“I was 9 when I first met you. You came to my house with my brother, and another friend named Chris. We were new, so you guys were the first people I met. You were so chubby, and you acted so stupid, and I made fun of you all of the time, whether you were at my house or if we were on the playground at school. You always told me I was a mean little girl, and I should be nice. When we got a few years older, you always reminded me, that the first nice thing I did for you was buy you an Arizona Tea. So that just became our thing, Arizona Tea. We became better friends, and I took care of you and my brother when you guys would come home totally wasted. I’d feed you cap’n crunch, but I would tell you it was dog food, and you’d eat it off the ground. It was so gross, but yet so funny not to do. Your 10th grade year, you moved away to California. But a year after that, I visited you in Vegas. You were so different! You weren’t fat anymore, you grew up. & I had one of those cute crushes on you, but it wasn’t anything serious. It sucked that we only had a few days to spend with you, but you definitely showed me and my brother a good time while we were there.
In 2007, my older brother passed away, and you were the only person who really understood what I was going through because we all had been so close. It didn’t matter what you were doing, who you were with, or what time of the night it was, you’d pick up your phone and talk to me, listen to me, make sure I was okay. You were really there for me, even from far away, when I needed you most, you tried your hardest every time. No matter how tired you were. As we grew older, you told me you loved me over Skype. I shrugged it off because I thought you were just joking, or you loved me in a brother/sister way. So I said I loved you too, and nothing else happened after that.
When I went to Hawai’i, me and you would spend hours talking on the phone for the first few nights I was there. We tried so hard to get your mom to say yes for you to come to Hawai’i for the summer, but you were so low on cash that it didn’t happen. We really started liking each other, but since you didn’t come, I had fallen in love with someone else, and you supported me all the way. I didn’t know how much it hurt you.
After that, everything started to change between us. You barely called. You were hanging around with bad people. You barely answered my emails and my facebook messages. And we got into a big fight, and I did the thing I regret the most. I told you to leave me alone. And it hurt me so bad that afternoon, when I got the phone call that you had taken your life.
It hurts me so much to know that I didn’t tell you I loved you enough. It hurts me so much that there was so much I didn’t know. When your mom emails me and tells me what you used to say about me, it just breaks my heart. And when she sent me the song, “I thought she knew” by N’Sync, it just tore me apart.
I know the love we had for each other was the real thing. We were best friends, and somewhere in the middle we fell in love, and then fell into this deeper meaning of love to the point where we were okay with being just friends, because we were both too scared to ruin what we already had. You taught me the meaning of love, you showed me the meaning of love, you showed me the meaning of friendship. If I can’t find a reason in myself to keep living my life, I find it in you. As badly as I want to be there with you and my brother, I’ll stay down here to live the life you guys didn’t have the chance to live.
I miss you so much, and I wish I could send this to you, but I can’t. I love you so much.
Love,
Jakki.“
This is a letter I had written out to my best friend that passed away last April. It hurts me every time I read it. It hurts to wake up from dreams where me and him are hanging out. I miss him so much.
RIP Jacob J. Gueits.
by hellojakki