Dear Duane,

Dear Duane,

I’m sorry I disappeared. I didn’t mean to, my mom banned me from ever seeing you again. She said you stole something, and that you liked to light things on fire. I never heard what exactly you did, but it didn’t matter to me. You were my best friend and I already knew you liked fire, it was your element like water was mine. We balanced each other out, and I knew you weren’t dangerous. I never believed you stole something, I knew your character and you were a good person.

I’m sorry I didn’t invite you over to do the science fair project with Parker and me. I honestly thought my parents had to know yours in order for you to come over. I missed you while we made our baking soda and vinegar volcano, it wasn’t fun with just him and the entire time I was wishing you were there.

I’m sorry I wasn’t in your ‘company’ when we did mock stores in sixth grade. I didn’t want to make popsicle stick forts because I knew no one would want to buy them. And I’m sorry I didn’t buy one, I knew I could make a better one at home. I wish I would have bought one if only to support you. I didn’t end up buying anything at the mock stores anyway the entire week we did them. Not even one of those cool braided bracelets Jessica made.

I bought you a friendship bracelet at ninth grade Lagoon day. It’s still in my drawer in my childhood bedroom. It’s red like fire, and mine’s blue like water, but they have the same pattern braided down the center.

I wish we could have kept in touch. I miss all those recesses when it was just us in our imaginary world running from the faceless evil and surviving on our own. I miss how it felt like just the two of us on the playground even though we were surrounded by the rest of the school. I miss how seamlessly we could connect our imagination to weave stories that both of us saw in our mind’s eye. I miss whispering during class as we planned out the lore to our world. I kept it all, every scrap of paper we wrote on is tucked away in my sixth-grade binder hidden in the back of my closet. I tried to continue it without you, I tried to have my little brother stand in your place, but it just wasn’t the same. He wasn’t you. I could always trust you to be at my side, guarding my back as I did yours, and protecting each other from the evil darkness around us. I never had to look because I always knew you were there.

You were the first person to apologize to me when you accidentally hurt my feelings. No one had ever done that before, not my brothers, not my parents, no one. I never forgot that as we waited in our class line one morning behind the school on the hill leading up to the back doors. I’d asked you why your teeth were so much whiter than mine, and as you explained how you brushed your teeth every night, I became frustrated because it was exactly the same thing I did, but it seemed it didn’t work the same for me. I’d stormed off a few steps away by the vine-covered fence, and you came trailing after me apologizing even though you’d done nothing wrong. You cared more about my feelings than you did about who was right and who was wrong.

I missed you. I know we tried to stay in touch, but both times you called I couldn’t talk. Once you called while my father was having a meeting in the living room just outside my door, and the other I was in the car with my family. I wished you would have called again because I lost your number when my phone broke, but I don’t think you ever did. I tried everything I could think of to salvage my broken phone because your number was in there. That was my last connection to you. It was like losing you all over again. My new school without you was purgatory, a grey nothingness. I knew no one, but most of all I knew you weren’t there.

I hope you forgot me. The absence I felt I wouldn’t wish on anyone, least of all you. I hope you found new friends like I couldn’t. I hope you made new worlds, ones that I wouldn’t haunt like the way you haunt me. Sometimes it still hurts. Sometimes I remember what it was like when you were still here, and I remember just how much I lost.

Sincerely,

Makenzie