Please don’t be gone.

You taught me how to be a friend, how to be a person.
I was an outsider and you gave me a key.
Please don’t be gone.

Two summers ago, when we started experimenting to be cool teens that did cool things, I never saw this outcome. I didn’t see your sad eyes sinking to the bottom of a bottle of vodka we hungrily drank. I didn’t see the amount of debt you’d fall into packed into the bowl we lit. I didn’t see your nervous sister’s many texts etched into the pills we swallowed gleefully. I would have never done all the things we tried that summer while laughing if I had known your soul would escape with the smoke of our first cigarettes.
I think back to that night when we watched Sundance films by the pool and you rested your head on my shoulder and I wonder how I didn't feel it starting. I just remember feeling so deliriously happy. Too deliriously happy. I remember deciding this was coming up from rock bottom.
I told myself I would never turn around even if I had walked in a full circle. I turn around now and see that I had never even moved from the start line.
Please don’t be gone.

We took a bike ride once to a little strip-mall by my house. We stole drugstore makeup and celebrated by drinking brand-named coffee. On the way back, we went down a hill and your bike got caught in a fallen phone-line. I turned around and caught you loosen your grip. Your hands went up- a surrender against nature. You hit the ground and your knees turned red. They were embedded with bits of dirt and metal. I got you home and poured hydrogen peroxide on your wounds, while you painted your nails black. The wounds were too deep: They never healed right.
Please don’t be gone.

Once we skyped for four hours. You told me jokes and stories, and I told jokes and stories. The next day, you told me nothing you had said the night before was true; you said you could rarely speak the truth in a household of spies.
Please don’t be gone.

One Christmas, you came over and we celebrated our birthdays together even though neither of us had a winter birthday. I blew out the candle and wished for nothing to change. You licked two fingers and snuffed your candle out.
You didn’t even wince.
Please don’t be gone.

Do you remember the night we stood in the CVS parking lot, way after rush-hour, and talked about our purpose? We lit cigarettes and blew out smoke that turned red when it hit the neon-lights. I was happy and you were waiting for all the Xanax to hit.
Maybe things never got bad for me because I never set expectations. You were always waiting for your dad to pull his act together or for your sister to care or for your mom to cut you some slack. If you had looked closer you would’ve seen them all struggling to give you the world the way they knew how: secretly.
Please don’t be gone.

I wrote a short story and showed it to you. It was the first real story I had ever written. I re-read it 56 times before sending it to you. You printed it out and put it in your binder. You told me you put it there so you could read it every morning. You told me you were proud of me and I felt it.
Please don’t be gone.

How is your dad? Has he talked at all to you since he went to prison?
I know part of you will always be a his little girl but when you told me about him trapping you into a corner and pummeling you into the ground, bruising your pale skin, I have never been so mad. We sat on that tree stump, while you passed your fears to me in the form of tear-drops, and I thought of four different ways I would hurt him. That was when I started to understand every bad choice you had ever made.
Please don’t be gone.

You got so high once that you slept with someone  You found out the next day in class from a friend. When you told me, I laughed because I couldn’t process the idea my best friend being used. If I had known you were disgusted, not proud, I would have taken the first train to your house but I never understood when it was okay for me to care.
Please don’t be gone.

The night we went skinny dipping, we were invincible. We floated in shallow waters and painted our bodies yellow under the moving pool lights. Everything I felt seemed right for the first time in a long time.
Please don’t be gone.

On your fifteenth birthday, you spent forty minutes on your phone replying to Facebook posts. You smiled at me and told me no one had ever cared about you until you started high school. You told me before you got popular from doing all the stuff you did, you had maybe one or two people write on your wall saying “Happy Birthday”. This year, you got over 100 posts filled with inside jokes and wink faces. You didn’t stop smiling for the whole day because people finally cared about you.
Please don’t be gone.

On my sweet sixteen you sent me an email. I smiled imagining the all-caps, rainbow colors, and bold font you used to write out HAPPY BIRTHDAY. Instead, you emailed me asking me to make all the sharp knives disappear. I didn't even have enough tissues to make the floor white again.
Please don’t be gone.

Weed was your happy place.
It scared me that the best I ever felt was at 2 a.m. getting high with you. It was the purest form of nirvana I have ever reached. I thought weed would become my happy place too, but I saw the way it added years to your shoulders and scrubbed away your smile and soon became wary of the green monster. He moved around the gears in your head until no human experience was good enough for you. You hit the point of no return before I realized you had walked out the door.
Please don’t be gone.

This past summer, you called me from a stranger's phone asking if it was inconvenient to stay at my house for a week or more. I thought of the walk we had taken a couple days before where you showed me the bench you slept on from hours to days when you dad was having a rough time. I said of course come over, stay as long as you need. Within an hour, your sister called and told me you left a note about killing yourself because everything- no, everyone- was too much for you. I waited for your train to pull in at 2:51 a.m. so I could keep you safe but I fell asleep and you never called back.
Please don’t be gone.

It has been four months and twenty-seven days since we’ve spoken. I want to help you but I don’t know how to start. I found out from a friend that you spent five weeks in rehab. I am so sorry I continue to miss everything I’m supposed to catch, everything that could save you. I miss you but I’m scared to discover a restless body searching for its soul. I don’t want to find you starving for life and I don’t want to find you not missing me at all. I’m terrified but I’ll send this email because that’s what friends are for. I may never get you back but I will always have your back.
Please don’t be gone.