Through tears and fights,

Through smiles, I knew everything

Would be alright,
Through love and hate,
Through betrayal and debate,
For you I would always have faith,
Being your sister as well as your
Best friend I knew
This friendship wouldn't end,
By your side I would always stand
And you'll stand by mine too,
Because that's what best friends do,
So no matter what happens with us
In life,
Through all of the wrongs
And all of the rights,
I'm here for you to be a best friend that's true,
Cause I love you and that's what
Best friends do.

Hi.

I miss you.

I wish that was enough to accurately describe how I feel, but it doesn’t, not even
close. I don’t just miss you; I feel so much more than a mere longing. I could create a
galaxy full of life with what I feel for you. I feel; how crazy is that? I feel everything.
My heart hurts so much, but it also is filled with so much love, especially for you.

I miss your laugh, your lame jokes, your hugs, your singing and dancing, I miss your
“hi” text every morning from twenty feet away. I miss you. I miss you. I miss you. I
can’t say it enough. I miss seeing everyone happy. I miss your family and Brynne’s
sass. I miss Sunday dinners and lake days. I miss crying about boys. I miss studying
with you. I miss stuffing our faces until it hurt to breathe. I miss cuddling and
chugging fireball in your room. I miss how we would get ready together because
getting ready in our own rooms was absurd.

I thought 365 days would at least put a dent in how much I hurt, but it didn’t. It’s been
365 of your absence, 365 days of missing you, 365 days of “being strong”. It’s been
365 days of trying to forget, 365 days trying not to care, not letting anyone close
enough to hurt me, to leave me. It’s been 365 days and I feel everything stronger than
ever, and it hurts so much more than this string of words could ever portray. I don’t
understand, Brooke. I thought time was supposed to heal; it hasn’t healed anything,
only replaced memories and has served as a constant reminder that you’re gone.

Happiness is seldom what I feel, no matter the smile on my face or laugh in my throat
or twinkle in my eyes. You’re all I see and it hardly makes me smile, especially as of
recent. It’s impossible to be truly happy when the only person who never left my side,
actually left and I will never get back. Every time I think I’m getting better, I
remember what I was running from to begin with and am brought right back to the
start.

I tried everything to accept that you were gone, or at least forget. I tried going out,
having fun, drinking. I tried detaching myself from everyone. I wanted to be invisible,
transparent, forgotten. I tried not to exist. I tried becoming overly involved in
something you loved. I pretended to be happy; I let myself be sad. I tried not caring
about anyone or anything, not taking anything seriously. I tried taking everything
seriously, caring too much; but, nothing brought you back, nothing changed what
happened, nothing made this okay. You’re still gone.

I’ve felt more miserable the past month than this entire year. I think the past twelve
months I pretended it never happened and with your one year anniversary
approaching, I couldn’t run anymore, I couldn’t hide from the fact that I missed you. I
had to face it and trying to be strong for your little, Gabby, became so difficult and for
the first time was at a loss for words. It got increasingly harder to be grateful for the
time we did have. I feel like it’s happening all over again and it hurts just as badly, if
not worse.

***

I still remember the sound of your voice that night. You called because I wanted to be
rescued from our sh*tty apartment. I remember looking forward to a night out with
you, it had been a while since school and work occupied a lot of our time. We always
had fun and got in trouble and would laugh until we cried or our abs became sore. I
can still hear it sometimes– that laugh, your laugh – so deep and masculine and
absolutely perfect for you. It was nearly midnight by the time you got back out to
UCF and called to say you didn’t drive. I decided not to go out but insisted you
hurried home so we could laugh and eat pizza. I remember texting you after hanging
up saying I had cake. You never responded. I fell asleep with a smile on my face
thinking about how we hated going out and would sit in your car outside of Pub with
too much anxiety to actually go in. I thought about how old we thought we were
getting; we weren’t old at all, you were 19 and way too young – way too young to die.

