To Mary-Anne Penn

@Copyright 2017

My oldest friend. I feel as though Pandora's Box has closed. I no longer hold on to the grief, heartache and hope of your return. I have found peace.

This is your story but I feel as though it does justice to be told through the eyes of another. The eyes of someone who knows you far better than yourself. It was our final year, the last phase of secondary schooling and you wanted to fit in.

Abandoned was the ideology of academic excellence, of studying medicine and achieving highest honours, graduating summa cum laude. You simply wanted to fit in. It is said with great regret that you were never meant to fit in. Your light too bright for this dim world.

You left me with the bitter-sweet taste that only memories hold and my hands tremble as I write to you. What you considered luck was a curse in my eyes. An opportunity beyond what most would barter for: popularity. And so you left me, during lunch breaks, after school and each and every weekend. I was forgotten. Perhaps I too would have bartered our friendship for popularity but not at the cost you so greatly inquired.

It was Tuesday the 17 May, nine p.m. a school night. My last words to you were none so gentle parting words which I suppose served as a "butterfly effect" spurring on your actions. Ten p.m. our friendship concluded you decided to celebrate by partying at Dylan Housin's place. You hardly knew him but that mattered little because when drugs and alcohol are involved nothing matters at all because you simply want to forget.

Eleven-thirty p.m. you were surrounded by them, the popular crowd and you were basking in the attention. They handed you drink after drink, pills and blunts. What you sought to for comfort was their entertainment for the night. Two a.m. and you finally had enough, like a newly born calf you teetered your way to the toilette.

But you didnt make it far, callapsing just beyond the door of the loo you were unconcious. Two-thirty a.m. the gracious host walks in and finds your unmoving body surrounded in a pool of your own vomit. Knowing he'll be questioned about the drugs and their origin he hastily leaves. A pretty rich boy with influencial parents and a reputaion to uphold, he cannot be involved.

After all you were just passed out, they all crossed their fingers in hope of you simply waking up with a bad hangover, you'll come around right? Five a.m. and Mrs Housin finds you, pale as a sheet -well as pale as a latina who spent her passtime outdoors could get. You didn't stir.

An ambulance was called and at five-fifty a.m. a widowed Mr Penn arrived at the hospital, your condition critical. Your father couldn't believe it, his princess didn't do drugs. You were suppose to be with me. Cocooned in blankets as we studied for Physics.

At six-fifteen our household was called. My father said that you were acting strange lately but that was acceptable since you recently lost your mother, he hung up.

They pumped your stomach in hopes of getting as much of the unabsorbed narcotics out of your system as possible. Seven-twenty a.m. they attempted to resuscitate you. But at seven thirty-eight, you Mary-Anne Penn were pronounced dead.

The grief councellor attempted to reassure me, you didn't mean to hurt anyone and it was simply a bad decision made in the heat of the moment. But now, as I sit at the same "popular" table in hopes of comprehending your latest life choices I finally understand.

You were simply trying to fit in, trying to find a part of yourself that wasn't born in our friendship. A part that hopefully existed with "that" crowd, I understand.

I only hope that in your final moments you found that part of yourself. From this self-constructed cage of grief, guilt and accountability I am letting you go. Mary-Anne Penn, now that I understand I am letting myself go.