What Friends are for

All that was left was silence. The kind of silence I remembered experiencing back in Nampa, Idaho when I was a teenager. I remember waking up early and making cups of coffee quietly for myself. I remember the feeling of sitting in the back of that old, red Ford F-150 and watching the sunrise as I inhaled the harsh smoke an American Spirit provided me every morning. That was the thing I think I’d miss most when I left. The sound of absolute silence that only an early morning in a small town could afford you; it was worth everything and anything to me.

I remember the silence of October 23rd as well. It was not the calm and sweet silence of an early morning in a small town; it was the cold and lifeless silence of an early ending in a big city. Moving from Los Angeles had been hard on me. After all, I was sixteen years old and had a hard enough time making friends in my hometown. I understood that my parents couldn’t afford the big city lifestyle anymore, but it didn’t make it any easier on me. I knew I would miss all of the people I had found in that city and I knew it would be hard to visit them from now on. What I didn’t know when I left was how little time I truly had with the person I had considered my best friend for the last 14 years of my life.

His name was Scott. In a world of troubles and hardships and misunderstanding, we had each other. He knew what it was like to be alone and he refused to let me feel that way in my own life. He seemed to always have my back (even when I was wrong). After school, I would grab my skateboard, ride down the street to his house and spend the rest of the day telling him everything. He gave me my first Mohawk, he gave me my first real skateboard, he drove me around the neighborhood on his motorized bicycle, and, once, in the dark of night, we kissed.  But, not a kiss centered in passion or obsession. Rather, a kiss that was meant to fulfill a morbid curiosity and share the final hidden aspects of our psyches with one another.

He made bikes and art. He drew tattoos and covered up names of lost loves on people’s bodies. He was the quietest person in any room and, yet, his jokes and sarcasm were mesmerizing if you listened closely. On my 14th birthday, he gave me his jean jacket and walked with me to the corner store so I could vent to him about how every one of my parties became more of a gathering for my parents and their friends than for me.

And, every day, before it would get dark, we would ride up to the very top of a parking lot by the train station and we would watch the sunset. That was the first time I knew what peacefulness was like. It was this profound silence in a world of sound and when I was up there with him, we were the only two people that could hear this nothingness for all that it was.

After I left, I thought about him nearly every day, but life changed for me in Idaho. Silence was not a rarity here and peace was something I could find five minutes away from my house at Lake Lowell. I could look at deer and write poetry if I wanted. It was amazing and, while I loved it, I began to forget about that parking lot, the skateboard rides, the late night confessions, the awkward kiss,  and, yes, even those sunsets. Scott called me time after time during this moment of bliss in my life but I found myself ignoring his calls in order to take care of work that had to be done for my job. After all, how was I to know that everything had changed for him too?

Months went by and the calls began to thin out. I had caught word that his mother had died a few months after we arrived in Idaho. I tried to call but his number wasn’t the same. Yet again, life grabbed me and snapped me out of the past. It needed me to move on and so I did. One day, I made my morning coffee, grabbed my pack of cigarettes, and walked outside. The sun was rising and I sat down in the old truck bed. The silence was beautiful. The only thing I could hear was my own breathing and it made me think of Scott. I decided to try and find him online since I knew I had to contact him right then and there. It wasn’t hard finding his Facebook account and I began to think about how this could have been done months ago, but I didn’t even have the decency to give him two minutes of my time.

When I saw his wall, I nearly collapsed.  Scott’s friends had all written him messages on his wall in response to a coma he had been in for three months. Scott had many quirks, but the two things doctors worried about were his epileptic seizures and his type 1 diabetic issues.  From the day I met Scott until the day I moved, Scott had needed an insulin pump to regulate his diabetes. He had always been very careful to not drink heavily with his condition and to watch his insulin pump in order to make sure he was safe. When his mother died, things had taken a turn for the worse. Scott had begun drinking day in and day out. His girlfriend left him shortly after and he was all alone in his house. No one expected anything bad to happen to this person who had lost his way and so they moved on. Life called to them as well and they answered right back.

After being given a new and so-called ‘better’ pump by his doctor in late July, Scott went home and began to drink once again. If Scott hadn’t been wasted, he might have seen the signs. Scott might have noticed that something was wrong and he might have rushed to the hospital instead of drinking more and more alcohol by himself in his bedroom. The problem is, Scott was drunk and he didn’t feel anything strange as he sat on his bed that night. It didn’t take long for his insulin levels to drastically drop and, before anyone knew it, Scott was on the floor experiencing a severe epileptic seizure. Ten minutes passed with no oxygen to his brain and that was enough time to erase him from this earth.

I didn’t know what to do. I cried and even prayed to any god I thought would listen, but it was no use.  October 23rd, I took a bus to downtown Boise and proceeded to buy a record. The record was a new one from a musician that Scott and I both loved. I imagined myself giving it to him at the hospital once this whole ordeal was over and the thought made me smile. I decided to stop by a local coffee shop and post the album on his wall. As I sat down outside of the coffee shop and typed in his name on my phone, I couldn’t help but think of those peaceful sunsets and everything he had done to keep me pushing forward.

I thought about visiting him and seeing one of those California sunsets once again by his side. It had been too long. As the thought danced around in my head, I looked down at my phone.  Scott had died earlier that day in his hospital bed. I was too late. It was that day that I realized I had sacrificed his happiness in order to give myself peace. He had been stuck in the perpetual hell I had escaped and the once all too familiar rope to pull him out was gone.

In that moment, I realized what it meant to be a friend and how I had failed. That night, I listened to the complete album and cried. I imagined what it would be like for him to call me at that moment and tell me it was all an elaborate joke. There was this emptiness even felt through my phone knowing I couldn’t dial his number and reach him if I wanted to—needed to. There was the same emptiness when I drove up to his house months later and saw nothing inside. It was a cosmic void in my life, my universe, and it was in the shape of my best friend. The empty silhouette of him skating down that street. The shadow of a memory on that rooftop. The silence of nothingness that went on forever. This was a new silence that was dark and heavy. A silence that seemed to never fade. A silence I wished the universe would take back.

Years passed and the silence softened. It transformed into this small fragment of nothingness that could almost be covered by good times and new memories. I met my future husband and told him the story of my friend, but I didn’t spare the details. I didn’t hide the fact I loved Scott or the fact that I was selfish in those final months before he died. I embraced the past and accepted it.

On the anniversary of his passing, I chose to get a tattoo. Not one of his name or some silly symbol found on the walls of every standard tattoo parlor in America. Instead, I chose to remember him through the final act I did in his honor. I got a tattoo of the cover of the album I bought that day. Forever branded with the memory of the final day he was on this earth, I felt a certain kind of peace that was not created by bliss but, rather, acceptance. Through this, I found recovery and self-forgiveness.

I can’t change time and I can’t take back those months I didn’t call him. But, I also will never forget the laughter, the tears, the long hugs, and even the beautiful silence that we shared. All I can do now is remember those sunsets and simply wait for the day I stand by his side and feel that peace once again.  After all, what are friends for?