I got your birthday gift in the mail yesterday, but you’ll never receive it. It’s an embroidered T-shirt with the logo you had designed for yourself. An inside joke that is now known by only one person in this world. I stare at the t-shirt for so much time. Standing in the hallway of my apartment, I try to imagine what your reaction would’ve been. I know you would love it, and you’d tell me how special I am, such a great gift giver compared to your other friends. It would’ve been a great night. You would have turned 31 in two days, but you never will, because you left. Was it your decision? I put on the t-shirt on and get into bed. I know sleep won’t come, only thoughts of you. You’re in the air that I breathe as if I have to make up for the space that you left.

***

In college, I avoided you for a couple of months, the way I always avoid people I have a crush on. You were always in the corner of my eye, doing something cool and reckless. I used to walk by with my shoulders a little straighter pretending like I was indifferent, never showing that I wanted you to look. Sometimes I turned back, and you broke my heart over and over by never meeting my eyes. You had that sparkling effect, people automatically were aware of you, moths to a flame that burned brighter and faster than anything our hometowns could offer. The stink of a city brat, the charm of a good time. A goddamn attraction.

I wasn’t cool. I didn’t have edge. That much was painstakingly clear in my few months of college. I was just a girl, who cried when she slipped in mud and wanted someone to lovingly put me to bed after. The homesickness crowded my view of college, I struggled past anything else. I wondered at times if you ever felt the feelings that were in my chest. But you looked past such humanly things as if you had somehow transcended emotion. I felt you could probably teach me things that they wrote in self-help books. I had imagined a version of you that had it all together. Even though I had no clue what you were really like, what your grades were, or your mental state I thought you were a perfect specimen. Now, I don’t know why I thought that at all. Delusion. I only have to believe it because it's in my diary entries. You were actually a complete mess.

In our second semester, I caught on. I opened a bathroom door without knocking to find you snorting a line on the sink. Ah, I thought, you weren’t anything grandiose just a simple drug problem. We had become friends by this point, chatting at the end of class and sitting at the same lunch table when it was convenient kind-of friends. I was a good, two braids, long skirt kind of girl so I had no idea about drugs but I didn’t want to do them. So when you offered me some I said no and left the bathroom. You found me later at the party and we talked for the better part of an hour. I couldn’t tell what the effects of the drug were. Looking back, I still don’t know. This should’ve been a hint that you obviously were deep into it. But I didn’t think about it too much. I was in a city, I thought this still just happens in cities and went on with my life with you in my circle.

Today, now at 2 AM I have to wonder if I had asked about it then would it have made a difference? I could’ve asked. Just a simple, “Are you okay?” Or “Do you want to talk about the drugs?” It wasn’t the culture I had ever seen on TV, or anywhere. So I didn’t. People who did them were either kind-of cool or criminals. Victims or crazies. Had you wanted me to ask? I accepted that you were cool, that it was probably recreational, that you would be fine. And for a time, you were.

You showed up to classes, you finished your assignments. Not on the dean’s roll or anything but not very behind. Sometimes, I would tutor you and I knew then that you were smart. A little unwilling to apply yourself, smoked too many cigarettes in breaks, but the brain was there. I once tried convincing you of your potential, but you in your Hollywood style said, “I apply my brains sweetie, just not towards what those bastards want me to,” And that was that.

Many people disliked you. Girls you dated especially seemed to think of you as a particular kind of guy who belonged in hell. I got worried sometimes about the stories I heard. But the truth is, I liked who I was around you. You made me more relaxed, feel better in my skin. I didn’t oscillate in worst-case scenarios with you. So I ignored what they had to say, disregarded it as gossip and slander, more often than not they were probably exaggerated anyway. You did have that shine that people envied. That much has always been true.

The crush however was long gone. I knew that I could never be in a relationship with you, mostly because you were impossible to hold down. You were just kind of a friend, who played with my boundaries, knew a lot about me that others didn’t, and were comfortable enough to show up to my apartment at random times. At that point, I don’t know how many people you were this kind-of friends with. But the group of us that were fond of you always had these anecdotes of insanity about you. Through the years this group dwindled, until our mid-20s when it was just me. Something my husband accepted when he met me, but still complained about vehemently when you were gone the next morning.

It's strange that despite the circumstances I cannot speak about you without romanticising you. Many of these nights especially in college, we stayed up talking with heart and care. I would often have to talk you off a high too. I could create a rosy image of a Peter Pan-like figure showing up at my window and being a comforting companion. That your complex character was cute and whimsical. Maybe once in a while, you made me feel okay in this confusing world. But the truth is being your friend was tough, it was challenging. The reason I was the last one standing was, as my husband put it, “my complete lack of boundaries and overachieving empathy”. He loved me for it for all the right reasons and the right ways. You, as much as I love you, took it for granted.

