We met the summer of our freshman year, we were on a bus heading to sunny California for a week long Young Life camp. I sat on the bus with my very good looking guy friend Jon Paul. He was sexy by all standards, but not my type at all. When he spotted you on the bus that day, he nudged me quickly and said, "Check out that brunette behind us." I turned around, to nearly head butt you, we both laughed. I introduced myself as the friend of the hot guy and proceeded to fill in his name. You laughed and said you'd noticed him. I found you intriguing, almost unreal. Your beauty was stunning and to a 14 year old girl with major self esteem issues, you were overwhelming. I made it my mission that week to learn everything about you, we spent the week glued to one another, I had to know what your secret was.
I remember the smell of the bathroom when you first caught me throwing up. It wreaked of teen girls, cheap perfume and expensive hair spray. The clanking of the bathroom vent was loud enough to drown out my occasional gag, the music coming from the dorm assured me everyone was too busy after dinner to wonder where I had disappeared too. I didn't even hear the door open, I only felt you grab on my ankle from under the door. I freaked, who had a hold of me and how much had they heard! I froze in a panic fearing you were my dorm leader who would surely turn my secret into an intervention opportunity. You didn't say a word, only "open the door love". I meekly opened the door, puke still on my breath and blood shot eyes. You hugged me so hard, I felt a queasy pang. That night, we laid in bed nose to nose talking about our shared secret. Your throwing up binges dated back farther than mine by years, I was new to the world of self hate and unobtainable dreams.
We spent years nose to nose on many horrible nights. My love for you grew deeper than I could have ever imagined, in all my life I had never felt so lucky as to call you my best friend! I eventually outgrew my ability to self hate, I became content in myself and my weight, you on the other hand spiraled out of control over the years.
The day I had my son, I called you to come meet your Godson and you said you were too busy that day, but I could tell by the shaking in your voice you really meant you were too high. I cried, staring at my beautiful baby boy, I cried because I wanted to leave my son and go rescue you from whatever shit hole you were getting high in. Days turned into weeks, weeks into months before you finally were sober enough to meet Kolten. I remember watching him crawl across the floor to you but you were shaking so bad from with drawls, I grabbed him before you could. It was that very moment of scooping my baby off the floor that I realized I had to let you go, my protection belonged to my son, not too you, not anymore.
Jessica, today my love for you far exceeds my hate for your choices. There are days that I get so angry at the drugs and then at you for not being stronger. I pray your addictive cycle's will end when you leave rehab, but you always go right back. I pick up the phone every time, praying it's not the call that you're dead. The last time we spoke, I called you in a blind rage...my cell phone came up missing, money, movies all things I would have handed to you if you'd asked. I begged you to admit you needed help, I begged you to get help. I could hear the lies in your voice, the same lies I had heard over the last nine years. I screamed and cried for you, for our friendship and for the drugs that had such a tight grip on your life. I said in one breath, "it was just a fucking cell phone, don't you want a family and a husband and sobriety?!" The last words you spoke to me were, "call the cops if you want to turn your back on your best friend." I did, I called the cops and filed a police report and cried to the operator that you were my best friend and that it was just the drugs, she patched me through to an officer who told me it was just a cell phone, there's not much we can do. I screamed at the cop, crying hysterically that it wasn't just a cell phone, it was my best friends life!
That night, I called your mom, begging her to find you and get you some damn help. She never returned my call. I heard from Jon Paul this last year that you finally hit rock bottom. He told me that he too had tried to save you, we talked about what a beautiful girl you were. We talked about the night we all first met on that bus outside of Phoenix. I cried and could hear him sighing loudly, that night we both finally let go of that beautiful girl from freshman year and stopped holding you to a standard you would never again achieve. That night I let go of my fears for you and my dreams for you. I begged Jon Paul to love you no matter what, I told him that I needed him to keep in touch with you. My gratefulness to Jon Paul for not walking away the way I had too is never ending. Jessica, there was never another friend as great as you!