| Dear Rico,
This is my second try at writing you something. I miss your hair. And the one time you were laying on the sidewalk sleeping, and how I thought you were faking it. All the phone calls. The continuous, eventually annoying phone calls. The ones I wish I could still get from you, a thousand times a day even... if it would have kept you alive. The Girl Next Door, your 50 cent lap dance from Kevin that last night before it all happened. You know I feel like you're following me around whenever it's dark, with that evil look on your face. I can hear you talking though, telling me it's not you. And my dream, where you told me the same thing. It looks like you... but it's not. I know that now. I thought I knew that at your funeral. But I didn't, not really. Your obsession over me. The secret I'll keep until the day I die that you told your friend to share with me if anything happened to you. You knew it would, didn't you? You sure as hell acted like it. With everyone, we all saw the clues after everything was over. Taking the hint when it was too late. And I hate how no one can be blamed, not really. I can blame Alex, I'm sure a lot of people still do despite what they may say about him. Saying they're praying for him while secretly damning him to hell. I did that once, then realized that you had forgiven him. And that if you could, you of all people, for what he did, then so could I. Iris is moving away. It's different from dying, of course, but she'll be gone too. There won't be any t-shirts, dedicated gardens, or hankerchiefs hanging out of anyone's pockets when she's gone. Just her voice on the phone. I have your picture on my necklace. Everyone looks at it and tell me how cute it is. Know what I tell them? That I wish it wasn't there. If it wasn't there, you'd still be here. And my grades wouldn't be in the shit hole. And my life wouldn't be such a mess. And we could still watch The Punisher together since I whined the night before the accident about how I was done watching movies since we had just finished watching The Girl Next Door. Our long talks just standing outside of my house. You almost got into my room, but I was smart enough to keep you out. I regret it too, in a way, but I'm also kind of thankful for it. If I had let you in, you'd haunt my room too, and that would truly drive me insane. Having memories of you in the one place I feel safe. I still should have let you in though. You weren't going to do anything anyway, just check out how chill it was. I'm sure you know what it looks like now, since you're everywhere now anyway. Everywhere and in one place all at the same time. You could have fallen a thousand different ways and still be here to talk about it today. Why did you do such a stupid thing? WHY. You were never like that. You never did stupid things, at least not that stupid. And you weren't drunk or on any drugs, I know you weren't like that. I knew they wouldn't find anything in your system even before they did the tests. And you didn't have anything... nothing. Just the influence of the adrenaline running through your veins. It was just a joy ride, wasn't it? Fun. That's all it was supposed to be. Does this look like fun to you, Rico? Is this your definition of fun? God damnit, how can I be mad at you. Look what happened as the result of your decision. I'm sorry. For everything I'm not responsible for. For picking up my phone 40 minutes before it happened, talking to you and brushing you off, thinking I could just talk to you later, some other day when I really felt like it. Well, I really feel like it now. Now that you can't call. I'm driving myself insane. You've seen what I'm doing to myself, I'm sure. Carrying around the Blink-182 shirt, deciphering the page-long year book message you wrote me and in return I gave the page-long message in your yearbook back halfway through summer. You just kept asking for it over and over and over. I finally got it done though. I don't really think it meant much though. Just some friendly exchanged of the good times we've had, and some of the bad. Like how I could never understand you when I would talk to you online. So we'd have this big misunderstanding because you'd mean one thing and I'd think you meant another and then everything would eventually blow over but not without regrets of having the fight in the first place. You never really made sense. For a long time you were just Rico, the boy who really really really really insanely liked me. Me walking in on you telling Joey to "STOP FLIRTING WITH HER, DUDE!", and him going out with me. I didn't even stop to realize how much that must have hurt you. That's one thing I can responsibly be sorry for. But I don't think there's really time for any sorries anymore. Sorry won't bring you back, like they always say in the movies. For once, those actors were right. This letter won't bring you back. It's more like a thick mess of words tied together, related because of the subject being elaborated on- you. You, you, you. You whose parents I never met and still haven't met. Your mom smiling at me after I spoke at your memorial. I know I touched a lot of people, because I did it for you. Brett did it for you too. So did Ben and Schneer. We all did. I can't believe you're really gone. And the idea that if I was somone else and I read this letter from some friend to a dead boy, I'd think what I just said was the stupidest, corniest thing I've ever heard. Because it probably is. But that doesn't keep it from being true. I want to write to you like this all the time, but I feel like if I do that, and I end up with nothing else to say... you'll go away. And I don't want that to happen, I know you won't leave. Never leave. I know you won't. But that doesn't mean I can't be afraid that you will. Be my protector, as you were in life. Multiply love for someone by the number of words I've written you tonight, add infinity, and you still wouldn't be able to compare that to how I really feel. I finally feel.
Expect Many More Letters Like These,
Me. |
