Why Max?

   There's always a calm before a storm, so you do your best to prepare for the worst. And you think you'll be okay but sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you can't predict what's coming next. And you get hurt. None of us could have predicted what would happen next. None of us could have predicted that max would die so soon, he was the best person I've ever met. He was the kind of guy you'd never imagine getting himself into trouble, he didn't talk much unless it was to me or our group of friends. He always returned people's smiles, never taking a single one for granted. You couldn't help but smile back if he smiled at you, he was magic like that. Always making people feel welcome on the rare occasion that someone new would place their self with his group. I suppose you think that this is one of those, you don't know what you had till you lose it, situations but I promise I knew what I had.

           Everyone always thought Max would be voted sweetest smile in our high school year book, we knew he would blush when we took the picture so we sprang to get him school sweetheart. He was amazing, the one person no one could hate. College was different, he wasn't as vibrant around new people. S**t, I'm being rude, I didn't even introduce myself ; Mrs. Simmons (my old English teacher) would be hella disappointed. My name is Eeyore, yep, like Pooh Bear's depressed friend. You would think my parents were huge fans of Disney right? Wrong, they were stoners, my dad just happened to like the name and my mom let him name me. I suppose it could be worse, he could have chosen Piglet. God, I'd probably kill myself. Now kids, don't kill yourself. Suicide is never the answer, because you can't fix s**t. Killing yourself is like putting everyone you love in front of a firing squad and letting them die, there's no reset button either. You just f**k the lives of a s**t ton of people because you were too prideful to ask for help.

             Back to Max, I bet you're wondering what happened to him. Well that's why you're reading this I suppose, or maybe it's a reading assignment, your friend forced it on you, a family member or someone online suggested it. They raved about how amazing the story is, there's probably f****n critic comments all over the back of this book. Max wouldn't like it, he would be fine with me writing all of this s**t, but definitely not all of the critics.

             I met Max when I was going through some tough s**t, we'd talk for hours about music and the stars and not notice how much time had passed. There would be times when I didn't want to sleep out of fear that I had only imagined such a magnificent guy. I hoped we would be together forever (cliché yes I know), I never got tired of his voice. He could talk me out of anything, he usually did, trying to keep me alive when I just wanted to fade away.

             There's a difference between fading away and actually dying, when you die people know it's over. All of your systems shut down and you stop breathing, there's no way to bring you back to life. When you fade away they don't notice you're gone until you're just a body and an unsteady heart beat. When you die you're whole, still recognizable until you leave the morgue, they know you can't be resuscitated so they don't try. Fading is different, the lights leave your eyes following your runaway conscience. You have to slowly drift away from people you care about, you have to make sure they don't notice or they'll try to bring you back to earth again. Sometimes they try to keep you with pills, but then you stop taking pills and start drinking and smoking and screaming and crying. And it's all too much.

              Max and I would have done anything for each other, we weren't dating at first, but we were something more than friends. You could always find us together, if we weren't together we were on the phone. I call his phone a thousand times a day to tell him something, then I cry when I remember he's gone. The frustrated tears that burn from your eyes, I just want him back. You can't talk about the stars by yourself, because his laugh isn't there when you point out a constellation wrong. He doesn't tell you to get your eyes checked or stop using the damn constellation map on your stupid phone, because you shouldn't need a map to feel the stars.

               I remember the first time Max started slipping, he would talk more softly like he was afraid of saying something wrong. His laugh didn't sound childlike anymore, it was a sandpaper chuckle, throw mercifully at a normally hysterical story or joke, He didn't laugh as much because it hurt his chest, trying to take air into a collapsing lung doesn't work well. I tried to keep him smiling though, I'd lay on his bedroom floor, relaying all the gossip from around school and work. I'd bring him bad drawings of superheroes I made up, tell him stories that made no sense to get the start of a smile. Or I'd lay in bed next to him and trace my fingers over the tattoos that decorated his hips and chest, while I sang quietly to him.