This is to my best friend. 

I am sorry I couldn’t be a better friend.

I miss you endlessly.

It’s hard having a family as large as mine. A bunch of little brown kids running around. Sometimes it feels like I get lost in the background. There is always something going on. The attention is always everywhere but me because I am expected to be this great little thing. They want me to be perfect all of the time. They want me to show them that I am good every second of the day, because if I am upset the whole world must be ending. So I am as upbeat as I possibly can be. When I was younger I would seek attention by being loud. I would talk to anyone and everyone, and if I wasn’t getting it, I would just entertain myself in some kind of way. 

We moved around a bit during my elementary and middle school years. I think when you move there is always at least one person you remember. Maybe they were a friend. Maybe you just noticed the way they held themselves, but there was always someone. The first person I was ever sad about leaving was a girl named Isa. We went to the same school from kindergarten to second grade. She was my very first best friend. She had long black wavy hair, she wore pink glasses, and had the prettiest eyes. One day during recess she asked me if I wanted to play a game. 

“Moonieeeeee, wanna play a game?” She would always drag out the end of my name. “Uh yeah sure, what game is it?” I replied. 

She looked me directly in my eye. “It’s called aggravation.” 

“Okay, yeah, how do I play?” 

She went on to show me how to play. It was like a dragged out, more violent version of patty cake. We had been inseparable all the way up until I had to move away. This made me very sad. I still think about her and our game. She was the first taste of friendship I had. She set the bar. Though I was little and the bar wasn’t too high, she was the example. When I moved, it wasn't that big of a change in setting. We moved from small town to small town. Though the people in each town differed. They were all very different in some ways. 

I became friends with the sweetest boy ever. He was the second person I was ever sad about leaving. His name was Kymani, but I always just called him Moni. He was taller than me by a whole head. He was dark, funny, and when I say the sweetest, I mean the sweetest boy you will ever meet. He was very quiet unless you really knew him, and had the most precious smile. We had an endless game of tag that started a few weeks after I moved there. It went on forever, and it didn’t matter where we were.

 “Hi, I am Moonie. What's your name?” I was always better at talking to people so I approached him first.

 “Oh hi,” he replied. “I am Kymani, it is nice to meet you Moonie.” It had been a couple weeks later. 

 “Hey Moniii, do you like tag?” I asked him. We were still really little, it was only third grade, so of course I still wanted to play tag.

 “Yeah, I like tag. Why do you ask?” 

I walked behind him. As I was at his back, he didn’t turn around. I knew he was faster than me. That had already been proven. I took this chance, lightly tapped his back with my pointer finger, whispered tag, and bolted as fast as I could. I turned around and I couldn’t see him. I didn’t realize he sprinted after me right when I turned around. He was running beside me. 

“You think you’re fast, Moon? Watch this.” He tagged me and started running faster. I had to move away at the end of fourth grade. 

I hadn’t really been bullied up until this point. My siblings would say mean things but isn’t that what being siblings is all about? My friends at my old schools loved me the way I loved them. I haven’t felt that kind of love in a while. When we moved again it was different. The kids were lighter than me. They talked a little differently than the ones at my old school. They had different humor, and held themselves up differently. I always looked differently than everyone at my other schools but definitely not this different. I didn’t make friends as quickly here as I did at the other schools, but I ended up making some pretty good ones along the way. 

In eighth grade I met the third person I was ever scared of losing. I am one year older than him but we are two grades apart. We became good friends very quickly. While in P.E, he made his way up to me. “They said we are supposed to be partnered up for this.” 

“Oh okay,” I replied, “I am Moonie, it is nice to meet you. What's your name?” He looked at me, but I couldn’t read his facial expression properly. 

“Oh yeah, sorry. My name is Makkari.” It had been a few years later and we were both in highschool. 

Over this time becoming friends and getting to know Makkari I realized he is a very soft person, he just doesn’t like to show it. He is very vulnerable and in touch with his feelings. He has short black hair, he stands at about six foot, and is like a little ball of sunshine walking around. When he is around you can’t help but feel good. He makes rooms brighter. I think I might have fallen for him a little bit – or a lot – but I always pushed the feeling aside so it didn’t matter all that much. Our friendship became way too valuable to me to risk it over a little crush. 

“Hey Moonie, wanna call later? I got somethings to tell youuuu!” He was always very excited to tell me things. We told each other everything. 

“Yeah, duh. Let me just shower first and I’ll call you,” I said in return. 

“Okay, Perfectttt.” 

It had been about an hour later and it was about 9 o’clock at night. I got distracted and he said he would be occupied with YouTube like the little kid he is and to call him anyways. That is exactly what I did. He picked up after the first ring. We never failed to answer each other quickly. 

“Hey, sorry. I got distracted. I didn’t mean to take so long.” 

