Dear Adrianna

It's really hard to believe it's been a month already. Because of the vividity of my memories, it feels like it was just yesterday that the hallways were buzzing, everyone talking about some accident that a student had been in, and the post on facebook that said someone in that accident had been killed.

I remember trying to convince everybody, and myself, that it couldn't have been someone our age, nobody our age is supposed to die. This happened in the cities, not in our little small town. But when it was confirmed that it was you who we lost, I cried harder than I had ever cried before.

The worst part of it was, I felt guilty for crying. You and I weren't best friends, we haven't really spoken since freshman year. Yet I remember your soft voice, and the little slip of paper you gave me that had some inspirational quote on it when you saw me crying in class.

I really wish I could remember what it said right about now.

The day after you died, we didn't have school. Some say it was because the roads were awful, but I know it was because no one was ready to return to a school in which you didn't walk the halls. At least not yet. On that day, late at night, I was sitting in my living room, alone, wondering why it had to be you.

Then I saw this little glimmer in the doorway, and I wanted to think it was you. I told you that we were all going to be at your funeral, and that we would never forget you. Which is true, everyone still talks about you, Madi still posts the pictures of you two together, and your accounts are still immortalized in the realm of social media. You wouldn't believe the amount of likes on every picture.

It's February now, almost March. We're three months away from the real world, and sometimes all I can think about is the experiences you will never have. Culinary school, new, exciting college friends, love, marriage, children. You're forever 17, and you'll always be remembered as the girl who died our senior year.

You'll always be remembered as the girl who gave our tiny slips of paper out of a mason jar to try and make people feel better. You'll always be the girl in Drama Club, the girl with the flair for the dramatic.

I thought I saw you in the hall today, smiling and laughing with some girl I didn't know. But as "you" got closer, I realized it was just another girl with long dark hair and almond eyes. I couldn't help but feel happy, because maybe for just a second it really was you, and you're somewhere smiling now, not pining for the high school life you left behind.

I hope that you're somewhere more beautiful than this building decorated with far too much construction paper and thinly veiled attempts to portray college as an affordable option.

Even when we walk out of those glass front doors for the last time, each and every one of us has your name forever inscribed on our hearts. You're apart of all of us now Adri.