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I found this picture of Anna and I that was taken on her sixteenth birthday in 2000. I think it’s pretty much the only picture I ever had with her. And it was on the last day I saw her alive.

Tomorrow is the day, the sixth year anniversary of her death. Every time it comes around, I feel like the previous year has flown by so fast and it amazes me. It amazes me how her death still haunts me in ways I cannot explain and how no matter how much time goes by, things don’t get easier in her absence.

I try to think about her mom, and then try not to because I’m ashamed that I haven’t seen her in so long. I wonder if her grandmother that lived with her is still alive and I wonder how her brother is doing now that he’s well into high school. But I can’t bring myself to call her, go to the house, any of it. I can’t because I’m afraid that she’ll hate me for not visiting more often, she’ll hate me because she’ll think that I don’t care about Anna or her life anymore. Mostly, I’m just scared that she’ll hate me because I’m still living, and her daughter isn’t.

It gets easier with time, in theory. Life gets busier, things have to get done and you just don’t dwell on the past as much anymore. But when you think about it, how quickly time flies, how fast things can change in a second, all of it becomes relative.

What are we waiting for? Why wait in our lives when, literally, the next day, it can be over – just like that? Even though I try and use that as my mantra, I still feel apprehension about many things in my life – and sometimes, I’ll think of her and go – she wouldn’t have done that. Not because she got sick, but because that was her personality – to just go out and do something if she wanted to.

She lived like she was going to die tomorrow since she was born, so maybe, just maybe, she had a more fulfilling life than I can ever dream of.

I look over to her and ask her if it’s okay to go upstairs like always. She says okay and leaves the room. I slowly get up and turn to look at him. He stares at me with unsuspecting eyes as I hold out my hand.

“Come with me,” I say. He gets up and takes hold of my outstretched palm. I slowly lead us up the stairs and we pause when we reach the door to her room. “I want to show you her room,” I whisper quietly and open the door.

It’s the same as it’s always been: untouched since she left. The bedspread never been changed because nobody had ever been in it since its last wash. The dried flowers perched upon the headboard in a sort of perfect stance that could never be tampered with. All the things that made the room appear as though a regular fifteen year old girl inhabited it. But it didn’t. Not anymore.

“It’s not something incredibly big, but in some weird way, I like that it’s been unchanged. It’s like something will always stay the same.” I move toward the centre of the room, finally letting go of his hand. He looks uncomfortable, yet at ease, it’s the same way I felt the first time I entered the room. I sit down on the bed and he does the same. “I used to read her diary. Her mother never could, because she felt like it was an invasion of her privacy, which it is. I just couldn’t help myself to know if she really did tell me everything.”

“Did she?” He asks, looking up at me.

“She told me everything that was important. So nothing really that’s in a fifteen-year-old’s diary is,” I reply, looking away. I slowly run my hand along the embroidery in her bedspread. We’re quiet for a moment, both unsure of what to say. I look in her mirror across from us and stare at myself. I look so much older than the last time I saw the same scene. I dart my eyes in his direction and see that he’s doing the same, although he’s trying to read me, my thoughts. He’s not the first one, which is why I can tell that’s what he’s doing. “Hmm. I wonder …” I drift off,

“What?” He asks. I lean forward and run my hand down the dresser drawers, trying to remember and believing that my fingers will jog my memory. I pause once I get to the top drawer and open it. Inside is filled with junk that has now turned into precious scrap that she has touched. I reach into the drawer, all the way in the back, and feel a small box, one usually meant for diamond rings or earrings. I pull it out and he looks confused as I smile up at him. I open the velvet box and inside is a small baggy half full with decomposing marijuana. We both laugh.

“You knew about this?” He chuckles.

“I found it once right after, when I was up here for hours just staring at her things. I hoped her mother wouldn’t find it, so I hid it in the back of the drawer. I guess she didn’t,” I shrugged. We’re quiet again as I put the weed back where it came from. And I look up at him again.

“I know what everyone says. That it gets easier with time. And if you just come to terms with your feelings that everything will fall into place, go back to normal. I know when people ask you if you want to talk they don’t really mean it, because they wouldn’t know what to say. And I know what it feels like to have someone look at you and have everything they ever thought of you, every memory, be replaced by this one thing that gets trademarked by your name. I know that when they say ‘I understand’ they really don’t, and they can’t, no matter many times you choose to talk about it. And I know that you don’t want to talk about it. Because that’s all everyone seems to want to talk about. And that sucks. Because they keep saying to try and get on with life, and things must go on, but the second you actually try, they look at you with these stupid sympathy eyes that say ‘I know you’re not ready and you’re only doing this for my benefit’ and you want to yell at them for being hypocrites. But the truth is they’re right. All you do want to do is sit at home and watch reruns of shows that you’ll remember watching with them and try and brand every memory you have in your brain so they don’t start to fade away with time, because that I can tell you for sure, the memories you have, they will fade. And that’s what hurts even more than anything. The guilt you have when you can’t even remember your best friend anymore. Maybe that’s why it does get easier. Once the memories start to fade, you won’t think of them every second of your day,” I conclude. We’re quiet again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that to come out like that, and so much,” I say as my eyes start to tear, which I hate because I’m usually very good at keeping them dry.

