I Miss You

I missed you today. I was thinking about your laugh. Your smile would spread all the way across your face and you wouldn't make a sound... you'd just turn red and shake uncontrollably until you were on the floor in stiches. Your humour was so crude... you knew exactly how to get a rise out of us. Everything was funny when we were together.

We used to sit drinking coffee and eating cookies and making fun of cheesy radio jingles until school called us back. You'd make fun of my laugh, but I liked it. You'd make fun of my jokes, but I'd smile and giggle and hit you. You had a way of making me feel playful without the immaturity. You had a way of making me feel pretty without the romance. Why couldn't you have found some way to deal with everything? How did life get so bad that it came to this?

You missed your 21st birthday. We had it anyways, at your place with a barbecue and cake and balloons. Everyone wrote a message on the balloons for you and we sent them off after the party. Your parents miss you a lot. They missed us too.

When it gets really bad, I find myself asking why. When my mom first told me, that's what I asked over and over and over as I curled up into a little ball and cried. Why? I suppose I'll never get an answer. That's the one thing that keeps me unsettled about you. Still, after more than a year... I miss you.