Seashells and Bottlecaps

I miss you, my friend.

I was never a good friend to you. I was selfish and mean and careless with your tender heart. I didn’t love you as you deserved. And now all that’s left of you is a box of bottle caps under my bed. It’s a box that I’ve carried from place to place for 15 years and never opened. I always thought that if I kept the box shut, it would hurt less. And for a while, it did.

But I miss you. I miss your laugh, the way it would echo off the walls and wrap me up in your mirth. I miss your deep baritone rumble. I miss your breath, slow and steady. I miss your thick brown hair and your bottomless brown eyes. I miss your freckles. I miss how you always knew how to make everything okay.

I miss you, my friend.

Life without you has been so strange. I have learned to get along without you, the way someone might learn to adapt after losing a hand or a leg. I function, but many things are much more difficult.

I opened the box recently. I had not looked at it for so long I had forgotten what was in it. The sound of a dozen bottle caps rattling against one another unnerved me and I opened it. I saw them all there, much like precious gems in a pirate hoard and it took me a moment to remember why I had a box of bottle caps. At the bottom there was one solitary scallop shell.

I miss you, my friend.

A hundred walks along the shore at sunrise and sunset, as the water chased behind us. Pinks skies and midnight sand as your fingers laced through mine. We never found any unbroken shells, except this one, perfect and whole. You told me to keep it, closing my fingers around it ever so gently. I took it home and put it in a box. I forgot about it.

The bottle caps are something else. I don’t remember why I kept them, or which night they are from. Maybe they are from many nights. But in the days and weeks after you left, I gathered them up and tucked them away with your seashell. I don’t know why. But I do know that what cannot be said will be wept.

I miss you, my friend.

I remember pieces: My birthday. A text. An obituary. A light gone out too soon. Silly little wounds I can never mend. Apologies I cannot make. Your mom in a black dress, telling me she would be okay. You took her to England, the deepest desire of her heart. You made sure she had those happy memories. Your new girlfriend, and her hateful glare. Wearing My mom’s shoes because I didn’t have funeral shoes. You don’t think you’ll need funeral shoes at 22. Your favorite hat, at odds with a new suit. Your stillness. You were never still like that.

I remember feeling like I didn’t belong. I had hurt you. I had left you. What right did I have to mourn you? I never gave you the love you deserved. I hurt you. And now you’re gone and I can never make it right. I wish you were here. You would make a joke and tell me to stop being so serious. You would throw your head back and laugh your great booming laugh and I would know everything was okay.

I miss you, my friend.