IOU a coke slurpee

https://open.spotify.com/track/3KRdLDjxlAY7ku93tOG0b1

actually, i have a specific reason why i remember you and i don't think i've ever told anyone about you honestly. it’s not like out of a bad thing or something, as far as i remember we’ve left on good terms. maybe even naturally if you can call it that. it was only until recently that i thought about you, mostly because i have to not only think of material to write about, but try to cram in as much material as i can to make up for the amount i’m paying my therapist.

you’ve never really come up when i think about the first crush i’ve ever had. usually i refer to this one guy in high school and whatever that was should be wiped from my brain but in honestly, i’ve started referring to that girlypop as the second man i’ve had a crush on recently. there’s maybe like 2-3 more that i’ve seriously had a crush on since that guy in high school, so maybe i only have like, 5 people i consider a real crush, and little me definitely would have considered you one if he even knew that was a thing.

in all fairness i do remember getting in trouble as a kid when a teacher overheard me say that i wanted a girlfriend but if they were like a guy best friend like a “boyfriend”. “i want a boyfriend” is what i said, mainly because it sounded like such a cool thing to me. i’m already attached to a man in my life, why bother being attached to a woman? they both have man in the title so, it’s a easy switch.

little me didn’t understand what those feelings were at the time, but also didn’t know what the pythagorean theory was either. but also, i don’t even know what that is and i’m 23 almost 24. to an extent, i think i did understand it a little back then. i had the butterflies in my stomach, the dreams where we’d be constantly hanging out, i had all the normal crush things.

i remember our friendship quite well years later, decades later if i truly want myself to feel geriatric. i remember just constantly hanging around near you. it was my favorite thing, next to playing with an ipod and the times i’d come home to my mom making pasta. we were best friends for life and you constantly told me that. and honestly? there was no reason for me to think otherwise. we hung out constantly, your mother joked that maybe she should just designate a place just for me in your home.

there wasn’t a time we weren’t together honestly. it’s almost like we had a synced outlook calendar but internally. i knew what times your karate lessons were, i knew when your mother wanted us to stop playing miniclip, i knew almost every detail about your life because we were so close it basically became mine. we ate pizza every friday and your mother would pick us up and then i’d have a second family for an entire weekend. even your church knew me and they loved me. i fit in everywhere so well just because everything just clicked between us. it felt so natural, it felt just, idk. little me didn’t know what butterflies in the stomach felt like as i only heard about it in TV, but i 100% had those. i had the entire cycle of having a crush on someone, but it was on a guy. and it wasn’t something that truly occurred to me.

we would constantly be around each other, mostly because i stayed after school and your mother had the keys to the school as a teacher. we’d hang out everywhere, every day, almost every second. it was hard to separate us and probably could have been a pretty good flextape commercial.

we would talk about everything and anything, constantly walking up and down the walkways around the school, basically walking in circles watching the cars speed down the highway as we talked about things. you used to tell me everything you were interested in. we would lay down on the rocks and dirt and just stare into the sky for hours. mostly just at the clouds pointing what we thought each cloud looked like and just … be around each other. we almost found any excuse to do so. it was your sister’s choir recital, it was a church movie watching night with kung fu panda, it was pizza night, it was your friend’s birthday party, it was your mother making queso rotel that you knew was my favorite, it was any excuse you can find because you wanted me around.

and to be honest, i didn’t mind. i didn’t mind having these butterflies in my stomach because they made me happy, the same feeling i’d assume you had as well given the way you were around me.

i remember the first time i went over to your house. you, for some reason, were so nervous to invite me over. i didn’t understand it and honestly didn't until a few years later. you told me it was in this gated community near my house which i thought was a cool thing. i needed a code and everything! i thought it was so cool that you had all your neighbors living so close by and everyone had their own little area! i thought my neighborhood and house was lame in comparison! your house was mobile! it could move! you called it a mobile home! mine was tied down to some dumb concrete slab and couldn’t go anywhere! i had the stupid house.

i remember telling you this as you looked so relieved. i didn’t judge you for it. i thought it was cool, it was something that made you unique and i don’t judge things that are unique. i think that’s why we became so close, because i was the first person to really not judge you for the first time on what you were so insecure about.

i remember you inviting me in, your mother greeting me in the little kitchen making queso and rotel. i’ve never had that, but god it was my new favorite thing. we watched spongebob on the tv with rabbit ears and got up to adjust tv every once in a while. again, thought it was so cool.

you gave me a tour of your home which included your sister and mom’s room. bunk beds with a little eMac on the bottom desk. this was something you knew i would like, retro tech. it was this old purple eMac running macOS 9 and it sounded beautiful when it booted up. your mother was ashamed having such an old computer. i thought it was unique. i loved it. there was this game you had on it and to this day, i can’t remember what it was. it was this old school dinosaur game and that’s all i can remember about it. maybe you created unique dinosaurs or maybe it was a zoo tycoon thing, i don’t remember. but we would play it all the time.

