I don't know where he went and I'm scared to look

I had a friend on discord, we met I think shortly before lockdown and we kept talking throughout it. I would keep checking my phone to see if he would message. He would say good night to me every night, and I looked up his timezone so I could say good morning.

I had my phone taken off me just before lockdown, for six months, so I couldn't message him. I had no communication with him. He wasn't doing great mentally when I was forced to leave, and I was worried about him.

A year after I got my phone back, I remembered my log in for that discord account. I had forgotten about him, and was just trying to make an account for my mate. I logged back in, and he was gone. His account was deleted.

There were paragraphs, begging for me to come back, wondering where I had gone. Week after week he messaged me. And at the bottom, there was this string of messages telling me goodbye. He told me he loved me, and that my favourite musician at the time ruled. I don't remember the rest.

I can't log back into that account. I don't want to. I don't want to hurt reading at those messages and watching him leave. I don't know if he just left me or if he left life, but I really, really don't want it to be the latter.

I want him to be alive. I want him to be okay and better. I want him to still be making music somewhere, still making with passion like he used to. It's unrealistic, but I want him to be alive.

I want him to reach out one day, find one of my socials and talk to me again. I want him to tell me about everything he's been up to and how he's gotten better. I want to laugh with him and play games and be silly with him like we used to. I want him to remember the name of that shitty podcast I made and geeked over and leave a comment there asking where I am.

I don't want to look because I'm so scared he did something stupid. He wasn't well, he really wasn't, and I should've helped more than I did to make sure he didn't do anything. If I look at when he sent those messages and look up the date and the state he lived in then I'm so scared he'll be on the news. I'm so scared a missing person will pop up, or an obituary, or gods forbid an arrest.

I know I need the closure, I know that I'm not well, but I also want to keep believing he's fine.