October 25th

Dear Stones,

Loren and I have officially stopped hanging out. She was going to come over for a sleepover tonight but I bailed on her. I made my mom phone and tell her mom that I wasn’t feeling well. I don’t know why, I just don’t want to talk to her about … well, about you. And I know that’s what she wants to do.

I just found out that her parents made her go to a counselor as well. She didn’t tell me herself, though. I only know because her mom told my mom and my mom told me, to make me feel better about going. Yay, I’m not the only freak around. My mom totally doesn’t get it. She’s mad that I canceled on Loren but I don’t care. I can hear her and my dad fighting about it downstairs.

Mom: Why do you keep defending her? She needs to spend time with some real friends.

Dad: Just leave her be. If she doesn’t feel up to it …

Mom: Oh, she’s feeling fine. She just wants to hide up in her room, listening to music all night. It’s not healthy. She needs real friends.

Dad: Give her time.

Mom: She’s had enough time.

Dad: Has she? I know I never had to deal with what she’s going through at her age.

Mom: I know. You’re right. I’m just … worried about her.

 

I can’t believe my dad won that one. He never wins.

My mom’s wrong. I’m not up here listening to music. I’m not up here doing anything other than writing to you. I kind of stopped listening to music. No, I’m serious!! I haven’t touched my iPod in forever. I don’t even know where it is—probably under a pile of clothes or something.

There’s this song playing on the radio right now. I don’t know who it’s by, but the lyrics are something about coming home and washing away pain and sins … I fucking HATE this song right now. People are posting it on your FB, dedicating it to you and shit like that. Some are sending it to me because it reminds them of you. What’s funny is that I know you’d hate this song. We would have made so much fun of it together. But it’s EVERYWHERE!! It’s hard to listen to anything right now. Everything reminds me of you. Reminds me of something we did together. Like that Damien Rice song we listened to on repeat. And I know you don’t agree with me, but you got so good at playing it on the guitar. Every time I listen to the part at the end, the part where it gets fast, it always makes me think about how frustrated you got when you messed up, and then how mad you got when I laughed at you for getting frustrated … I hate music.

 

You: You don’t mean that.

Me: Yes, I do.

You: Sticks.

Me: Okay, I don’t hate it … it’s just that it doesn’t sound the same without you. And when I listen to it … I just … I see you. It’s like a montage of you running through my head.

You: A montage of me? Like my greatest hits?

Me: Kind of.

You: I like that.

Me: You would.

You: You have to listen to music, Sticks. You have to listen to it for me because I couldn’t take it if I wrecked music for you.

Me: It doesn’t sound the same without you. Nothing’s the same without you.

You: Is that why you bailed on Loren?

Me: Hanging out with her reminds me too much of hanging out with you. All of us together. And I can’t do it. It hurts too much.

 

You’re gone but you’re not really gone. And it hurts.

Sticks