I Don’t Know Your Favorite Color

Five years ago, I had a best friend. I told her everything, and I loved her with my whole heart. Her name was Emma Brown. We had sleepovers practically every weekend, staying up late watching high school movies, dreaming of the cool friends and even cooler boyfriends we would have.

Four years ago, my best friend moved schools, and she slowly became just a friend. We texted occasionally, but it always felt forced. She made new friends and boyfriends while I was left behind, all alone in the sixth grade.

Three years ago, her mom told my mom to tell me to never text Emma again. I didn’t understand why, and I would cry at night, wondering what I had done wrong this time. I drifted away from the few new friends I had, burying myself in books.

Two years ago, I started to move on — making new friends, even getting a boyfriend. We broke up quickly, but I was in the eighth grade — those relationships don’t count. Occasionally, I would think of Emma, reminiscing about our friendship and mourning the Monday morning her mom had texted mine. When thoughts of Emma leaving wouldn’t leave, I would succumb to the temptation of stalking. I’d look at her friends, see how she was doing, even try to follow her on Instagram. She blocked me, so I never checked again. Eventually, I made more friends and, somehow, I forgot all about the friend that was.

A month ago, my ex-best friend died.

Emma, when you died, a part of me died too, and I don’t think I’ll ever get over not being able to say goodbye one last time.

I never got to say goodbye. You never told me why you left.

On September 23rd, you died.

On September 24th, I found out.

When your name lit up my phone that terrible Tuesday evening, I was elated. I thought you were trying to be my friend again, that maybe, after all these years, you were finally reaching out. Maybe my letters I never sent worked.
But it was your mom delivering the terrible news. I thought it was a cruel joke, so I laughed it off, but it was hard to ignore the dread rising in my chest, the weight of what I was hearing.

I received the funeral invitation four days later, and I couldn’t breathe. I flung my phone across the room, my eyes stinging. Then I couldn’t breathe.

It was like my heart stopped — but also like it couldn’t stop dropping — because it was confirmed. You were gone, Emma. Gone. And all I could think was that you would never breathe again. I sobbed for hours, only thinking of you.

I didn’t go to your funeral because I knew I wouldn’t be able to face your mother’s face. That’s what I tell myself, anyway. Truthfully, I didn’t want to see you — my lively, lovely, beautiful best friend — motionless. Forever.

I was a wreck. I am. The day of your funeral, I wrote. I wrote the story of you and me. And although it wasn’t as long as I wished it were, I wrote. I wrote about how we met, our imaginary worlds, our stupid fights in the fifth grade, and even crazier reconciliations.
Emma Ana May Brown, I love you so much, and I will forever love you, even if you’re no longer the girl whose favourite colour I know, whose house I slept over at every weekend. It’s a strange thought, but maybe I’ll learn to live without you. I’ll learn to live in your absence, to grow in the void you’ve left in so many lives.

And maybe, just maybe, I’ll learn to live without you.

In one month, I hope to think of you without my heart breaking a little. I might even say your name out loud.

In two years, I might graduate from high school. During that time, I hope to make all the friends and boyfriends we once dreamed of.

In three years, I hope to be in university, or traveling to Paris. I might even pursue a career in the medical field, like you always wanted.

In four years, I might find ‘the one,’ and he probably won’t be the one I liked in the sixth grade.

In five years, I hope to have moved on. I long to learn another girl’s favourite colour, to know her hopes and dreams, her past and her future. We’ll be the best of friends, but she will not be you.
Even though we weren’t exactly friends when you died, I still count you as my first love, my unbiological sister. You were. We were good together.

But I cannot keep doing this anymore; I cannot die just because you did. I must live enough for the both of us.

Because you left me, Emma. Again. Except this time, you aren’t just changing schools.

You are dead.

Goodbye.