Throughout the week and a half you were in the hospital, I was hopeful; I wrote on
your Facebook wall, texted you, tweeted, and consoled anyone having a hard time. I
was optimistic and it felt strange, alien. I’ve always been a realist and say things as
they are, but the weeks preceding your death were the most hopeful I had ever been. I
was proud and yet, shocked at the person I was. I felt like I was holding everyone
together and all the tears I choked back were for a good cause. Today I see a different
girl; I see a heartbroken immature hurt little girl who got through her days with the
idea that everything would be fine, how stupid she looks to me now. You would be
stomping around our apartment in no time and we would laugh about how big of a
deal everyone was making things, right? I texted you about the shirts someone made
and how I was only buying one to dance around the apartment in and to make fun of
you; I’ve never worn that shirt. I texted you every day, laughed a lot, smiled a lot and
seldom cried; I should have been more prepared.

***
The longer you’ve been gone, the worst my breakdowns get. The pain is unbearable,
each time hurting in a way it never had before while clean tears stream down my
flushed face in pure hysteria. I stay that way for what seems like hours but could only
been a minute unable to breathe; crying and crying and then I go unmoved. I feel
nothing. Not a movement of the face, no aching, no flutter of the heart, twitch of the
fingers, nothing. I still don’t know what is worse, feeling everything so intensely or
nothing at all.

***

A year ago, I slid down the stone wall in my mother’s kitchen as my last attempt to
keep you with me failed. I cried out to the earth, moon, and stars with a shattering
desperation – please stay – the only two words I could fathom moments before your
time of death was called: 12:01 p.m. March 5, 2014. The pain I felt in my chest was
indescribable. All I was thinking was this is a dream, a terrible terrible dream, but it
wasn’t, it was a nightmare that I still haven’t woken up from. I felt like everything
was falling away from me into oblivion. I was alone and for the first time knew my
world was in fact ending.

It’s cliché to say after that, nothing was the same but, it’s true. People’s smiles turned
to frowns, tears of laughter to tears of sorrow, silence to condolences, and hope to
grief.

Grief changed me; or revealed me, either way I didn’t like it. Grief wasn’t just sitting
at home crying endlessly and feeling like it wouldn’t stop; It wasn’t hearing your
name and collapsing nor was it writing through the night in hopes the hurt was
draining from me and onto the paper with every letter, syllable, word, phrase. No, that
would have been nice; grief was all of that and then some. It was zoning out mid-
conversations and having to incessantly apologize, it was feeling so numb that no
infliction could or would change. Grief was “being strong”, fighting back tears; it was
turning my humanity off and finding grace in a bottle of wine, or three. Grief was
smiling and responding with fine at every “how are you?” It was not once meaning it.
Grief was getting out of bed every day when every nerve told me to stay, shut the
curtains, retreat.

How has 365 days not lessened the sorrow and aching I feel when I think about you? I
thought I would hear your name and smile; a loving memory, a gift, but I’m selfish
and memories aren’t enough for me. Day to day nothing changes: the grass is still the
grass without you, classes are just as tedious and boring, and I am moving forward as
much as I try to fight it. I feel guilty laughing and smiling and having fun, so I
remember going through a period where my body and mind set to auto-pilot. The days
would pass and I would have no recognition of what I had done and it was easy that
way. I didn’t have to feel. I didn’t have to explain myself or talk to anyone or go out
of my comfort zone. It was emotionless, painless, but was no way to live.

I hated that time. The grief turned to undeniable depression. Now depression, a cousin
to grief, wasn’t listening to “our songs” with mascara streaming down my face in
clumpy black lines, it was darker, colder; it was so incredibly empty. The type of
emptiness that turned friends to enemies and family to strangers as I pushed and
pushed so they didn’t have to see me that way, they didn’t have to feel what I feel
every day. I thought I was protecting them. I didn’t want anyone’s pity, to be a
burden, and the last thing I needed to hear was how strong I was and that everything
was going to be okay because I didn’t believe it.

***

It hurts to think all I have are memories and with a year already in between the last
memory we made, I’m terrified to my core that I will begin to forget. The smallest
moments I cherish the most and I don’t know how to preserve them. I can obsess over
it, let it consume me, but I don’t want to be in love with a memory; a time, a place, an
instant. Memory is unreliable and memories fade.

All I have are pictures, videos, and a foggy memory. I guess the pictures and videos
help me remember your face, full of life and that voice I would recognize anywhere,
but I still wish I had more. I don’t want my memory to rely on these things and I
guess that’s why I write. I write to remember, I write to forget. I write to understand
and accept and reflect. Through my writing I still feel pain, sometimes relive it, but
it’s where the puzzle pieces begin to fit. I quiet the voices in my head and there’s a
brief moment of what I imagine is peace, happiness. You gave me a purpose,
something to feel. I have an urge to write it all down, I want to remember everything,
and most importantly I want to treasure and hold on to the memories that are mine,
that are authentic.

