Submission 221
Dear L,
It will have been 6 years since you left in December. That’s crazy, isn’t it? 6 years is a really long time, or at least to me it is.
I don’t really speak about you to other people. But I wish I could. I miss you so, so much and a day doesn’t go by where I don’t think of you or say a prayer for you. We only knew each other for a couple of years but I loved every second of our friendship. And if given the chance I would speak about all of the bits of you that I miss. So that’s what I’m going to do now. Don’t cringe too hard!! Haha.
I miss your smile the most. It’s clichéd, I know, but I’m being honest. You grinned like a Cheshire Cat and it was delightfully infectious. I miss your long brown hair, and the smell of the rubbish body sprays you used to get from Superdrug. I miss borrowing your art supplies because I’d forgotten to bring mine. I miss our horrible attempts at karaoke nights where we’d try and parody our favourite MCR songs. I miss our late night talks that would last until the early hours of the morning. I miss seeing random photos of whatever you’d made yourself for dinner and I miss sending random messages to you. I miss our bad fashion taste and weird interests that we’d probably both cringe at now if you were still around. I miss making up stories with you when life felt like too much.
We were only 12 when you left. In year 8 at school. I volunteered with the year 8s at school recently and they all seemed so small to me now I’m 18. And it pains me to know how much life was hurting the both of us at that age. I think that’s why we spent so much time together. We just kind of… got it. Life was awful. But we had our whole lives planned out for when we got older, remember? You were going to go to art school and I was going to go to Oxford to study the classics, also probably with art. And then we were going to move in together by the sea with all our art supplies and our two dogs and live happily ever after.
But that’s not what happened.
I’ll never forget the text I got from you. And I’m sorry I was so stupid. I should have rang an ambulance straight away but I was petrified and not thinking clearly. I still blame myself a bit, because if I had called emergency services as soon as I got that text from you, your fate may have been different. There was so much light and life in you, your future was so promising and you left far too soon. I mean. You were 12. That’s not even a teenager. We were going to have a joint 13th birthday party in March, it was going to be Steven Universe-themed. We were going to go travelling together. We were going to make life our own. There was so much left to do.
But I’m not angry at you. You really must know that. No one is angry at you, love. I pinky promise. I lost contact with the people that knew you when I moved towns but people missed you dearly. Even your dog missed you - he sat by your bed for days on end, waiting for you to come home. Your family miss you too, I’m sure; I didn’t speak to them much, but I will never forget the utter heartbreak in your mother’s voice when she told me that you’d gone. We didn’t go to the same school, but you were missed there. Especially in English class, so I was told!
I wrote letters to you daily for 4 years, until I fell ill. I could barely bring myself to get out of bed so I stopped writing. When I went to hospital a nurse told me it probably wasn’t good to hold onto you. But I wanted to write you one last letter. We both need it.
As for me (cause I know you’d ask), I’m making life my own. Like we said we’d do together. I got baptised and confirmed at Church when I turned 16 and I write lots of music, like I said I would. I’m going to do Physics at university and then I want to study Theology afterwards. I go running a lot and I also go to the gym. I’ve discovered I like hiking and that I have quite a knack for identifying birds by their songs. I have a somewhat rubbish but very fun part time job like every other 18 year old student has. Oh yeah, about that. I’m an adult now. I made it! Woo! It hurts to not be able to say that WE made it. It’s not the same without you. But just know that as I go on I’ll always carry some part of you with me. Even if it’s just listening to our favourite P!ATD album or visiting an HMV once in a while. I miss you, L. And I love you. I always will.
-Wiki