Very shortly after the beginning of any novel, comes the inciting incident. That is, the thing that changes the protagonist's life and sends it careening in a new direction, one filled with constantly escalating problems and uncertainty, that will build to a climax that changes the protagonist in some major way.
So there's no reason at all for you to avoid opening with the events that lead to the protagonist taking part in or witnessing a suicide or attempted suicide, if that's the thing that puts events out of the control of the protagonist. The mystery writers have a saying that sums it up well: begin your story with a body hitting the floor.
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That being said, let me give a small commercial: From the sound of your comments you are either in high school, or have just recently graduated. The fact that you’re beginning and novel is good. If your school is like most however, they’ve spent twelve years teaching you how to write book reports, not books, as they readied you to become a working adult with the writing skills a business requires (author-centric, fact-based nonfiction—as against character-centric emotion-based fiction writing technique). They didn't teach you the skills and craft of a working writer, be that screenwriter, playwright, journalist, tech-writer, or novelist. In fact, they taught you no profession, they only readied you to learn one.
Given that, while you're planning and writing, and if you haven’t already done so, I would strongly suggest that you read a few books on fiction writing techniques, in addition to the things you may get here in AW. Certainly, by writing you gain experience. But if experience is a ladder, education is an escalator—useful in telling you what works, but even more useful in warning you about what doesn't. There’s a thread in play, just below this one, that discusses which books various people have found the most helpful.