I couldn't remember how to spell your name, so I checked our 4th grade yearbook. Our faces were side by side, your hair combed nicely, your smile uneven yet undeniably charming. I wore a flannel shirt, the first one I ever bought, the year dresses started feeling foreign. We grinned like nothing bad had ever happened to us, because it hadn't. Just wait a few years, I thought. A few more years and we'll forget how to smile like that. The truth is, I always wondered what became of you after we finished fifth grade and were whisked away to different middle schools. I thought, at times, that you must be doing well: athletic and kind with beautiful eyes (you were one of the boys I decided to have a crush on before I realized that being gay was an option), I couldn't see why you wouldn't be. Looking back, I'm sure people thought the same about me. But life marches on and things happen, bad things, the kind that leave you awake in the wee hours, cleaning blood out of the carpet and writing suicide notes. After my mom told me you were gone, I sat on the floor of the shower, a familiar numbness filling my chest. I kept thinking the same thing: I wish I knew you, really knew you. I wish I could tell you that things would get better. I would say that even I didn't believe it every day, that it still hurts sometimes, but there's so much left to live for. There are sunrises to watch and hikes to go on and dogs to pet and diplomas to receive. There's making your mom proud and making your younger sibling smile. I would say that you're 18 and you still have so much ahead of you. I would say that I love you and I want you to stay, because even though I don't know you anymore, I know that you always had a big heart, big like mine. Maybe that's why we hurt the most: We try to carry everyone else's burden like it's our own. Most of all, I would tell you that it's not a sin to be sad. You're not wrong for struggling. You're only wrong for doing it alone. As of April 25, 2026, I've been clean for three years, and every day of it has been precious, even the ones where I wished I'd been brave enough (that's what I called it then) to finish the job. I used to feel jealous of the people who went through with it. Now I just feel sad, and I miss you. I miss your lopsided smile. I miss watching you attempt a bumbling line dance with my best friend in PE. I miss how kind you were to your sister, kind to me, kind to everyone, even the boy that hid under the teacher's easel in kindergarten and wouldn't come out. I miss the version of you that could have, would have, been. I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, and I know I'm not the only one. I was saved once. I wish I could have returned the favor.
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