3 of 50 Songs and Chapters Dedicated to the Friend I Lost Too Soon

I was wrong about the tiles. It took me sixteen days to figure that out, but it's not like I had anything better to do.

I counted them again only to find out I was off by about ten, while I waited for him to come back. He didn't, and the worst thing of all, it felt wrong to blame him for it. I shouldn't have expected that'd he return. I should've known that something could easily arise to keep what I wanted from happening.

The only person I could blame was myself for believing that someone like Jewee could find the time in his life to spend time with me. Why would a somebody spend time with a nobody who was, worse, wasting away? Haven't we already established in life that humans only do things if there's something in it for them? If they receive personal gain or benefit?

There was nothing I could give him that he didn't already have, so there was no reason to spend his time around me.

But at least he tried to. More than I thought he did, even.

"Jewee went back to Vegas," my mom announced, stepping into my room. "But I must say, I'm so glad we got his attention and pulled this off. He is a really nice guy. Hella cute -- you have good taste in men on the screens. I talked to him a second ago -- you really gotta do some mingling, my child. If I was still single, eleven out of ten, would bang. To think he came all the way to Colorado for my kid. Ah! I birthed a beautiful and talented woman. I did that. I'm at the peak of success, you se--?"

"Mom, please don't--. You didn't tell that to his face did you?" I began, a cringe surging up the sides of my neck so bad it went numb. I wanted to address it out of my hardcore embarrassment, but once I saw her nodding, I didn't. I knew knowing would make it worse, because then I'd have to imagine it.

"Nevermind. I don't want to know," I stopped her before she could admit anything I asked about, and shrugged it off as I faced her to focus on the other pieces of her crazy. "So he was here? Just now? What'd he tell you?"

"Oh, yeah!" She exclaimed excitedly, as she sat at the foot of my bed, the reminder clicking to her brain. "The doctors decided it's not good if he sees you at the moment since they're still confused about your symptoms like you were told. We kinda sorta didn't alert them that he'd be visiting and he's from out of state, so they wanna play it safe with your immune system, Jai. You understand that, right?"

Usually I would sigh if I heard a topic like that arise. Anything that reminded me I was sick, gave me a madness I wouldn't know anywhere else.

This time it didn't bother me.

I let out a sarcastic breath of air. It's ironic how I've spent the last few years unable to do nothing more than dream about meeting this guy, and now it was him that wasn't able to meet with me. Of course the reason being fame and spotlight versus a line of doctors with medical knowledge we didn't have were entirely different, but it was still funny to consider it.

My mom rolled her eyes. It was good to see her finally manage a chuckle. She knew what I was thinking, but she chose not to say so.

She allowed me to bask in what somewhat felt like glory, and went on with her story without an outspoken word about her noticing what she saw in my expression.

"Anyway, Jewee told me to give this to you," she stated, crashing my delulu. She passed me a stack of paper enveloped in a bright green folder I would've used back in grade school. "Your doctor wants to meet with us. Your dad is talking to him now. I just thought I should give this to you in case it was important."

"Thanks, Ma," I told her, mostly to close the conversation. I didn't have any intentions to make it longer than it was especially when my fingers skimmed the front of the folder, becoming increasingly desperate to take a peek inside.

Out of natural self-control I've had instilled into me over the years though, I waited for her shoes clicking to the hard floor to fill the hallway and not my room. After all, I had no idea what was inside or how I would react, and if she were around, she'd never hold back on teasing me whether I laughed, cried or did anything in between even if I did sit in a hospital.

The door shut behind her. Patiently, I gave her another three seconds to decide if she wanted to turn around and say any last words before she went off, but I didn't hear the click clacking of her footsteps come back toward me. It faded, as I expected it to, and that's when I let myself loose into the stack of paper in my lap.

I've never been so quick to find a reason to smile. I've been joyful in my lifetime at some point, sure, but this gave me a tingle in my toes.

On the front page, Jewee made Aiden and I a part of his beautiful world. His precious green character as bold as the folder he gave me, with the three strands of hair and crooked teeth, who he created for his past children's book -- and that I always thought had a personality that resembles his -- was only one in a pod of three. He hand drew everything, put beside a new character in a unique pastel blue and another in a lemon-ish yellow.

I turned the page delicately, thanks to the staple in the top left corner. I had to fight myself to do that because my eyes were attached to it already, but when I did, I only found more reason to be attached, so much that my heart began to burst through out my body like a tumbleweed down the empty freeway. He left a note and a close up on his blue illustration:

I've finished reading your novel, Jaiva Shyne, so here's some rough drafts of some illustrations I'd like to hear your opinion on. Aiden really gives me a faded blue kind of vibe, seeing him through your eyes. Not any ordinary kind of blue either. It's his blue like he made it himself. What do you think?

