Dear Best Friend,

To say you were taken too young is an enormous understatement. I still cannot fathom that this world does not have your beautiful soul in it anymore. I feel as if you will miraculously post something on Facebook, or Retweet something hilarious, and that this whole thing was a massive, horrible, and cruel misunderstanding. But I know that will not happen. I know that I will never be able to text you again, or hear you laugh, or take pictures with you. I know we will not get to meet up at a high school reunion and brag about how fantastic our lives turned out in five, 10, 15 years down the road.

You were a forever kind of friend and how miserable that your forever was just an abbreviated to a measly 18 years. We are all broken, friend. To say “this kind of thing doesn’t happen to people like you” is to be ignorant. It’s always to the most amazing humans that are stolen by death in the most vile of ways.

Yesterday, I continually kept reliving this tragic event by refreshing these sites that people are talking about you on. This morning I finally deleted them off my phone. I found that I kept getting on them to avoid this topic, and sadly (and quite obviously) it did the complete opposite. Today there are fewer people talking about you and your brilliance on this Earth. But I think that makes it worse, because those that are still posting are the ones that truly knew you and every single post gets harder and harder to look at and even read.

The whole group of us gathered tonight after we all rushed back home from our varying colleges. We avoided the topic for as long as we could, but you would be proud of us. We all stayed strong in those moments, but I know we all broke as soon as we left. It is goddamn hard, Friend. We have not all been together in a very long time and this should not have been the reason why. You should have been able to be there when we all finally got together again.

The worst feeling right now is that I never got to talk to you before you went. I kept wanting to text you for the past couple weeks before you were gone, but the idea just kept slipping my mind and oh, how I wish it had not. I wanted to just catch up with you, Friend. And now I’ll never be able to. You were a friend that we did not need to speak every day to know that we still cared, but the regret I feel now for not talking to you more is enormous.

I looked for photos of you last night and this morning. The last one we have is from prom and high school graduation. When we were all happy and graduating and ready conquer the universe. After I looked for more pictures, I found the ones from our many adventures throughout the years. Awkward Middle School “duck faces” and peace signs, freshman Homecoming pictures that were SO incredibly bad, and our adventures abroad together. I wish so badly that we could return to these moments again.

You were always the better writer of the group, Friend. I just hope that my small words can do justice to your big ones. Words are the only thing helping right now. Us girls are texting words to one another, everyone is tweeting 140 characters of words to you, and I am writing many words to you that I know you will never be able to read. No words will ever make this shit-show easier. Never.

I am angry, Friend. I am angry that nothing will ever be the same or feel the same again. I am angry that you will ever be able to live out your dreams. I am angry you will never be able to be a wife or a mother, because you are most deserving of those titles. I am angry that this goddamn universe stole you from us. Maybe that is not anger, but jealously that the after-life gets all of your time now. Whatever the word is to describe this feeling, I am that. I am a sobbing ball of aching and pain and confusion because you were never the one that any of us could have ever imagined this happening to.

Friend, I will always miss you. Forever and always.