I wrote this over two years ago, but I recently found it on my computer and thought I should post it.


I remember sitting next to you on the paisley couch that used to be in your basement. You blushed at the sight of it, embarrassed that your mother kept such a horrid thing. But I only laughed as I ran my fingers across the rough material. It really wasn't that bad, especially because it came to hold so many memories.

We tried our first cigarette on that couch. We were fifteen and so naïve, wanting to explore the world and experiment with anything we could get our greedy hands on. You had stolen that pack from your older brother when he came home drunk. You told me that he wouldn't miss it. And so you lit one and inhaled in the way you saw on TV. You choked and coughed, smoke spilling from your nose like I'd told a really great joke during breakfast.

But I wasn't any better at it. You patted me roughly on the back when I felt like I couldn't breathe.

We became experts. You used your quick hands to steal from the gas station where you worked, and you picked me up and drove me somewhere quiet where we would smoke until we felt better about our lives. They caught you three months later because you forgot to tuck the pack further into your back pocket. We laughed about it after your parents lectured you, because we didn't really need your job to get cigarettes. We were sixteen and we knew people; we knew how to find our fix so easily.

You kissed me on that paisley couch. It was the summer after tenth grade and we had run out of things to do and shows to watch. One moment we were talking about My So-Called Life and then you were attached to me. Your mouth tasted like smoke and spearmint, and your hands felt like fire on my skin. And we laid there with our limbs tangled for a long time, whispering to each other and kissing sweetly.

We were a couple for the remaining months of the year, but we broke up at the beginning of the second semester of school because I wanted more than you. It was on the couch where I told you, and that was the first time you told me that you hated my guts. I left the basement in tears, because you were my best friend.

More than a year passed before we spoke again. We were older and mature; your jaw had sharpened and you had sprouted into a man with long legs and strong shoulders. And I had developed womanly curves, all traces of youthfulness thrown out the window. I had seen you at parties with a pretty girl on your arm, but that day I spoke to you, you were alone. And I found out later that you had broken her heart like I'd broken yours, because it was all you knew and you didn't care to get close to anyone again.

That day, I told you I was sorry. You didn't say anything in reply, only grabbed my hand and led me to the basement that I knew too well. We sat on the couch in such awkward silence that I couldn't take it anymore. I laid you down, your back on the rough cushions, and kissed you. To my surprise, you let me and even began to take the lead. I lost my virginity to you there, with that thundering rock music upstairs that synced in perfect rhythm of our hearts.

You whispered you loved me before we started our last year of high school, and I told you I loved you too. We were inseparable, our breathing entwined and our smoke-flavored lips fused together. But then your parents divorced and your mom sold our paisley couch before she moved across the country, and you fell apart. You drank whiskey before you drove to school and bought weed from your friends, skipping class and getting high in the bathroom. They expelled you, but you didn't really care.

The last few months of what was supposed to be our senior year, you stayed home and wallowed in self pity and alcohol. And I studied for my final exams and opened my acceptance letters in private, because I couldn't show you. You were going nowhere fast and I had such a bright future ahead of me.

You didn't show up at graduation. I looked for you in the crowd of proud parents, but you weren't there. So I walked across stage with tears in my eyes, but not for reasons everyone assumed. You disappointed me and I didn't fail to tell you. You cowered in your empty basement with a bottle of Jack in your hand as I yelled and cried a few hours later. You never reached for me. I don't think you ever even understood the words that I spat, because you hadn't been sober for months.

I moved in the middle of August. You and I were far over by then, but I still missed you sometimes. The old you. But I moved on because you were a completely different person than you used to be and more than a hundred miles away. I threw myself into my studies and avoided your drunken, long-distance phone calls that probably cost you a fortune.

I returned home for Christmas but you were gone. There was a note on my bed in your handwriting, and I picked it up with shaky hands. You said that you had been getting better and that you missed me and that you were so sorry. And I wanted to find you to give you the biggest hug I could possibly muster, but then I remembered how badly you hurt me. I spent the holiday in my pajamas with hot chocolate, staying in the house because I couldn't bear the thought of you coming back to town and running into you. So I left without knowing if you were home, because I didn't need your distractions.

My first year of college finished faster than I thought possible, and before I knew it, I was back at home in the room where I grew up. And you still weren't back. I only knew because your older brother stopped by. He was so worried about you, and I'll admit that I was too. That summer moved like a sloth. I was alone, missing you more than ever before. I desired to have you touch me and whisper that you loved me, but I knew that was never going to happen. I had ended our relationship when I moved to a different state, and there was no going back.

I received a phone call a few weeks later. It was the New York Police Department, and I told them from the beginning that they must have been mistaken because I didn't know anyone past Texas. But they had been so certain, knowing my name and asking if I knew you. Of course I said yes. And I had fallen to the floor in tears when they told me you'd thrown yourself in front of a Subway train just that morning. It was suicide, they said, because they found a crumpled note in your pocket in your bad handwriting. There was nothing written except my name and phone number. I wondered how you could possibly do something like that to yourself and to me, but they eventually found an unhealthy amount of alcohol in your system.

And I went back to school that fall, living the same way I always had, just without you.