A Place for the Ache

It's been over a year since I've seen you. Almost a year and a half since we had our last real conversation. About six months since my phone last had your name blinking on its screen. 

There's something about your absence that leaves me with a subtle ache right in the middle of my chest that never quite goes away. The melodramatic in me swears it's an honest to goodness physical aching coming straight from the hole you left in my heart. The whisper of a realist in me swears it's not.

I'm not sure why it is I haven't been able to forget you. To forget the softness of your genuine smile. The mischievous look you'd get in your eyes when you were teasing me. Or the hundreds of other little details that so wonderfully came together in you.

I know how pathetic I sound when I say you still cross my mind almost every day. I can assure you it's not premeditated.

Trust me.

Most days start off well enough, my thoughts occupied with the business of the day...

Until I see someone on my way to class with the same walk and build as you. Or hear your favorite song from freshman year. Or run into your little brother back home.

Usually it's like that. One small reminder and I find myself reminiscing and unpacking the memories from our friendship I hold dearest to my heart.

I dust off the memory of that time you called me up out of the blue to come play basketball on the old playground hoops after school one of the first days that year we could go without our winter coats. I was so shocked you actually called me. When I answered, running into the bathroom out of fear the chaotic sounds of my house would seep through my cell phone and out of yours, I just knew it was going to be a pocket call, but it wasn't. It was just you egging me on to come and get my arse whooped again.

I had chores to do, but I couldn't get out of the house quick enough. Bay and I met up as soon as I was down and drove back into town. You were gone already by the time we got there. I can't help but smile thinking about how infuriated I was after that little stunt. I'm fairly sure I sent a text with a few choice words your way.

I wipe the cobwebs off the memory from our junior year, of opening that text message from you after Tina died.

"Wanna come play some bball?" you asked.

I went.

Bay came with me, and Scott was already there with you. We might've dribbled the ball here and there, maybe even shot it a couple of times, but we all knew that game we loved was loving us back that day by serving as our front for meeting when what we all needed more than anything was to be together and comfort each other.

We somberly sat on the hoods of our cars and asked ourselves the questions we'd been too afraid to confront alone.

Some of the memories I pull out of storage aren’t so pleasant. I often think of the first time I was flat out horrible to you, the August after graduation, via text while I was at the lake with my family and you were still working in Okoboji. It broke my heart to think I was the root of any pain you had to feel. After an unanswered apology I deleted your number and didn’t hear from you for months.

I remember the late night conversations we’d have about the people we were becoming and who we wanted to be. You never thought you were worthy of much and always insisted you were too far-gone for anything good. I never understood how with less than two decades of life lived anyone could be “too far-gone.”

Especially anyone with a soul as kind as yours.

When memories like these come out of the archives of my mind the ache in my chest grows sharp and I do my best to forget, at least for that moment. In moments like that I send up a prayer or two for you, asking God to show you how much you are loved, especially by Him, and that He keeps you safe as you stumble through life wherever you are. If only you knew and believed these truths.

I know it’d make all the difference.