Something inevitable happens when everyone around you dies.
You realize how short life is.
So what do you do when you are equally scared of living and of dying? You compose a bucket list. And then lose said bucket list.
Well, that is what happene...
where have we gone and how did we get here? where would I be in life had we not met yet? what does it take to be happy? what does it take to be satisfied?
• flora cash •
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I met Tessa Brown five years ago when she graced our town with her presence.
I can still remember that day like it was yesterday.
I have always been a bit reserved. Too much attention did not sit well with me. And to be honest, I had the social skills of a rock. Not Tessa. Tessa is, was, fierce, and brave and so confidant that it actually scared me when I met her. She was in every sense of the word the opposite of me.
I think that is what made our friendship work so well, the fact that we were like two puzzle pieces that just fit perfectly together. Because if you think about it, two puzzle pieces that are exactly the same will never fit together. When I lost my father a year before I met Tessa, there was a part of me missing, and Tessa was that piece. And although she could never replace the puzzle piece my father took with him when he left this earth, she filled her own spot in my heart. A spot I only realize now, really needed to be filled.
So there I was, sitting in sixth grade English, with my homework incomplete. It's not like I did not want to do the homework, it's just that I could not understand a word of the book we were reading, so how was I suppose to answer the homework questions?
Tessa sat next to me in English, the new kid from Pittsburgh. In the past week that she was at our school, and sitting next to me in English, we haven't really talked much.
I think Tessa could see the panic in my eyes when I realized that the teacher was in a mood that day, and would most likely take it out on us in the form of detention. And my squeaky clean record would not look nice with detention on it. So, as discreetly as she could, Tessa slid her answers over to me. I was so grateful for her help, the first of many English answers she would give me. She just saved me.I wish I could have saved her.
From then on, we were inseparable. She was with me through all the hard parts of my life. My first break up, the time I failed English in ninth grade, when my sister was diagnosed with stage four leukemia, when my sister passed away because of said cancer. Tessa was my rock.
Now that I sit here, three weeks after her death, I realize I was not there for her hard parts. Not in the way she needed. Maybe if I was, she might still be here.
Because I knew that her stepfather did awful things to her, and I knew she was diagnosed with depression three years ago, and I knew she stopped taking her antidepressants because it caused her so much fatigue she couldn't even get out of bed, and I knew she started drinking a little too much every time we went to a party.
I saw all the signs, it's like she held up a sign that screamed "I am going to kill myself" but I was so caught up in my own problems, I was oblivious to hers. If only I noticed earlier, if only I did something more that believe her "I'm okay's."
