.

We said goodbye. We said “see you soon.” The kind of thing you say without realizing how permanent words can become when they’re the last ones.

He never came back.

A week later, I heard from someone that Kyle had gone missing. No one knew where he was. We were worried, but still clinging to normal explanations. Maybe he needed space. Maybe he went home. Maybe he just unplugged.

The next day, I walked into a room and found friends of mine crying in a way that told me everything before they said it.

Kyle had hung himself.

The first thing I felt wasn’t shock. It was sorrow so deep it felt physical. I couldn’t stop thinking about how much pain he must have been in—how alone someone has to feel to decide the world is better without them. And then came the guilt. Heavy, relentless guilt.

I replayed that day over and over.

Why didn’t I stay with him in that moment?
Why did I redirect the conversation when he finally hinted at something real?
Why didn’t I ask harder questions?
Why didn’t I tell him to come back sooner, or call, or stay longer?

I convinced myself I had failed him. That I had been a bad friend. That I had chosen comfort over courage.

For weeks, my mind fixated on small, unbearable details. How he would never knock on my door again. How I’d never hear his laugh drift down the hallway. How he would never show up to borrow that book.

That book sat there, unread after that. A quiet accusation. A reminder of a future that had been casually promised and silently erased.

There are people who pass through our lives lightly, and then there are people who leave a shadow behind them when they’re gone. Kyle left a shadow. One shaped like regret. Like unanswered questions. Like the knowledge that sometimes someone can sit across from you, smiling faintly, and already be saying goodbye in a language you don’t yet understand.

I still think about him.

About the weight he carried without showing it. About the version of myself that didn’t know how to recognize a breaking point when it stood in my doorway. About how fragile those moments are—how easily they slip past us, disguised as ordinary conversations.

And I still think about that book.

Not because it mattered.

But because he did.