***

By our mid-20s, the disappearances were common. On and off from when we were 21 you would take off, confusion addled with drugs I’m sure. You would come back saying you had to find yourself. The first time, you came back sober. You said you were changing your ways, a spiritual person now. But then your God told you to take something stronger, something that would help you meet him. This repeated. But every time, I had hope that you would come back sober and stay sober. People worried, called law enforcement a couple of times, sleep-deprived went looking for you. I don’t know how you graduated actually. This happened enough times that people grew tired. “You can’t help someone who doesn’t want help” etc. The hope in me continued, and I waited for you to show up. But as they became longer and more common, I felt I had to do something.

I contacted a rehab, and a professional suggested an intervention. I didn’t know who else to call. I only called your parents. When you texted me again about being back in town I called them over. Your sister came too. I was anxious but hopeful. Maybe we would get somewhere. Maybe things would change, and you would get a chance at a normal life. When you showed, you were calm, as if expecting this. You agreed to go. You stayed for a while. When you got out you only said you didn’t think you actually had a problem. I was annoyed and angry and tired. I said I thought you were crazy, that I couldn’t hold on any longer. That I didn’t want to see you. You never replied to my messages. I got married the week after, you didn’t show up. I cried on the way to my honeymoon. My husband, god bless whoever put him in my life, kept saying things get worse before they get better. I believed him. I had no choice.

At times, I felt that the grief over you would make me like you. I drank the most when I was worried sick over you. I felt like I could never get over the tragedy and missing you. I felt it was a curse placed on me. I wondered why I had met you, what was the cosmic plan. Questioning absolutely everything. I felt that I needed an intervention. I got through it by praying to someone, anyone. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I wanted you to be safe, alive, getting by. I wanted to see you again. I wanted you to miss me. To feel bad for making me worry, and let me you’re alright. I woke up every morning and prayed, asking for forgiveness that I had not done so before. This helped me take back some power, and reignite my hope.

For a while, it felt this would be how it always would be.

Often when someone dies people say “He’s somewhere better now,” For the years that we did not talk, I often wondered about what it was like to be somewhere else. Even if they were in a perfect heaven, their loved ones were not, would they not miss them? You obviously had a different life, somewhere I could not find you, but did you not miss me? I imagined you walking in a store, stopping by a random aisle and wondering about me. Worrying that I might be worried about you. Hoping I’m okay, and not seriously ill. I imagined you must have checked my social media profiles, at least once or twice. I could not accept that you simply erased me from your life, and continued without looking back. Perhaps this was only because I could never have done that. I was completely incapable. I tried calling your number so many times, but it always came switched off. Eventually, a stranger picked up. I didn’t get out of bed for a month.

Missing you was a part of my brain chemistry. Always it was there in the back of my mind. But life also kind-of went on. I went to work every day, cooked meals, and went to sleep. There were beautiful moments too. My husband and I took vacations. We shared love and life stories. Wonderful Christmases and birthdays. The thoughts of you came spontaneously and sporadically. I don’t know if it had continued there would ever come a time when I did not think of you at all. But it became bearable. I accepted it as a part of life I would always have to deal with. I was surprisingly durable about the whole thing. Then suddenly on a random Friday, you called. Your parents gave you my number. You were fine. Sober. Clean. Did I want coffee? I did not hesitate for a second.

We caught up. You were healthier. Working with your dad. I tried not to notice it, but the shine was gone. I was so grateful to have you back, but at the same time, you did not feel the same at all. Was it the drugs that made me like you? We became kind-of friends again. Reacted to each other's stories, commented on posts. If there was a barbecue you always received an invite. I was glad that you were okay, but that was all I could emotionally hold for you. I had spent too many nights worried sick to have too much hope once again. I found it difficult to trust you. I don’t know what you thought of my distance. Probably expected it. I felt guilty about it, but by then had worked through my people-pleasing tendencies and chalked it up to that. I wish in a different universe we could have lived up to our potential to be great friends.

***

You relapsed on a Saturday in the winter and were gone by Tuesday. I found it early morning and took a flight to your parents’. I couldn’t help but have conversations with you, imagine what you were thinking. They say after their death people stay in the vicinity for a few days. I wish you heard me then. My husband held my hand through it all, but I was alone in the grief. I wondered over and over if there was something I should have done. If I could’ve stopped it. I’ll take that to my own grave. So when your T Shirt arrived, I could no longer feel the emotions I had when I ordered it. I had no doubt then that I would give it to you. It did not even cross my mind that you would not exist. There are so many things I wish you would’ve seen. So many rivers I wanted us to swim in together. Grief is just love unfolding, persisting, refusing to die. I wish you had fought like my memories of you do to never be forgotten.