“No, it’s okay. It’s actually pretty right on,” he replies. I just shrug my shoulders in understanding. My hands fidget with each other, like I have no control, until he slowly moves his hand over to mine and encompasses it. I look up and there are tears in his eyes, and it shocks me, because I’ve never seen him cry.

“I don’t want you to cry,” I murmur, putting my hand on his cheek. “But you can if you want.” And he does. He really does. It’s like he hasn’t ever done it before and he lets go, quietly and forcefully at the same time. I’m unsure if I should hug him, if that would be going too far, but then I realize that we’ve probably gone farther than we ever have, so I do. I hug him and he grips me so hard I can hardly breathe, although I don’t really notice until we’ve let go and I inhale deeply to catch my breath,

I look past him at the ticking clock on the end table. According to the time, we’ve been in the room for almost an hour. I look back at him.

“We’d better go, her mom probably thinks we’re doing it,” I joke. He laughs. I smile. I wait for him to get up before I do and I follow him to the door. When he steps outside, I stop. “I think I just need a moment alone.” He nods in understanding.

“I’ll wait out here.”

I close the door slowly and turn around. I walk towards the bed and smooth out the bedspread from where we were sitting, the surface is warm. I haven’t been in the room for so long but to me it looks different, even though I know her mother hasn’t changed it. And I wonder if it looks different to her too, her mother, I mean. If she comes in here every so often and sees that the clock needs to be changed an hour ahead or an hour behind. Or that the furniture surface never needs to be dusted and the dried flowers never grow mold.

I back out of the room and open the door. He’s waiting for me, just like he said. And that makes me smile.

“Thank you,” I say.

“I was just about to say the same thing,” he says back, outstretching his arm, indicating for me to walk ahead of him. I chuckle a bit and walk forward, my eyes never leaving his as I pass. I feel my hand touch his, and realize that he’s intertwining his fingers with my own.

And that makes me smile even more.

You be a jerk to me, I’ll be one right back. How is it that that seems to be the mantra of everyone’s lives these days? It seems to work well enough, if you can deal with the feelings of guilt afterwards, if they even exist.

I read an article in the latest issue of SELF magazine last week about how being happy with everyone you encounter can greatly increase your happiness because it’s like a bounce back effect towards your life. But I thought, what about people taking advantage of your niceness? Because it’ll happen. Sometimes I get so sick of everything that I just want to scream at everyone and tell them what I really think of them or why they’re being retarded. But I can’t, because it’s not nice. And I’m really not that keen on yelling at people all the time. I just don’t understand because although my life has been busy these summer months, I haven’t been stressed out nearly as much as I’ve let myself be these past two weeks. It’s just that everything is annoying me or people are unnecessarily mean or rude to me or others I know. I need some clarification of some sort. Some clarification of why I allow myself to let others get to me when really, I’m not that pissed off to begin with.

I can’t help but wonder if it’s all a front then. If I’m really not happy with all the things gone wrong in my life that I can’t just put on the happy face and go on with everything like nothing’s wrong. And then when someone upsets me in the slightest way, I fall apart so easily because I’m on the verge anyway. Maybe that’s it.

Maybe it’s the fact that it’s already August and almost time to go back to school and I’m not ready to leave quite yet and it’s putting me even more on the edge. It’s the feeling of not exactly fitting in anywhere. I don’t fit in at home because I’m always leaving and that’s my story to anyone I meet – I don’t really live in Mississauga anymore. When I’m at school, I love it, but curse myself everyday for choosing a school so Goddamn far away from home in a city I hate but have learned to tolerate. I don’t feel as though I fit in there either, I mean, I haven’t even spoken to anyone from school much less seen them. Not my previous proclaimed bestest friend E because he doesn’t believe in a phone. Not K whom I miss terribly but somehow feel that doesn’t miss me the same. I mean, I’m not putting blame, it’s my fault too, I haven’t made the greatest effort either, but shouldn’t it have come easy? It always seemed to in Windsor. Maybe it’s because when we’re all there, we don’t have anyone else.

