Won't Because I Can't

As most people would know, the word I hate is "maybe", but there are worse words than that.

The three "F" words that I don't want to hear are as followed. Forget. Forgetting. Forgotten. I try to forget about him, the best friend that I treated like a king, a god, or whatever is higher than that. I can't forget. He's been gone for over three years already, but he still lingers as if we've never left each other's side at all. I still feel the pain since he told me, "I moved," over the phone. That's not what any best friend wants to hear. I sure never want to hear it, but I've heard it. It's settled. It's done. He's gone.

He was my best friend, I repeat to you. We shared secrets, our lives, and music. While I came from a single mother, blood sister, and stepfather, he came from a religious full family of five, a rich family of five. I didn't know that he had famous parents, but I didn't care. I was friends with him before I found out his mother and father were a famous Latin American duet. He was just my best friend that I met in gym class. I couldn't love him more. I loved him more than Michael Jackson and Justin Bieber combined. That should mean more than anything according to everyone I know. After he left, I felt as if a piece of my heart was ripped out of my chest like a cherry pit spat out of someone's mouth.

Not a day goes by without thinking about him. My day won't end without him in my thoughts. I can't even sleep at night without saying his name. I keep pictures of him inside my notebooks, so whenever I open it up, he's there, and everything I write will be for him. Of course, he'll never know because he doesn't want to hear it. He doesn't want to see me to hear it. That's what hurts me most of all.

How can you live a day without seeing the person that stood you up when evil pushed you down? Is it a live and move on thing? That's what I've been told a hundred times or more, but I believe it's more. What I don't believe in is that "forget me" stuff. Move on means to forget, and I don't want to forget. I won't forget because I can't.

My definition of forget is, "I never cared."

At night, it gets worse. I dream. Everyone dreams, but I dream about him. I had a dream the other night about it, and out of all the dreams I've had, I hate this one the most.

I'm invisible because I haven't been spoken to by anybody. I'm just an invisible body in an unknown place. It's a dull room with no glint of happiness. I see him in the corner, confused, alone, pale like the moonlight. His voice is still the way I remember it from those years ago. Like I mentioned, his brown, bright skin is close to white as sand. My heart jerks back. Each string is snapping to destroy it into nothing and leave me dead. I want to say something, but once a word escapes my lips, he can't hear me. He can't hear the voice that he used to be happy to hear every day. It is a nightmare to see him not notice me at all.

Each dream I get becomes more sad, and only once in a blue moon will I have a dream of us reuniting, us forgiving, us forgetting the past forever. Well, the bad stuff at the least. The past still haunts me, and when I run, it follows me. Somehow, it slips into my mind, and it's residing in there like a worm in a sick man's stomach. The side effects are chills, tears, and trembles of the mouth. Every time they see me cry, I swallow my pride and bite my tongue until it bleeds.

I'm living in a nightmare altogether. Will I ever open my eyes and return to eighth grade with him still in East Brunswick, and we're still the best of friends that anyone would know? Will we still be Mario and Luigi? Rocky and Bullwinkle? Carly and Sam? When all else fails, what about Simon and Paula even though they act like they "don't" like each other? There's something still there; I just know it.

Sadly, no, this is real. I'm a junior in high school and almost ready to leave East Brunswick forever in another year. The farther away I am, the more I won't be near the drama I was once in. Perhaps leaving will help me forget. Then again, I won't because I can't.

Hysteria consumes me, yet I do have a guard. He knows when I'm feeling sorrow. He knows why I have been consumed in darkness for years and years that pass and come. He prevents me from becoming a new Lady Macbeth, a witch to the darkness. He finds my light and returns it to me to help me become Tinker Bell once more. Still, he can't replace who I lost, but he doesn't have to now that I think about it. It's out with the old and in with the new.

But still...

I won't forget because I can't.

***

Nellson, I will never forget you even if my life depended on it.