I thought about the question as I looked it over. Aiden's character had a head full of hair, formed into the styles that was common in those certain boy bands that everyone would know of without me having to specify. He smiled widely, braces detailed on his teeth, both top and bottom, and in doing so, his eyes were nearly shut because of the genuine smile like the way Aiden really did it. Sitting in as a hair clip slightly more on the left side of his head, the tip top of a strawberry and its green leaves sat adorably within the strands of hair.

Somehow in a kinda geeky, definitely child-like kind of way, he was right. This was Aiden. I can't describe how he could manage to pull that off, especially considering that he drew someone he never met and never saw in photo, either. His creativity was different than others was. It was a talent in itself to have a mind that was so invested in passion that it could create something so beautiful, but his was too gorgeous for vocabulary to explain. His was more than anyone else I've ever seen.

"I agree. He's blue," I muttered to myself, thumbing over to the next page. There was nobody near by, but even if there was, I was too silent for anyone to hear me. I could barely hear myself and I'd assume I was hearing more of my thoughts than my literal voice. "How did you know, Jewee Gray Kyler? How can an actor in such a dark show be so soft and sweet?"

And now you, Miss Ikari-Lane, he had written. Your story didn't give much context about you, but I think if I combine our meeting time and the little context you do give me, you'd be a yellow.

I gasped, as I read through the lines, disagreeing with him this time around, but as if he read my mind before the thought crossed through it, he retaliated kindly when I continued.

What color do you think of when you look in the mirror? Often times, I find that we can see the aura of somebody else before we see our own.

Maybe you would disagree that you're a yellow. Maybe you'd say its too happy of a color to define you, but that's only because you know of the grays in your soul, but in the words you write and in the way you present yourself, I know you're the kind of person that's happy for other people before you're happy for yourself.

You're self-sacrificing and you mend other people's hurt before your own. You went through tragedy, and still you help other people in tragedy. That's why you're yellow. You have 'Shyne' in your name for a reason, don't you? That's why this is you:

My eyes dropped down to the drawing he had specifically for me.

I was certainly yellow and bright like he told me would best represent me. My character had two triangular ears poking upward like that of a husky, and one of them was decorated in a bright pink tulip. The hair was pulled back in pigtails that I haven't worn since I was a child, but that I felt a sense of connection to when I saw it, as if it brought up every bit of positive nostalgia in my past. Right then, I decided to agree with him. He was right about Aiden, so he was more likely to be right about me anyway, right?

I guess everyday we get to know ourselves better.

"Tsk. Did you study psychology and not film?" I joked to no one besides myself, but as if he were three feet in front of me, and close enough to hear it. I found high spirits that I hadn't had to this level for what felt like years. Most of my memories felt like they were made in this hospital for as long as I've been here, and I forgot I had a life outside of it. Those moments seemed like they almost, in a way, seen through someone else's eyes.

I don't know if I can say if those high spirits subsided as fast as it came, or if it elevated as fast as it came, but something happened -- that was for sure.

My longing for the past came back to me as I went through more of his cutesy drawings.

There was the time Aiden tripped and hurt his foot while we were walking down the beach, the time that he came over to my house to play guitar and to sing in the most wildest of keys, and there were the times that we went out for trips to the mall when our pockets were totally empty of money and the most we could do was window-shop and smell the food being made at the stands from a distance, like stray dogs. Then there were the million times we didn't necessarily have to go out to make our time with one another special -- when we were happy doing nothing besides bingeing Pulseless Heart, eating popcorn, and hiding out in blanket forts, acting far younger than we were.

We were contented in our silences. When we were in the other's presence, we felt full. We felt like we had everything we needed, and now here we were, him having already said goodbye to the world, and me coming up right behind him. No one could've known.

We had good times together like anyone would deserve to have with their best friend. I was fortunate to have him part of my life. Honestly, I don't know where I would've ended up if we never met.

And now, those memories were illustrated in front of me with oil pastels, with a blob of blue and a blob of yellow side by side like we once were. I felt at home again, peering into those. I'd appreciate them for the rest of my life, even if there wasn't much left of it. I wanted to keep them my little special secret for as long as they could remain that way, before the whole world would be able to see them.

I know what Jewee had done for me was for business. We were work partners, whether we looked at each other that way or not, until we got done with this project.

But still, what he's done was the most romantic thing anyone's ever done for me.

Call me easy to please. I call it in awe of the effort, and this was beyond my expectations.