Lessons From the Kissing Booth

I've been writing letters to you in my head for more years now than I haven't, more than half of my life with a place reserved just for you in a corner of my brain. I never felt too small for my skin when your voice was there and I'm not sure you knew that, and now that you're gone all I want is a time machine to let you know. You were precious and we all definitely took that for granted. I know that's what you're supposed to say whenever someone dies, but that doesn't make it less true.

I've been googling aneurysms for days, trying to find some combination of information that makes it seem real, that makes anything make sense. There's still time for this all to be a wacky misunderstanding.

The version of me that you saw was always better than the version of me that I see. From what everyone has been saying since you died, it seems that you made everyone feel that way. I always want to be the kind of person that makes other people feel like the center of something important but you actually did that, in ways that seemed effortless but probably weren't. I think we made more fun of you for your faults than appreciated you for all of your best qualities. I think we'll do it again, some more, to everyone else. That's one of the blind spots of being a human.

I loved that I knew you. I always will.