Mark Manson - The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F__k (2016, HarperOne) - libgen.li

friendly and happy to let me talk, so I talked. After a few beers, I gathered
enough courage to ask her to go up to the house with me to get some food.
She said sure.
As we walked up the hill, we bumped into Josh coming down. I asked
him if he wanted food, but he declined. I asked him where I could find him
later on. He smiled and said, “Seek the truth for yourself, and I will meet you
there!”
I nodded and made a serious face. “Okay, I’ll see you there,” I replied, as
if everyone knew exactly where the truth was and how to get to it.
Josh laughed and walked down the hill toward the cliff. I laughed and
continued up the hill toward the house.
I don’t remember how long I was inside. I just remember that when the
girl and I came out again, everyone was gone and there were sirens. The pool
was empty. People were running down the hill toward the shoreline below
the cliff. There were others already down by the water. I could make out a
couple guys swimming around. It was dark and hard to see. The music
droned on, but nobody listened.
Still not putting two-and-two together, I hurried down to the shoreline,
gnawing on my sandwich, curious as to what everyone was looking at.
Halfway down, the pretty Asian girl said to me, “I think something terrible
has happened.”
When I got to the bottom of the hill, I asked someone where Josh was. No
one looked at me or acknowledged me. Everyone stared at the water. I asked
again, and a girl started crying uncontrollably.
That’s when I put two-and-two together.
It took scuba divers three hours to find Josh’s body at the bottom of the
lake. The autopsy would later say that his legs had cramped up due to
dehydration from the alcohol, as well as to the impact of the jump from the
cliff. It was dark out when he went in, the water layered on the night, black
on black. No one could see where his screams for help were coming from.
Just the splashes. Just the sounds. His parents later told me that he was a
terrible swimmer. I’d had no idea.
It took me twelve hours to let myself cry. I was in my car, driving back
home to Austin the next morning. I called my dad and told him that I was still
near Dallas and that I was going to miss work. (I’d been working for him that
summer.) He asked, “Why; what happened? Is everything all right?” And