Did you know about him being suicidal and in a bad mental health state in general before all that? It sounds like you did and by not telling him when he was already under stress you wanted to avoid this exact thing. If you didn't really know, I guess you sensed it in a way that this wouldn't go over well so you had to postpone it. I don't support lying but you did it for a better outcome for him. If you only cared about yourself, you would have told him without a second thought. I think that alone should prevent you from feeling so guilty. Anyway sometimes no matter how much we plan, people are unpredictable and this was the unavoidable thing to happen. Who can tell you it wouldn't happen sooner? Depression, substance abuse, suicidal thoughts etc are not the result of this kind of rejection, they're pre-existing. Not to mention you had already rejected him once, so he basically was waiting around for you to change your mind despite you being just friends with him. It was all building up from the beginning and I'm pretty sure there's more to his emotional baggage than that. You're definitely not a bad person because of this. I hope he gets serious help because fixing it doesn't really depend on you either. You can support as much as you can afford but the issue is greater than that.
