The signs were all there. But nobody noticed. Perhaps it was because he didn't matter, or that they just didn't care, nobody had seen it coming. Alex had lost hope. Everything had become pointless. He was tired of pretending that everything was okay. Eventually, he lost interest in everything he used to enjoy. Alex became reckless.

Didn't anyone think it was strange that he never wore a seat belt while in a car, be it his own, or a friend's, despite his own father being a cop? He knew the consequences that could occur if something went wrong, and he crashed. There would be no safety net. Especially when he was speeding to scare the crap out of Clay. Alex honestly didn't care if he crashed and killed everyone contained in the vehicle. They all deserved a horrible fate. They killed Hannah Baker. He killed Hannah.

He quit jazz band. Music is what got him through the tough times. It was his passion. One of the only things he looked forward to was band practice, to be somewhere he belonged. Band, music, it brought him joy. Slowly, it became a burden. A pointless, stupid activity he no longer had the energy or focus for, that he wasted his time on.

Why didn't Bryce, or Zach, or Justin, or even Monty give a fuck when he "fell" into the pool? Weren't they concerned that he was under water long enough to nearly drown? He hadn't considered that as an attempt of suicide. Alex didn't care if he died in that freezing cold pool. The breathless moments he had spent beneath the surface were some of the calmest moments of his life. There was no desperate thrashing, no fight to get to the surface. He was numb.

The fights he picked; he knew he had no shot of actually winning. Alex clearly couldn't take on his opponent. But he wanted the pain. The release of his anger, frustration, and guilt he harbored. He wanted to be beaten up. He wanted to be hit. He wanted to feel something. He deserved the pain. Provoke the beast, and Alex gets what he craved.

"So if I kill myself, do you die too?" Seemingly a sentence thrown out by an angsty teenager in a heated moment, but in Alex's case, it meant so much more than an offhanded retort. It was the first blatant sign that he wasn't okay. Nobody saw this warning sign. He almost wished it was that easy. Off himself, and the others who did wrong drop dead alongside him.

Gloomy Sunday. A beautiful piece. Shut down and thrown back in his face as being for "suicidal" people. But, perhaps that's what influenced his fascination with the song.

Alex's room was perfectly clean. He had his note written and placed in plain sight. No one would be wondering why he did it. Nobody would care. He knew what he was about to do would make a mess, so he decided to do it an easy to clean location, the upstairs bathroom. His weapon of choice? His own father's gun. Quick and easy. He was ready.

The gun was heavier than Alex had anticipated. He flinched. Instead of quickly raising it to his temple and having the bullet go through and through, it went upwards, then in and out. Lodging itself in the tile of the bathroom wall, rather than the broken teen's brain. Someone found him before he bled out. Alex fell into an eerily peaceful coma. Tranquil. Free.