AbsurdBeats

Brett died. Cancer.

His Twitter pic. There’s only one tweet.

He moved to Falls in the eighth grade, smart, funny, odd. I was immediately. . . not smitten, but taken. He was It.

All through eighth grade, through high school he was the one. Alas, I was not his one: I watched as he pursued Jane and Lori and Bridget—especially Bridget, who had him the way he had me—and others, and with each new or renewed girl, my heart cracked.

He wasn’t cruel: he just wasn’t taken with me.

We were friends, we were more than friends, but as much as I wanted to be his, he was never mine. We were sometimes close, never ‘official’; he was the high school boyfriend who was never my boyfriend.

After high school we veered in and out of each other’s lives. We kept in regular contact while I was in college, less regular when I was grad school. The last time I saw him he was living in Sheboygan with his dog, and into biking. I don’t remember when that was.

I’d think about him, over the years, wondered about running into him on one of my trips back to Wisconsin. I knew we’d never be together, but was I still taken? I was.

And every  time I heard this song, well, it brought him to mind.

Goodbye Brett. I’ve been missing you for as long as I’ve been carrying you, and the possibility of you.

Now, I’ll carry the memory of you.