Maybe I’ve just been listening to too many Coldplay songs and feeling sorry for myself to care about making any sense. Maybe it’s because I get like this every time it’s August 2nd and nobody remembers but me that Anna died. It wasn’t anyone else’s best friend, I know, but to my family; it’s their kid whose friend died. It should at least be a factor in remembering, I think. I mean, I had to suffer through the constant “watch-dog” actions of “is she going to kill herself” for the next year after her death, you’d think someone would remember something at least. A sickness maybe, anything.

But maybe it’s all just constant ramblings of sadness. A sadness of a time I’ll never get back. A sadness of a time that I’m leaving. A sadness of a time that I know is to come. A sadness that I wish was noticed but know it’ll never be.

It’s that time of year again, only this time it’s like a ‘milestone’ – if you can call it that. Five years. It’s been five years since she died. And here I am thinking about how so many things have changed since May. Because they have, but when I think about the differences in my life from that time, I can’t believe it.

I miss K. She left just yesterday and I already feel as though my better half has vanished. Even though we talked for like an hour today on MSN, it just wasn’t the same. I haven’t talked to the girl on MSN in forever because we’ve never needed to. I would just walk over to her room and annoy the shit out of her so she would laugh. The great part about it was that she never was really annoyed (at least I don’t think).

When we decided to become roommates last year and moved in together in September, I didn’t know what to make of our first year living arrangement. Who knew if we would remain friends, become better friends or turn out to hating each other’s guts?

The first two months of school, she was still eighteen and unable to come out with me and our friends, and it always made me feel bad. Everyone would always ask me “where’s your roommate?”, thinking that we didn’t really like each other and that’s why she was never out with us.

As soon as she turned legal, I hosted a crazy party in her honour at our place and so started the beginning of “crazy K” and our countless inside joke references. But as the year went by, I found myself enjoying the nights when we both opted to stay at home, watch TV and just laugh our heads off at the stupidest of things as opposed to when we’d go out with tons of people.

It’s weird, how things happen. Because when I first met her, although I did like her, I didn’t really know her, and could have never predicted the level of our friendship this year. She helped me out with a project for my journalism class last year and while I interviewed her, she let me in on her life, something she guards with every ounce of her heart. At this time, we had already agreed to live with each other and I told her that “next year, I will open you up, K. I will introduce you to so many people so that you won’t have to worry that your shyness will get in the way” and I informed her that she would see a whole new life with me living with her and being a constant friend.

I’d hoped she believed it, but who knows if she did. But right now, it’s the one thing in life that I know I did good on. I won’t toot my own horn, because there’s nothing to “toot”. Sometimes she would say something along the lines of “going out with your friends” and I’d correct her with “they’re your friends too, now” and slowly she stopped saying that, slowly realizing that although I had been the one to introduce her to them, she was the one who kept them her friends. I think I got her to believe in herself, so that she knew that she was loved and liked and able to open up to people without letting down her guard, should she choose not to.

I can’t even begin to explain the effect she’s had on my life as well. She sent me an email last week about the sadness of our living together ending for the year and I wrote her back saying that I now feel as though she is a part of my family, she is my other sister. And I didn’t realize it as much as I did until I typed those words out. I honestly have never felt as comfortable with another human being as I am when we’re around each other.

It makes me sad that I know that some people don’t have someone like that in their lives. Whether it be a blood relation or just a 10 year long friendship. I’m so lucky to have found someone to call my best friend after such a short time. I’m always weary about calling someone my best friend, because every time I have in the past, I’ve gotten hurt by that person. It’s really something when you know, as you would with family, that it doesn’t matter what happens between two people, they are still loved when it comes down to it because of the bond that’s been created.

I was talking to my sister at my grandfather’s 80^th birthday party earlier this month about whether or not I thought I’d still be friends with Anna if she were still alive. Sabrina immediately said she didn’t think I would be. Although I gave her a look and resented the comment, it’s sad to say that she’s probably right. If it weren’t for her getting sick, we would never have become as close as we did so fast. And although that fact is sad, I still feel some sort of content that I had that time with her.

With K, we fell into a fast friendship because of our living arrangement not because of a limited time based sickness. On Wednesday, I was walking back home from B’s house with B in tow and as I stepped up the stairs I stated how sad I was that K and her mom had already left because the car was gone. Although we had already said our goodbyes, it was like she was gone so suddenly. As soon as I said it, a car honked at us. B and I turned around and saw K and her mom driving back to the house. I immediately thought they forgot something until they pulled up and K said she saw us walking and commanded that her mom turn around so she could say goodbye one more time.

That’s the difference between my friendship with Anna and the one I have now with K. Every time I said goodbye to Anna I never knew if it was going to be the last time I would. With K, I know she’ll turn around so we can say it one more time before we see each other again.