02-19-2026 | oranges

sometimes i type your name into search bars on social media. linkedin, instagram, reddit. or really it’s anywhere i think i might catch a glimpse of how you're doing. i'm not in your life anymore, both out of mutual personal choices but also just, the way life is.

i wonder what you're up to from time to time. sometimes when i see little things i just immediately think of you. i'll be pushing a cart down a grocery aisle and see your favorite fruit (oranges) or your favorite cereal and i just don’t know what to do.

sometimes i wish i could just peek inside your head, look through things like a filing cabinet until i could find the thick file you have on me. it would be full of polaroids we took from that camera i think you stole from your brother, or maybe a necklace i bought you that you told me you were proud to wear. maybe it'll have my go-to lunch order at the restaurant across the street from our high school and the stories we used to share with each other.

maybe it'll have the spotify playlists we used to share before spotify blend existed. a photo of the beat studios you were so excited to show me would be sitting next to your favorite song from some spanish artist i've never heard of. i never knew the words to the songs you listened to, but you were always so excited and passionate about them that i'd just nod along hoping that i could, just for a second, be a part of something i think only you felt you could relate to.

i wonder if you're mad at me. i wonder if you still have my number. i lost yours forever ago and by lost, i mean i removed it on purpose. i blocked you on instagram. you're out of my google contacts.

but you're still on my steam profile. it breaks the immersion sometimes when i'm playing a game seeing your name pop-up somewhere. i just sit there for a second staring at your name. i wonder what it’d be like if we could just play games together again. where you’d realize i’m not actually great at them and you’d feel like a big bro teaching me how the game works.

according to the latest game we both have, dispatch, we're complete polar opposites and maybe that's the point of why everything broke. a lot of the time i just assumed just because we were almost jointed at the hip, that we'd always see eye to eye on things. you could complete the sentences i'd have and out of everyone, you were always able to see me in a crowd of people who'd suffocate me with their presence. it was nice. it was nice when i felt like i didn't really have much of anyone, but you always seemed to know the right thing to say.

you were always so protective of me to the point where i think about it now and i think you'd be so disappointed in me. i'd be proud of you since, from the last post i've seen, you're doing well for yourself. you'd probably step into my apartment and just feel…sad. i know it would be hard for you to fake like you're not disappointed in me. we've always been able to look past the micro-expressions we both tried to fake for each other.

you'd look at the pile of clothes on the floor, the expired eggs in the fridge, the half drank water bottles on the ground and just go "Ay, Anthony. What happened?"

i still don't know how i'd answer that question for you. things are so much different now and i don't know how to be that person you thought i could be. the one where we'd go to the same college and be best friends forever.

granted that could never be true given the crush i had on you - the crush we had on each other maybe? i still don't know how to process that.

i don't think i could ever figure it out, even 10+ years later.