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.
