I still have the mechanical pencil that you let me borrow for my physics test in grade 10. It’s been in my pencil case ever since. 11 years. It has been, and will forever remain, in my care. It reminds me of you every day. I’ve never even thought about getting rid of it. It’s as much a part of me as you are.

I think you were one of the greatest loves of my life. When you stopped coming to school, I left. There was no point in being there without you. Your friendship was my golden thread out of the darkness that arose from my father’s death. I’m not sure how I ever could have made it, could have survived it, without you.

You were always almost ethereal to me. Of this world, and yet not. You were the brightest, shining star in my sky, and so out of reach. You were a light I could hold, gently, in my open palms, but never grab. Sometimes I felt like I dreamed you. If it weren’t for the pictures of us that remain, and will forever remain, on my phone, I would not be sure that you ever existed in the first place.

There is a song that I listen to that reminds me of you. Cigarettes & Saints by The Wonder Years. In the song, the writer misses his friend to a devastating degree. I have been sure some days that only the writer could truly understand what it felt like for me when you disappeared. Although while he lit candles for his friend “in every cathedral across Europe”, I’d light candles for you in my mind. I kept your memory alight in my thoughts and carried your flame with me in every season of my life that has passed without you in it. You always were my patron saint, and I was always your most faithful worshipper. There’s one line in the song that devastates me more than the others. “You were heat lightning. You were a storm that never rolled in. You were the northern lights in a southern town, a caustic, fleeting thing.”  I never buried our memories. I never will. I’ll keep you with me. Always.

I went to a new school after you abandoned our old one.. and me. They knew of you at the new school. I heard one of your old childhood friends talking about you. Disparagingly. I was furious. How could they speak of you so callously? I should have said something, but I didn’t. I didn’t defend you. I failed to protect you. I didn’t show up for you that day. I should have, and I’m sorry.

I went off to university, and a couple of years had gone by since I’d heard from you. I reached out a few times, often with no reply. I hope I was never a nuisance to you. When we reconnected for that year, playing Minecraft together, going skating, the glow in the dark mini golf with your partner, the Nico and the Niners tour… I had no idea that those would be the last days I had with you.  I have texted you since, to no reply. I think I forgot to wish you a happy birthday this year.

I saw your steam account had been online after 3 years. I reached out to you to play. No reply. I’ve not been disappointed or surprised at your not replying in years. I’ve gotten used to it. I don’t think I will ever hear from you again, but that will not stop me from throwing down the rope ladder to my castle. I cannot bring myself to delete your name or your number from my phone. The teenage me still loves the teenage you. I fear that I always will.

I know that you will never reply. There will come a day in the future when I will come to accept that you are gone. I will mourn you like the writer in Cigarettes & Saints. I will delete our photos and your contact in my phone. But I will never throw out that old, ugly pencil.

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Update: Shortly after writing this, I texted you that I missed you and was thinking about you. You replied to me today. We are going to hang out tomorrow. I feel like I’m regaining a piece of me that I had lost.

Update 2: We have been talking and playing together for the past few days. My heart is so full. You know me like no other person. I missed you so much, my friend. I am happy that you are here again. I will cherish all of our time together as if it is the last.