I'll be right back, I promise

I love you, best friend!

"I love you," he said as he walked out of the room. "Yeah, yeah, yeah," I replied. "I love you too." Little did I know that would be the last thing I ever told him. 

It was September 26, 2015, a hot Saturday. I was getting ready to go play softball with my best friend, Tru. He said, "Hey I'm going to go talk to Antwan real quick. I promise I'll be right back." He said this because he knew that I didn't believe that he was going to be "right back". He'd be back in like an hour or two, well at least I thought.

I went on doing what I was doing. I got in the shower next. This should have been an indication that something was up, I never did this. I usually did this after we got back. But I don't know I just got in the shower. This was when it happened. I'm in the middle of singing "Don't Let Go" by En Vogue. When all of a sudden, I hear shots, loud shots! Usually when you heard shots they were distant. There was something different about these, they were close and were still going. 3, 4, 5 times.

I jumped out of the shower, put on a sweatshirt and walked into the hallway. There was no one in the house and there was screaming outside. I put on Tru's slides that were by the door and ran outside. The second I saw it I fell to the ground.

I could literally feel my heart, my stomach, all my organs fall to my feet. After a while I finally got up and walked over to the scene. I asked what happened to anyone that was near. No one knew. I looked for Antwan, since he was the last person to be with him. But he was nowhere to be found. I later on found out that he had been shot as well and was taken to the hospital. I looked for Big Red, Tru's mom, I found her near his car. She was crying profusely. I asked her what happened and she didn't know either. This was just too much, I needed to know what happened. I walked away and never turned back.

After this I thought that I would be okay, I thought that I could go back to school on Monday and be okay. I thought wrong. I drove to school Monday morning, parked in my usual spot and got out of the car. I waited there for Tru like I usually did and when he didn't show up. I had realized, my best friend was gone. I got right back in my car and drove home. When I got home no one was there so I turned on my loud sad music and went to my room. By the time my dad finally got home I was practically drowning in my own tears. He asked when I thought I would go back to school, and I told him, "Never", "I am never ever, ever going back to school!"

He said okay, which he would later regret. I didn't go to school until after Thanksgiving break. Which was a month and a half later. I just sat around and moped. Once I had finally stopped crying I started to think back on it. How it happened, why it happened, why I wasn't there. All these thoughts kept going through my head. Until eventually I had understood, this is what was meant to happen. I was supposed to go on alone and live for my best friend. He wasn't meant to be there when I graduated, when I got married, when anything major happened in my life, he wasn't supposed to be there. I was supposed to do it for him.