Editor’s note: This story contains mentions of suicide and suicidal thoughts.

Jony Hunter spent a spring night on Wells Beach with one of his closest friends and teammates, listening to music, eating doughnuts.

The next night, the texts started to come in to friends and family.

“I love you so much, I’m so sorry, I promise this is for the best,” he told his mother.

As teenagers sometimes do, Hunter’s friends tracked his phone to the Piscataqua River Bridge that connects Maine to New Hampshire.

“There were cops surrounding the place and Jony’s car was there and I just broke down immediately on the side of the road,” Hunter’s friend Andrew Nickerson said.

His body was recovered the next day — just 10 days shy of his 17th birthday.

Months later, Hunter’s Sanford High School football tea

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