the problem with mortality

the before

My best friend and I were born on the same day, June 26th, 2002. Our moms met at the window of the nursery. It sounds cliche, but it's true. 

Her name was Ella Brooks and she wanted to be a famous actress. She was in every choir, play, and musical within a twenty mile radius. So, when she got cancer, at first she wasn't too upset because that meant she could be in the St. Jude commercials. She was young then, though. We were ten when she was first diagnosed. She recovered and relapsed twice before she died exactly one month after our fifteenth birthday. That was my least and most favorite birthday I can remember. 

We knew it would be her last, so she used her wish to go to Hollywood. We met her favorite celebrities and visited the Warner Brother's lot. I'd never seen her so happy. 

I was really angry when she died, though. When we got the call at 11:38 the night of July 26th 2017, the first thing I did was punch a hole in my wall. I was so fucking pissed. My dad got me a punching bag so I could hit something without breaking it. My mom wanted to put me in anger management, but I refused. I found other things I could focus on. I started doing showchoir, and the musicals and plays at my school. I threw myself into what Ella loved so much and I found a love for it too. 

Molly and Ella were friends before Molly and I were. They met at the hospital. Ella used to joke that I was her healthy best friend and Molly was her sick best friend until Molly was deemed cancer free in 2015. I kind of hated her at first. I was jealous of her because she was Ella's other best friend, when she got healthy I was jealous because Ella wasn't healthy. She went to my school and I was jealous because she was good at all the things I was trying to be good at, for Ella's sake. Then, the day after Ella died, she showed up at my house. I recognized the expression on her face because I'd seen the same one every time I looked in the mirror since the night before. We had both just lost our best friend. 

Molly and I sat together at the funeral, we held each others hand, we cried together. Molly had friends other than just Ella, and she invited me to hang out with them at lunch and after school. Molly was the rock I needed when it felt like the entire world was falling apart, and I like to think she feels the same. For the two years since Ella died, we leaned on each other. We would bicker just like any other pair of best friends does but we both filled the role that Ella had left empty. 

Molly came to my funeral alone.