A Letter to You

When I was in third grade there were exactly 14 kids in my class. One of them was the new girl, the talk of the entire third grade. She was different from the rest of us, most of who had never managed to even leave the state. There were space camp stickers on her binder and she wore glasses and overalls with her hair in an untamed poof on her head. But it was her smile that I noticed first, a smile that could charm the daylights out of anyone.

We became fast friends, the outcast weirdos. When the more popular girls would have their sleepovers we had our own, and I suspect to this day we had much more fun. As we grew up I became more reserved and more aware of my presence in the world. But her, she was a fearless entity that most of our peers didn't understand.

There were friends who would try to change her, baring no ill-will, to get her to straighten her hair, wear clothes more fitting for a beautiful girl such as her self. But she never listened and I was enamored by her eccentricities.

When high school hit, things changed. She smiled less and less, taking on a different attitude. She wrote poetry that would worry me now, although then I just thought she was trying to be edgy. We found different interests. I dated a few people and she resisted all potential suitors, blushing when anyone suggested she date. We drifted slowly apart, although we never really stopped being friends.

Sophomore year, my parents got a much needed divorce and I ended up spending much of my time at her house. My mom and sister sayed at my aunts, but I felt weird there, creeped out by the man my aunt was married to at the time. When my friend found out, she insisted I stay there as frequently as possible. We were close again, if only for a few months until my mom found a house.

Then summer between junior and senior year, for no particular reason at all, it was as though we had never been closer. We played with her oujia board next to the grave yard near her house. We road the shuttle launch 48 times in a row, trying to break the record. We went camping a dozen times over the summer. She talked me into going golf cart drifting with these two cute boys and when it was over and the sun was down she snuck off with one of them into the woods.

She came back with the biggest grin on her face, her cheeks a deep shade of crimson as she told me she got her first kiss. As summer ended she got a new job. She started straightening her hair and started going to parties like the cool kids. I accepted the change, happy that she seemed happy, even if it left me in the dust. She changed in some way, taking on a hatefulness I hadn't seen in her before.

Over Christmas break we made up and slowly but surely started on the path to becoming friends again. She was different now, but I still loved her, even when she put me down. Especially when she apologized for it. I could tell there was something inside her hurting although I would never know what.

On February 9th it rained. Then the rain turned to sleet and the sleet turned to snow. They let school out early, hoping to get the bus kids home before it was too slick to get up the country roads. That morning she had gotten to school an hour early, reading her clock wrong and thinking she was late.

She called and left a voicemail for her dad, telling him she had accidentally left her work uniform. But since school got out early she had time to run home and get herself.

At approximately 1:30 pm a semi hit her car head on. Between her habit of texting while behind the wheel, the sleet on the roads, and her apparent depression, I will never know exactly why she was in the wrong lane.

When I got the news I ran out into what had turned into rain once again and screamed into the sky. We buried her on Valentine's day, and her parents requested everyone wear red for the occasion. As we walked into the building, the chorus to Just Dance by Lady Gaga, one of her favorites, played on repeat. After all these years I still break down when I hear it. It's funny what grief will do.

I've written my entire life. I remember writing books when I was seven years old. I've written about everything in my life except her. I've never found it in myself to write about her. Every attempt I've made has ended in a single sentence. It's always been too over exaggerated or not enough or just in the wrong tone.

But today I saw a post on facebook that made me think of you. A lot of things make me think of you. Every time I see your dad, he still wears the cheapy choker you bought that summer and refused to take off. Some days still I can't take the road to your hometown with the cross on it out of fear that your song will start playing on the radio as it did every time I drove by for the first year.

This is my attempt at writing about you, at talking about you.

I hope I did you justice. I love you and miss you still.