UPDATE: I FOUND IT!! IT’S CALLED NANOSAUR

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanosaur

we ended up playing a lot of games together, mostly on miniclip and a bit of club penguin i think. we ended up doing almost everything together, i even went to your church every sunday. i never sang the hymns, but i’d at least pretend. i would always spend the entire weekend with you because that was our thing. you were so cool i wanted to constantly be around you and i think it was vice versa.

it was always a random call to my house asking me if i’d like to come over and if my mom was cool with that. you were close by so it was always fine. i’d always bring a backpack full of clothes each weekend and your mom would joke that i might as well just have a key, i already know the code to get in.

i’d always sleep over at your place so that the fun never stopped. we used to talk bunk bed to bunk bed, guy to guy, about anything. we’d complain about the teachers, how we hated homework, and everything on our minds. we would just lie in bed staring at the ceiling thinking of things to say to each other.

i loved talking to you. i felt like someone finally connected with me on some level i didn't know existed. it felt like when you got cable and suddenly found the HD channel, you almost feel stupid for not upping your standard to something like that before.

you set the standard honestly and you set the standard for a lot of things. i loved being friends with you. i’m glad our friendship grew as strong it was.

i remember how excited you were to tell me about the house you were moving to. i’ve never been to that town before, but it seemed like a nice little town. my parents groaned at the thought of driving all the way out there, but they knew how attached we were and how happy i felt getting to hang out with you.

you showed me in, it was your sister's surprise birthday party and i remember helping you plan for it. you had this giant white arch in front of your door and i thought it was the coolest decor i’ve seen. we grabbed balloons, we watched victorious and made a joke about a safe word from the show to say when we see your sister approaching. we got a cake and everything. everything was ready for your sister to come home.

it was a nice moment. i remember being a part of your family for a second and forgot about mine. we spent the whole weekend together. your mother trusted the town so we were allowed to walk the streets of the neighborhood. we spoke about what we thought about the party, how good the cake was, how long we had to hide because your mom kept giving us the wrong signals to unhide. we walked around and then you casually said the words:

“I’m going to go to Oklahoma soon. My dad got a job up there.”

i remember hearing those words and knowing how this was going to go out. you didn’t think that far into the future and granted i didn’t expect you to. we just kept walking and you talked more about your dad.

i met your dad a few times but he was always busy. he was a youth pastor and he just never had the time to be home as much. it wasn’t in a bad way, like in a neglect a child way, but in a “this is how we afford to keep the house” type way. it’s probably the one time i’d advocate for churches to not have taxes. he was a nice guy. he made a cardboard box into ukulele with rubber bands and had me keep it. i thought it was so cool, my parents probably found it annoying within the first week.

i knew what this meant the minute you said it. your dad needed a better job and your mom wanted a better life for you. after walking a bit more around the town we eventually got back to your place. i immediately felt depressed while you were extremely happy for your dad, you were completely unaware of what was going to happen next for us and i already internally figured it out. we didn’t need to lay down and stare into the ceiling and talk to understand what was happening. i didn’t need your thoughts on this. i knew it. you noticed i wasn’t as happy as i was before. that’s the thing, it’s something i always enjoyed about having someone close to me was that they immediately knew a change about me. something that felt small and didn’t feel important to me felt important to someone. it makes me felt relevant. it makes me felt real to someone.

you decided to take me across the street to the 7/11. i didn’t have any cash on me so you bought me a coca-cola slurpee. i told you that i owe you one the next time we go.

within the next few weeks, you’d take a few days out of school and you didn’t say why. soon it was small talk and not inviting me over.

and then you left.

gone.

i remember panicking. i didn’t know what this meant. what about the pizza every friday? your sister? what about her next birthday? what about the walking around the neighborhood and walking under the arch when i walk through the door? what about laying in bunk beds and talking about the world? what about queso rotel?

what about our friendship?

i felt like a part of me died a few weeks later. i genuinely got sad and didn’t feel like doing anything anymore. every weekend felt empty. every friday felt empty. every day felt empty. it wasn’t the same anymore.

it felt like mourning the death of an actual brother, except there wasn’t a real funeral nor anyone who understood or could understand. it just happened so fast.

i called your mother’s number over and over to hear the same message that it was disconnected. you mentioned oklahoma but you never gave me an address. how was i supposed to hang out with you? how was i supposed to be your best friend?

you left and i didn’t know what to do. i couldn't sleep, i didn't feel like eating pasta, i didn't feel like doing anything. i think my parents got a little concerned but they didn't really understand what went wrong. everyone told me the same thing if “they'll be more friends! you'll make another” while i just doodled in a notebook to try to suppress the thought of you. it hurt a lot and i didn't really know why.

obviously now i know why after thinking about it while i’m in my mid-20s. it's something that wasn't really talked about then and maybe it's still not something people talk about now.

regardless, i still owe you a slurpee.