I'm going to get her back.

I went to first through fourth grade at the same school. After that it was one year here, one year there, one and a half, two and a half, two… Then university became one here, one home, one there… I was usually the nerdy outcast. All of this is to say, some people have things in their lives that others don’t. And that’s okay. Some people have nice cars. Other people have fifty year marriages. I had a fascination with books. Other kids had friends.

Not a big deal, I didn’t have close friends. Not long term anyway, but it didn’t really upset me that much. I had other things they didn’t have. I learned about philosophy while they had sleepovers. Who cares. That’s life.

One thing I do have is extremely vivid dreams. Quite frequently I have a memory and I’m not sure if it actually happened or if I dreamed it. I mean to say these dreams are indistinguishable from reality. I wake up disoriented and confused. Last night I could fly. I should be able to fly now. Sometimes I’m in waking life and realize what just happened was in my dream the night before. That’s disorienting, too.

The first person who became a real, long-term, close friend was A______ W_______. I don’t know why she picked me. We were working together, and she was simply kind to me. She’d share some of the food she brought in. Then she started bringing in special things just for me. I didn’t understand what was happening. I thought she was hitting on me. I didn’t know how friendship worked. After the third time we hung out I walked her back to her car and asked to kiss her. She laughed and asked for a hug instead. She wasn’t scared off. She helped me understand what friendship could be like. She was my friendship teacher. She moved to Florida before social media was a huge thing. I was sad. We still loved each other very much but the distance meant we drifted a little.

Another thing I have that some other people don’t is cooking skills. I mean I’m really good. I don’t know how to make bad food. What does a lifelong friendship matter when I can rock your world with chicken saltimbocca? You know how people make food with weed, and it always tastes like compost? Not my cookies. I make the butter first with a secret trick, and then I add delicious strong spices. Maybe ginger, orange peel, and lemongrass. Maybe cinnamon, clove, and vanilla bean. My pot cookies are the talk of the town at any party they decide to visit.

I think Andrea found another queer student before she found me. We were at university, and I had just changed from social chairperson to president of the campus queer straight alliance. If I remember our first encounter correctly, it was a sunny day in a long hallway, well-lit with natural light from windows the whole way down. It was one of those days, it was some of that light, that just gets inside you and lifts you up. And there they were sitting, the beautiful pair of them, and maybe someone had told them I was the QSA president, and they shouted out to me, and in that magical way that only exists in oppressed communities, we instantly fell in love and became friends. We started planning our “wedding.” It wasn’t real, of course, except that it was. If you know, you know.

That’s a thing I have. A skill at making communities. At bringing people together. You have family vacations at Hawaii every winter? I put people together who support one another and stay in touch for life. That changes the world, you know.

How exactly did Andrea and I become so close? What were the steps? I can’t retrace them. One thing I don’t have is a great memory. Seriously, I can forget anything. Once, a friend told me that the two years we spent having nightly conversations on the phone had meant so much to them. I have no memory of that at all. This is to say, I cannot remember a time when Andrea Milligan was not my very best friend in the entire world. Once it happened, it had always been that way.

I still wasn’t one of those long term friend people yet though. Andrea and I were friends in university, but I was only there three years. But somehow, it lasted. Bless technology I guess, the introduction of social media, messaging through phones, video chats. We were never not in touch. She was my best friend, and it lasted and lasted.

We used to do everything together. I mean we were a single unit item. You didn’t see one of us without the other. More people than I can count assumed we were a couple. I mean it happened a lot. Straight people, queer people, people who knew us well, people we’d just met. They would either ask outright, “Are you together?” or they would invite one of us to something and say, “Bring your girlfriend.” We would collapse into laughter and fall upon one another, which maybe didn’t help their perception but we didn’t care.

We’d have sleepovers four-fifths naked. She helped me unlearn my shame around my body. Look, sleeping in your underwear is just more comfortable than sleeping with clothes on. And one thing we had in common was how much we embraced how lazy we were. We could sleep all day. One of us would wake up and take video of the other one snoring, then fall asleep and the other would take video of the first one snoring. We’d share it later and laugh.

We’d cook together and laugh. We’d go to movies together and laugh. We’d go to protests and chant and march. We’d get new partners and gush over them. We’d go through breakups and have nasty cries and get sloppy drunk. I’d host parties with my famous cookies and all our local community and beloved chosen family would come and eat and giggle. After 7 years as friends she shared with me an article she read that says, if a friendship makes it to seven years, you’re going all the way. We were going all the way.

So much so in fact that when she got a new partner that refused to meet me on my trips home from the opposite side of the globe (I think Andrea never forgave me for moving so far away from her, but she still loved me), I didn’t mind. We’d both seen each other through terrible choices in relationships. This, too, would pass. I mean, the woman was literally married. That’s not sustainable, right?

My friend Keith killed himself over depression. My roommate Angela killed herself over depression. My roommate Tommy had an accidental overdose. My classmate Aaron fell asleep driving and crossed the median. My dear friend Sean killed himself over trauma. My adopted baby Nic killed himself over depression. Lucie laid down to sleep and never woke up and we never found out why. This is a short sample of the long list. Death must be one cool motherfucker. She takes all my favorite people to hang out with her. My first brush with a suicide was in sixth grade. My grandparents were dying before I was born, when I was two, when I was in fourth grade. Death has always been close by, eyeing my nearest and dearest. We’re very well acquainted. I am quite accomplished and practiced with grief.