“It’s okay. There was no rush.” 

“Okay, well what was it you wanted to tell me?” 

“Okay, don’t be mad.” 

“Then don’t say anything dumb.”

“Moonie, seriously.”

“Okay, okay, what is it?”

“I am moving.” 

“What bro? Haha so funny, nice joke. What did you need to tell me?” 

“Moonie, I am serious.”

We had been friends for so long now that it was first nature to know how he was feeling based on his facial expressions and the tone of his voice. This might not seem like much but he is really good at masking when he feels anything negative. This time was different. I could usually sense when he was just joking around, but his voice was too monotone for me to decipher the seriousness of the situation. 

“Okay well then just take me with you, because I hate it here anyways, and you’re my best friend, Why would I want to be away from you?” He went silent for a little too long. How he usually does when he is making a joke and trying hard not to laugh. I heard a little giggle from the other side of the phone. I was yelling at him for scaring me but my face also grew a look of relief. One that even he hasn’t seen. 

 I had a friend once. He was my best friend. He accepted all parts of me. He didn’t just enjoy me because of the good moments, but the bad ones too. Every bad thing in my head ever was soothed by him. He never made me feel as though I was too much or too little. He made me feel right. He made me feel safe. That is hard to find within a male friend. He let me be myself wholeheartedly. I did the same for him. We were each other's breath of fresh air. The one you long for after holding it in for so long. The one that comes right before your head feels like it’s going to explode. We are no longer friends. I have yet to come to terms with this

It’s a little weird, you know. When you become so connected with someone you can feel them within you. You don’t only feel your emotions but theirs as well, and it never matters how far apart you are. When you become so attached to someone and they become attached to you it’s hard to remember how anything was before them. They become a part of you as a whole.  

That is a feeling I still don’t understand, and one I still can not let go of. I do not know how. It is even worse when for so long you had to convince everyone around you guys that you aren’t in love with him. Yes, love. Yes, it is a strong word. Yes, I mean it, but he had a girlfriend at the time who treated him poorly and I was in this weird relationship that only left me with empty promises. Our significant others both didn’t like us. We couldn’t really figure out why. We did everything we could for them. We stopped talking. Avoided each other online. Didn’t even look at each other for a while. Those two were never satisfied. 

I got out of that situation I was in, and so did he a week or two later. We had missed each other because we weren’t allowed to see each other so we decided to go to a baseball game. My little sister had to tag along for a little while. Makkari looked at me. Very intently, and in a very sweet and gentle voice he said, “Moonie.” 

“Yeah, what's up?”

“We are all gonna go smoke really quickly. Do you wanna come?” Still soft as ever. This made my voice automatically soften to match his. 

“You know I would, Kari, but I don’t want to leave my little sister here or bring her all the way over there. Go ahead. I'll be here when you get back.”

“Are you sure?” He always had to make sure I was okay before he left me. 

“Yeah, yeah, go ahead. I’ll be right here.” 

When he came back, he had this new energy to him. I knew he had started smoking but I had never seen him high before. We were kids together and he was always scolding me for it. Never really expected him to try it, but teenagers will be teenagers. When he got back his eyes were low and glossy. I don’t think I ever realized how gorgeous his eyes were till that moment. He looked so pretty sitting there. He looked so good sitting with me. So close. There was never any space between us. It was like when we were together we had to be as close as we could get and sometimes that didn’t feel like enough. Althroughout the game we had kept looking at each other, but it was different this time. Everything was different. 

This isn’t a story where we pine after each other and after all the great failures and the hit and miss we finally got together and stayed together. This story ends just how it started. I had a friend – best friend – and I am a firm believer that people stick with you. I am a firm believer that he is stuck with me. I had always told him he had a weird way of staying with me. I wasn’t lying. I was being utterly truthful, and sometimes that hurts. 

I had a friend. A best friend. I loved him greatly. I still love him. We are no longer friends, and I miss him endlessly. When you love and lose someone like that it’s hard to go back to whatever you were before. I think missing someone is one of the most human things you could do. I mean really, you love someone enough to miss them when they are away, enough to think of them even when you are not reminded of them. We meet people. We learn about people. We choose to love people. They choose to love us. Something happens and they leave, or we must leave, or they die, or it's our time to pass, or maybe it just wasn’t meant to be anymore, and there is nothing you can do about anything. All you can do is hurt. Grieve. You go about the rest of your time on this earth without them. Pretending they are still there or pretending they never existed in the first place. Both a struggle in their own way. 

I am sorry I couldn’t be a better friend. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me. I forgave you for the way you treated me. I didn’t deserve what you did in the end. I deserve an explanation. You made me feel like our relationship was worth nothing when we both know it was everything. I want to know why, but I don’t really think it’ll help me find closure. I’ll find it within myself. Thank you for everything.