She's Gone and I'm Lost

02 | the party

dedicated to unstoppable73 for their super nice comments :)

02 | the party

December 22nd | 7:02 pm

Ever since that day when Marleen stood up to her mom, the three of us became inseparable; the night sky, the stars, and the moon. Just like the sky, I brought our group together and held the others up, supporting them. Just like the stars, Alex made our day a little brighter with her beautiful chaos. And just like the moon, Marleen added sturdiness and elegance. And like the three musketeers, we adventured. We used our imaginations to help us through even the toughest of times. When one of us was sick, we pretended that we were nurses working in a hospital to treat the sick patient. When one of us was sad, the others would make jokes and we would all end up in my room, in front of a toy microphone, pretending to be comedians. It was a friendship, we helped each other out when someone needed it.

But Alex and I were always closer to each other than Marleen. Don't get me wrong, she was a great friend, but Alex and I just had this bond from the very beginning. We had a friendship pact that could never be broken.

It didn't even brake when Alex died. Even though she's gone, I still love her like a sister. I will never be as close to anyone as I was with Alex.

As much as I don't want to, Dr. Barnes says I need to talk about Alex's death. She says that this journal will never be read by anyone but me unless I decide to share it. I doubt I ever will. But she still wants me to write about it. I don't know why. I've told her the entire story out loud. Dr. Barnes said it helps me 'relieve the stress of keeping my emotions to myself'. It's all getting to be a bit too much. I don't know what I'm going to do without Alex. So I guess I'll take Dr. Barnes advice. I'll talk about it.

She died the night of my seventeenth birthday. I know now that it wasn't her fault she wasn't at my birthday party, but at the time I was so angry that she wasn't there. We had been talking about this party for months. Alex, Marleen, and I had always thought that sixteen was a cliché age to celebrate. So we had always said we would have a 'sweet seventeen' instead of a 'sweet sixteen'. When you're sixteen, you can drive. When you're eighteen, you're an adult. So what was so special about being seventeen? That's why we wanted to have our 'sweet seventeens'. To make the age worth it.

Anyway, the party was at my house. I had invited a lot of people so all the rooms were pretty crowded. It was my sweet seventeen after all. It had to be exciting. But instead of being down stairs, living it up and having the time of my life, I was sat in my bedroom with Marleen, fuming over Alex's absence.

"I'm sure she's just running late," Marleen assured me while brushing my long, black hair. She placed a tentative hand on my shoulder, trying to tell me that it was going to be okay. But I could see in her eyes that she was a bit angry as well, although nowhere as angry as me.

"Why would she give me my birthday card early then? What if she isn't coming?" I said, glancing over at the envelope on my desk. I had been given specific orders not to open it until after the party. I had assumed she just wanted to be there when I opened it, but what if she wasn't even coming? Why would she do this?

"I don't know," Marleen admitted. She swept my hair to the side and began to braid it. Just then, the door ripped open. It was a boy from school, the boy that Alex had a crush on since we were little. I had invited him here just for Alex. I didn't know whether to remain angry that Alex wasn't here, or to be sad for her since she couldn't be here with us.

"Oh, sorry," Peter said. "I was looking for the bathroom." I told him it was the door on the left and he exited with another apology. Peter was very shy. I think that was one of the things Alex liked about him. He wasn't arrogant or overconfident, he was sweet. Alex deserved a boy like him. But she never even got the chance to talk to him. It's crazy how fast life runs by. Alex was only sixteen. She was too young to die. There were so many things she never got to experience.