My name is Avery Westwood, and I'm writing this in an attempt to clear my mind, which feels like it's running a hundred miles a second. It deeply saddens me to say this, but my friend, Andrew Hayes, passed away two days ago. As you can probably imagine, his death is hitting me pretty hard. It's hard enough for me to feel the need to write this all out.
We met each other back in fifth grade, and we've been practically inseparable ever since. We grew up playing community soccer together. I remember the first soccer game we ever won. He celebrated by dumping his water bottle over my head, and at first, I couldn't begin to express how angry I was. I didn't realize that that was a normal thing until he explained it to me, and we got a good laugh out of it afterwards.
As we got older and could actually start driving, we used to study together at a local Starbucks. Whenever semester exams rolled around, we would spend hours together after school at this Starbucks. It was always worth it because not only did we do really well on our exams, but we also shared a lot of laughs. Some of my favorite stories come from our time studying together.
It's difficult to believe that that will never happen again. It's been a struggle to wrap my brain around it all.
Andrew passed away in a car accident. His family, who broke the news to me last night, said that the police believe he swerved off the road to avoid an animal, and he died on impact when he collided with a tree.
Like I said before, it's hard to believe that he's gone. I keep sitting here, waiting for my phone to chime, letting me know that he's sent me a message. Probably some funny picture he saw on Instagram or something. That chime never comes, and it never will. Not anymore.