Once after my roommate Angela died I had one of those vivid dreams. She was dancing around in a corset and a billowing skirt, her famous red lipstick flaring across her smiling mouth. But I thought you died, I said. She threw her head back and laughed. Please, she said, like something as weak as death could stop me. Then she kept dancing and I just watched and watched. I woke up disoriented and confused. It was so real. Was she back?

When I finally met Andrea’s new partner, who I will not name, she seemed nervous. Things seemed off. Whatever. Then she flew off the handle over something that was nothing. Weird. Then she demanded Andrea leave my vehicle and go into hers and talk about how horrible I was for the better part of an hour while I waited. Okay.

I had come back for another visit and to finally meet the partner. The spin was, some friends and I were actually having an intervention for Andrea the next day and she didn’t know it. We thought she might be abusing painkillers. We didn’t know we were having an intervention for the wrong substance.

Yeah, the painkillers didn’t help. But now we know who was placing them in her palms to be swallowed down. If that woman, who is already in trouble for physical assault with a deadly weapon, doesn’t stand trial for the murder of my best friend, … it’ll be her loss. As many people as loved Andrea, the woman would be safer in jail honestly. This is not a threat, it’s just a fact.

Have you ever met a person that just… like was the literal embodiment of unconditional love and support and who would celebrate and affirm you exactly who and how you are at all times? Maybe you think you have, but if you never met Andrea, no you really didn’t. That person you’re thinking of wasn’t a third what Andrea was. Honestly, fuck that person. How dare they pale in comparison to the greatest platonic love of my entire life? They should just retire and stop failing to hold a candle to my Andrea.

That was the thing that Andrea had that no one else had.

She once went to a party with red duct tape across her mouth. She managed, without ever speaking, to simply gesture and convey her meaning to enough people that an entire photo album exists of her “kissing” random strangers at this party. She would find lost kids and bring them to our QSA. She was in touch with more people than I have ever met, at all times, telling everyone sincerely and thoroughly how much she loved them. She brought me so many wounded birds that we would nurse back to self love together. Once a meeting at my house spontaneously devolved into a party where three of us were naked and the other six were painting all over the naked ones. This magical joy would just happen around her, and you felt loved and accepted and part of something, something good, something whole. That was her thing. She had that.

We did the intervention. It was hard. She agreed to go to a facility for an intake interview. She aced it because of course she did. She was a boss at stuff like that. They sent her home. I went back to the other side of the planet. I heard The Girlfriend had Andrea locked in a bathroom with a gun. Another friend went over to try and save her. The Girlfriend almost murdered two of my closest long term friends. Andrea didn’t file a restraining order. I get it. I was in an abusive relationship before. It happens. They make you crazy. You think only you understand your relationship. The outsiders, they don’t get it. They don’t understand what you have. It’s you two against the world.

During all of this, Andrea lost her mother. They were thick as thieves. It’s the kind of loss you just don’t heal from. And I couldn’t console her. I had to stay away. I had to wait until she was free from That Woman.

I didn’t mind waiting. I would wait for her. She’d get this relationship out of her system just like we both had all the other shitty partners and then we’d be back together again, good as new. Four of us, friends of Andrea’s, had united to try to do the intervention and we stayed in touch afterward. We all tried different methods repeatedly to try and help. We each played different roles. We figured, eventually she’d wake up, or we’d get through. We would get her back. We were going to get her back.

I don’t know what time Andrea laid down with The Girlfriend. I assume there were pills involved. The Girlfriend posted that the love of her life died in her arms as they slept. What time was it? Was it the same time that I became inexplicably tired very early in the evening and went to bed? It was 3 or 4am local time when I woke up to the “news.” It was still speculation at that point, the reports were coming in. I sobbed well past sunrise. Denial, anger, bargaining all at once. She isn’t dead. We can still get her back. I hate that woman. The wrong person woke up.

Around 7 I went back to sleep. I had a dream Andrea and I were in bed together. I got so excited. She was laying in the bed four-fifths naked under a thick blanket. I got on top of her and bounced and bounced. She was laughing like crazy. I was snuggling in all her chubby bits, tickling her with my nose and kissing her everywhere. I’m so glad you aren’t dead, I said. I knew it wasn’t real. She said, I did it to bring my mom back. She said, I knew if I faked my death she’d come back. Her mom was there too. We all laughed and bounced and cuddled four-fifths naked and the best friend I’ve ever had, the longest the truest, Love walking in human flesh and touching everyone she met, she was there again right beneath me. I woke up disoriented and confused. My friend is not really dead. I’m going to get her back. This isn’t real. I haven’t seen any obit or autopsy. Love can’t die, right? We’re going to get her back. I get to keep my best friend. I get to have that after all. Andrea, call me. I’m confused. Remember the article? How we're going all the way? I’m waiting. I’ll keep waiting as long as it takes.