There was so much more I wanted to say to you. There was so much more I wanted to
do. There was so much more I wanted to be. I thought we had more time.

I lay awake at night consumed by the thought of you and our memories and
everything I didn’t get to say and everything we didn’t get to do. I let what happened
get to me and life seems unlivable. I think most days I convince myself you’re on a
vacation, an extended one. You’re somewhere warm and remote with no way to
contact me and then I remember you’re not on an island in the middle of nowhere,
you’re gone. Those are the days that hurt the most.

***

I have so many questions and so little answers and begin to act out in search of
something, anything, to act as an escape and make my problems seem small and far
away. That never lasts though, and I am forever reminded that my heart is always
with you. Sometimes I don’t feel you here with me, I don’t see you in my dreams,
there’s silence and I feel like you left me all over again; it is such a terrible feeling.
It’s like having your hopes and dreams crushed in front of you, it’s like being told you
were never good enough and never will be, it’s like jumping off a cliff and realizing
you can’t fly.

***

Losing a best friend forces you to grow up, but how am I supposed to without my best
friend to hold me? I think about how you won’t be at my wedding (if that ever
happens) or coaching me through my interviews and applauding me on my writing
and accomplishments. I think about how you won’t be here for any other pain or loss
I’m bound to encounter or the one’s I’ve already encountered. I think about this every
day, all day and it takes something bigger than me, than you to get me on my feet.

***

At the start of the New Year, I reflected on 2014 – the fights, the accomplishments,
the loves, losses – and I guess all I can say is that I survived. You found me in some
kind of darkness and saved me. You saved everyone. How is it possible to save and
destroy someone at the same time? The people I pushed away didn’t all come back
and I have accepted it. They chose me at my best, not my worst and now; I understand
and don’t care because I had you, have you. There are still days where I chose not to
participate in life, refuse to inhale the fresh air, smile at all, and handle things the
wrong way but I’m learning, living, growing, and surviving.

I saw myself in you. I got lost with you; kindred spirits. We had the same sense of
humor, values, philosophies, bank accounts.

God thank you, Brooke, thank you for everything.

You taught me that you never know when the last moment you will see someone will
be and to not hold grudges, not to hold back because there isn’t time for that. You
taught me to be everything I wanted and get everything I imagined, feel deeply and
without regret. You showed me the kind of friends I want, the kind I want to be.
Thank you. This was a higher love, a love that will last forever. As much as I want to
be with you right now, I know my life will end when it is supposed to, I just hate
accepting it.

My heart is different now, and every day is a fight to accept that. You are the only one
I blurred my hard edges for, become soft and vulnerable for. You proved how
malleable and prone to change we are, no matter our feelings towards it. I’ve always
been drawn to the darker side of things but this year forced me to test what it is like to
be positive and strong and every day I work on it. People constantly disappoint and it
takes everything in me not to hide, remove myself, stop caring; I do it for you.

***

A few months ago, I couldn’t sleep. It was after four and I wrote about how I thought
the universe fought for us, for our souls to be together, to meet, because if I hadn’t
met you, who knows the kind of person I would be. There is no way we meet people
by accident. You and I had a purpose. You taught me more about life and loving then
I think anyone ever will, you changed everything, you changed me. For the better and
for the worse, because nothing changes a person like losing someone you love and
struggling to remember the last time you looked into their eyes or told them you loved
them. I think there will always be the constant battle, push and pull of being so
incredibly grateful and so incredibly hurt.

To this day I still lose myself trying to find myself and hurt a lot of people while I’m
hurting. I don’t know when the pain will lessen or I will finally smile at your name; I
don’t know if I will ever be okay or accept things as they are. All I do know is that my
love for you is the only thing I am sure of. I can hear your laugh; see your big bright
blue eyes with heaven in them, your kindness and goodness I can feel. You were
everything I wasn’t; maybe that’s why we made such a great duo. You showed me
everything I was missing, the person I wanted to be, ought to be. You continue to
bring me out of a darkness I don’t belong in, you shake me and break me and help me
start over. You were and still are the love of my life, my soulmate, and you know
what? Soulmates never die.

Forever & ever,