I haven’t touched this blog in a while but I really need an outlet tonight.
I feel so traumatized by what happened to you. I remember lying on your trampoline pressed up against you in the rain, while all our friends stood in the door to your backyard yelling things we couldn’t hear. I remember finding all the bottles in your closet, messily hidden reminders of the mistakes you didn’t want to show me. After I finished my novel, you tried to publish it for me and I remember how sad you were when you told me you failed but the fact you had tried meant everything. You never showed me the letter you were writing for me. Now that you’re gone only its ghost can live on in my memory. I remember that night at the beach after someone’s party, when I was so distracted by the older boy who played me songs on his guitar that I forgot you. Now you’ll never know how sorry I was for that mistake. I’ll never understand what happened to you, what led you to make the choices you did that wrenched our friendship apart and stole your life from you at 19. But I’ll never forget that the first time I went skinny dipping was with you. It was late and your pool wasn’t far from the road, but we pulled our clothes off at the slightest suggestion and swam as if our bodies were new to us. You were so gentle to me no matter how rough I was on myself. The way you ran your fingers over my hair, no one had touched me that softly since I was a child. I wish I had the nerve to tell you at the time that there were moments when I wanted to love you back and there were seconds when I tried to convince myself that I could. But I know now that you weren’t meant for this world and you certainly weren’t meant for me. You always worshiped my writing, and if I hadn’t been so cocky and insecure at the time I would have told you that yours was better and it was. I always believed there would be a time when you would snap out of your downward spiral and see everything clearly, and someday I would run into you and everything would start fresh. Did you know that would never happen when you plunged that needle into your arm? I remember seeing you across the room at homecoming our senior year. Our tables were right next to each other and I focused so much energy trying not to look at you. I wish I hadn’t been so confident we’d have forever to work it out or so committed to making you a relic of my past. Today I went back and read some of the poems you wrote for me. I want you to know that through everything we went through together, I always knew there was something deeply beautiful in you. Now I know it was the same part of you that made you a storm.
