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Dear You,
I’m not a very good friend. This is one of the angels/demons of truth that has lighted upon my shoulder, whispering into my ear over the past month. There are many things I know about myself, some I choose to hide from you and some that just I hide from. Then there are those “things” that surface whether you want them to or not. The friend thing would be just that.
There are so many reasons why I am not best friend material. I hate talking on the phone. (This is not reserved only for you, my dear, but is for the entire phone addicted world.) I don’t send “thank you” notes, though the idea of sweet words on beautiful paper appeals to me. I seldom carve out time to visit you, crying exhaustion and the need to just go home. Sometimes I forget when you have really important things going on that I want to remember to ask you about, and I don’t. I don’t comment on your inspiring words that move me to want to write more, write “better”. I forget birthdays. Over too infrequent dinners, I talk endlessly about myself and MY psychotic moments, hardly ever focusing on you. I am consumed with my microcosm. The thing is, it is not all because I am thoughtless. On the contrary, I am very thoughtful and afraid. I am afraid to lose you because I lost them, and it almost broke all of my heart.
Once upon a time, there was a beautiful girl named Melanie. She was 16 years old and alive forever with me. Every afternoon, following a very forgettable school lunch, we would race to psychology class, each wanting to get there before the other, in order to score the seat beside the untouchable Adonis Chad whose last name I can no longer remember. It was a game, as was all of life back then. She was beautiful. 5’4 on really tall days, olive skin in a sea of South Carolina pale, dark curls that are often brought front and center in my mind when my own curly-haired cherub dashes by. Love lived in laughing eyes, and a voice that with crackle and happy hoarseness would scream my name across a crowded quad full of teenagers too busy running and doing to realize they were going nowhere. There were issues. We fought over a boy I had already let go, but pride is pride, and mine was wounded. It eventually passed, as most pubescent storms do, and we loved each other again. She, too, let that boy go and quickly found another puffy, oversized football letterman jacket to keep her warm on cold, endless nights. She was happy, and we were ready to take on the world. Then she was dead. On the same day she sent me balloons and a flower to wish me luck in our high school pagent, we were told she arrived at the empty house belonging to that boy, went to his room, and shot herself in the head with a shotgun. There were conflicting reports. It was said that he was actually home, that he had not gone out of town. He was seen at a local football game that very night, wearing the jacket that had been in Melanie’s car. It was also said that the carpets from his room were rolled up and taken away the very next day by garbage men, not the law enforcement agency that the boy’s mother worked for. To this day I don’t know what I believe. What I DO know is that Melanie loved being alive with every minute fiber of her vibrant being. I know that she made my world a better place to occupy. I know that I still miss her face.
So I went to college less one beautiful friend, needing someone to fill that sweet Melanie girl-shaped hole in my heart. It was there that I found Aleise. She was the polar opposite of Melanie, blonde and blue-eyed, no less angelic. I think it was the raspiness of her voice that drew me to her. Our friendship started with a healthy dose of competition. She was a singer, as was/am I, and we met during a national singing event the summer before we started college. One of us placed first, the other second (I won’t clarify) and a friendly rivalry ensued. We were both surprised when we ran into each other on a tiny college campus in Georgia. Trophies, crowds, and microphones forgotten, we
