The best memories I have of her and I are when we would sit in her room, the scent of vanilla candles in the air. It covered up the musty odor of cigarettes we would smoke out her window where we had carefully pulled the screen from. Clumsily holding the burning cigarette, trying to imitate the way we had seen her mom hold them; between her pointer and middle finger, tilting ever so slightly forward. Strands of newly dyed vibrant pink and purple hair would fall into our eyes, and instinctively we’d push them back, as to not singe them on the burning embers.
Summer was always the best time of year for us. Her mother worked till 2 in the morning, which meant we could sneak out her window and sit up on the roof, and look across the tops of houses onto the highway, following it down, the constant mesmerizing beat of traffic stopping and starting up again, like a pulse. Beyond the highway signs and billboard ads was the heart of our city. If you caught the sun setting at the right time, the whole sky would fill itself with masses of purple clouds, huge and elevated above the bright pink and dying yellow brush strokes of the days ending light, following the charted path of the sun, left minutes before. We were so accustomed to sunsets like that, we never even thought twice about it, sitting up their on our perch watching the world go by.
After dark, we’d climb down through her open window back into her room, a soft glow of light coming from each tea candle that had been randomly dispersed around her room, making it look like a miniature replica of the city lights in the distance. Each tiny street lamp throwing flickers of light onto the 4 walls of her bedroom, plastered with posters, flyers, pieces of writing, and photographs.
The earliest picture of us I ever found on that wall was a small photograph from grade 7 where she had her arms thrown around my shoulders, both of us smiling awkward pre-pubescent care-free smiles. If you look closely, you can just make out the compact lockers we received at the beginning of the seventh grade, said to give us more responsibility, but caused more trouble than anything. Kids were constantly forgetting their locker combinations, and in turn having their locks cut by the school janitor. Looking back on that picture now, I’m amazed how untroubled we used to be. Our smiles wide and at ease, clothes loose and our bodies hung in a slack posture. We had no idea how horribly mislead we were. Growing up meant self-conscious tight smiles, outfits cutting low enough to see the color of undergarments, and shallow breathing as to not protrude your stomach farther than the edge of your jeans. Undoubtedly, back then we had no idea what we were diving head-first into.
Welcome, welcome to the beginning of your Teenage existence. The melodramatic rollercoaster ride running 24-7, three hundred sixty five days a year. Please keep your unruly social life, oblivious parents, and sudden disinterest in school inside the ride at all times.
I remember back then constantly grasping and fighting for anything relatively close to the infamous lives those older than us were living. Heard only through word of mouth, some roughly detailed and fragmented story told to us by a classmate, who had their cousin drive them down to a field party on the weekend. We desperately thrived off the idea that we too would one day be living these seemingly flawless lifestyles with free rein from our parents and sexual admiration from boys who would most certainly be in awe at our sophisticated wit and fall in love with the manner in which we could hold intelligent conversations. The key to existence was going to be laid out right in front of us. We were absolutely positive about this.



Memory can be the greatest gift in the world at times. You can return to any fraction in your life, and everyone is right exactly where there supposed to be. Proper pose, correct tone of voice, and feeling of absolute certainty radiating from them. Things you would have never even tried to pin-point at the time but pick up on afterwards when memory is the only place you can visit those people again.

I would be lying through my teeth if I said I didn’t miss her. I do. Too late it seems now because she’s gone. ‘You are ten thousand miles away from something greater, something bigger, something that will change your life’. I read that in a book awhile ago, and I’m seeing truth to it more than I did at the time.
I remember the day she told me about her plans to go live with her father, who resided in a small town near the border of Saskatchewan. I remember how I failed to realize she was serious for almost 2 hours. I was stuck in a state of shock, debating whether or not I had heard correctly. Could you actually just get up and leave me? Tomorrow? You don’t just leave that quick, you need time. I need time.
The next 24 hours had gone by in a blur. And in those hours had I come to realize that I did in fact have to say goodbye to a best friend I had depended so greatly on.
Really, she was never supposed to leave. There was no sort of ominous sign of this coming in the plans. We were to get jobs, a life, make money, buy an apartment and struggle to survive. Together. I’d paint canvas after canvas, filling our entire complex walls with raw edgy expressionalism. Her drum set would take up a good section of the living room, played only before 8 pm or the other residence would complain. See? What was supposed to become of us. And she had to ruin it all. Making matters worse, she promised she would be back here every second weekend and that birthdays and holidays, I was all hers. At the time, I was desperate for any sort of condolence I could get, and I lapped up these lines like water.


You know, starting something new, you start to loose sight on what once was. Days and weeks and months have gone by and I cant be mad at her anymore for going on with her life. She was brave. I’ve always admired that about her because it was something I never let myself be. In my mind, I was always going to be enough for her and I would be whatever she needed. It hurt finding out that she could be happy somewhere else, without me. Coming to terms with that took time but brought forth a new understanding that there weren’t ever any plans set in stone. There’s clarity now in knowing that I was a huge part of her life. Sleeping out in garages, house parties with far too many people, boys turning out to be dirt bags. Things you cant erase from memory and things you look back on and laugh in all its ironic glory. She wont ever forget me because I was those memories, and I was there watching this all happen by her side.
I’ve grown from the place she left behind, learned to do things on my own without the comfort of a best friend always there to fall back on. Balancing on a tight rope, scared to death that I’m going to fall from these heights, but continuing because I know I’m not through with her and I’ve got patience and I can wait until she decides to come back again.