Dear Henry,
I can see you still, in the memories that flood my mind when I hear the word "racecar". The laughter, the joy - the you I knew when you were a boy. You were a great friend for the year we shared in class together, and you were the coolest person in my life ... until you took yours.
It has been almost nine years since I heard the news that life had grown too hard and that you did what you thought you could. We lost you for good. I thought: I should have, I could have, would I have? Was there a thing I could have said to you to satisfy the demon inside and bury it forever? By that point, our connection had already been severed. I heard the news, and I hadn't seen you for three or four years, and still I cried. I didn't know you, but I knew you.
I knew a smart little boy with an obsidian bowl cut, it was always askew because he lived fast. Fast on the playground, fast in friendship, and fast on the racetrack. He had gaps in his teeth, signs that he was still growing. He had a band-aid perpetually on his knee from some scrape because he wouldn't slow down. When that carefree kid who played with me and told me the secret name of his stuffed animal - knowing I would hold no judgment- was proclaimed dead, I cried. I cried for him, and I cried for you, because it meant somewhere along the way before you acted, you'd lost him too.266Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡh9rSMfRIS5
I should have stayed in contact, I could have reached out, would I have if I still knew you? ... Yes, I'd like to think so, because beyond whatever else other people said about you while you were in a different school, I knew you. I wonder every day what could have been if I'd had the chance to know you again. Who you would be, but that's not how it will be. You'll never know, but after I heard the news, I went home and found the piece of artwork we did together and signed, I put it on my dresser, and prayed for the first time, hoping that heaven existed, so that whatever it was that hurt you could hurt you no longer. I still have that piece of art, kept in a box of other paraphernalia from the things lost to time.
You will never read this, and in the same, I'll never get the chance to ask why? For you, I write this still, so that it is out there. I remember you, and I miss you. I'm sorry you couldn't have known nine years ago that I still think of the boy who lived fast.
-Jess
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