the fireworks are for you, my friend

no one’s talked in the server since. not really.
I think we’re still trying to work through it.
I think we’ll always be trying to work through it.
when anya sent the message that you were gone, I was walking around the pool at Mo’s 4th of July party,
looking for a dog to pet or a corner to hide in so I could read my book in peace.
I remember thinking she meant that you got into some stupidly hilarious accident in a rip off version of
GTA V, because what else would explain her words on the screen, telling us you were dead.
that a car swerved, that your mom couldn’t dodge it, that your nine-year-old sister was on the
passenger’s side in the backseat, that she watched it all happen before her world went black:
the screams, the blood, a hand desperately reaching for the phone on the dashboard to call 911, your
tears trailing your cheek because you couldn’t protect her, that you couldn’t even reach her because
your right arm was trapped, your left arm was severed.
you told us how excited you were to see your grandparents, how this was the final 4 hour drive you’d be
making to their house before they finally moved in with you guys. well, I think you might’ve taken ‘final
drive’ too literally. I know you would’ve laughed at that morbid-ass joke.
we’re all trying to move past it, I think. maybe move past this part of our lives, this friend group, because
I guess it just doesn’t work without you. maybe you were our operating system, and now that you’re
gone, we realized we have no use together, no purpose, not anymore.
or maybe it’s that we’re afraid to move on. that if we all started talking again, the view of your darkened
icon, leaving our call unanswered in the discord server would mean it was all true. that’d we would
never be able to talk to you again, that we would never have the same, sleep-deprived conversations at
3 am about the best type of cookie, or the proper way to make cereal.
Milk first. Then the cereal. Fight me. please fight me again. please just start a random call with no intent,
no purpose, just a call because we’re friends and we’ll always be friends and because you aren’t really
gone and because you were just in an unplugged phase and because you realized that phase was dumb
because there’s no way you could go half a year without talking to us.
because there’s no way any of us could go this long without talking to you.
without hearing your idiotic, non-sequitur remarks, or your random factoids about deep sea fish that
somehow found a way to turn an awkward moment into even more awkwardness.
the last message in the server is from anya, telling us that your sister died in the ICU, that her heart
stopped pumping blood to the rest of her body, that your and your mom’s funeral was being postponed
so that all three of you could be buried together. none of us replied. we all saw the message I’m sure,
but it was so much easier to pretend we didn’t. that it didn’t exist, because then we could pretend that
you still did.

as updates continued to flood in from anya that fatal night,
the fireworks, signifying the birth of our nation were set into the sky, exploding with pride, the small bits
of fading colors sinking back behind the trees as we stared in awe.
no one talked for weeks, not until anya sent the message about your sister. even then, we didn’t really
talk. we all sent a message or two, but I think that it was only to try to push anya’s message far up
enough that it wouldn’t be the first thing we saw when we opened the server chats to see if anyone was
online, to see if we weren’t alone, to make sure that this was all real.
we’ll never stop missing you, so don’t let your mild god complex worry. I thought you’d get a kick out of
that stupid insult too. I don’t think we could stop missing you even if we tried, even if we wanted to.
I know because there have been times where I’ve wanted to.
to forget everything about you because it’s so much easier than remembering every good memory,
easier than thinking about all the memories that will never be made. but your crooked smile always
finds its way into my mind when my tears create a lake in my pillow.
next year, when they set off the fireworks, when anya and I go to visit your name carved in marble,
know that we won’t forget. that no matter what happens, no matter how many years go by, no matter
how old we are, we won’t forget.
your 5th grade username that you never figured out how to change won’t be forgotten by us. though I’m
sure you’d probably like us to. your rants about why The Outsiders is a literary masterpiece, and how
every other novel is a failure in its shadow still ricochet in my mind when I open a book. your hazel eyes
and crooked smile, created by your blue and pink braces will not be an image to fade from our minds.
you brought a radiance into our lives like none other. thank you for that.
Stay Golden, my friend.
you’ll forever be missed.

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