I had a dream about you last night.
We were in school again, this time in college and everything about you was different; you had dyed your waist-length hair blue and had taken on a careless persona, said you were an Instagram influencer now.
But I saw through everything and persevered — we became friends again. We became inseparable again.
It just reminded me how much I miss you.
I know it’s weird that I do. We were friends for one year in high school before going our separate ways because I was dead-set on Running Start and you… weren’t, I guess. You probably stayed in school, did well on your assignments, graduated, and went to college like your parents expected you to.
That’s the thing, though. Did your parents expect anything from you? I always assumed they did from the way you talked about them which was little to not at all. I assumed a lot of things about you from the way you talked about yourself, which was little to not at all. I assumed you were hurt somewhere underneath the jokes and the K-pop and I wanted to help you.
I never got the chance.
It turns out Running Start isn’t all that great. At least not when you don’t put your heart and soul into it. I didn’t. I failed. I got my G.E.D. I often wonder if I had stayed in high school whether or not I would have graduated. But mostly whether or not I would have been better friends with you, and thus more motivated to stay in school rather than sit in the library and draw Pokémon all day, like I did in college.
I’ve had other friend-flings in the past that lasted a year or two and then fizzled out, but the difference is we’re still connected one way or another, and the problem I keep coming back to with you in particular is that I don’t even know if you’re even alive anymore. You could have died and I would have no idea. Nobody would have known to tell me, I wouldn’t have known to attend your funeral, and so now I’m stuck in this limbo of half-grief, of possible grief, where I’m grieving the person I could have known better and didn’t.
I thought I knew you, but I probably really didn’t.
If you’re out there, I do really want to be friends with you again. I have the heart of an elephant that never forgets.
I miss you.