Do you remember me?

Do you remember me?

I’ll start off the story here, they forgot about me. They forgot about the things that I had changed for them, the things I had done, and at the end of the day all of it was moot to them. What meant the world to me was ultimately nothing to them.

There are certain friends, you know, the kind of ones that just seem to fall into your lap. One day you’re in freshman-year chemistry class working on a titration with a bunch of random students. Their faces at first grisly and intimidating, but after soft and amiable. You notice that maybe Matthew has a birthmark just beside his nose, that Jacob eats broccoli everyday for lunch, or that David is into smoking.

We were the Four Musketeers, Me, Jacob, David, and Matthew. We did everything together, ate our lunch, walked to school, and went to the gym to lift weights every Thursday. It always seemed odd that other people treated their friends as an accessory, something only to pass the time, an accessory to their own personal life if you will. To me, however, my friends were the world.

Jacob had multiple girlfriends at any point in time, his parents had bought him a brand-new Honda Accord the moment after he had gotten his license. Since he was the first one with a car, he drove us everywhere we wanted to go, to the beach, to the gym. I can’t remember a time when we wanted to go out and Jacob wasn’t there. David I really liked, especially since he smoked. There was something in him that was magnanimous to me as a young kid, what it was however I really wasn’t too sure.

Eventually though, life moves on, and senior’s hands shake nervously as they pick their college majors. I never knew what to do after high school, I just knew I wanted to make more friends. I wondered incessantly about what my friends were doing. Eventually I went with psychology. Admittedly I’d have chosen any major to just go to college to make new friends. Jacob had gone to UC Berkeley, Matthew to a trades school, and David well he ended up working at a grocery store right after school and then disappeared to Vietnam and I never heard from him again.             

Jessica sat down beside me for the first time in my western Literature class. She had flowing brown hair with large quizzical eyes. She’d often ask the strangest questions in class. Asking me for notes was as she said later on, “The best mistake she had ever made.” I didn’t know if I even liked Jessica, she was sweet and kind to me I supposed, more than anyone had ever been. Regardless, she could never light a candle to the feelings I had when I was with my friends.

We dated anyway, the whole time never fully understanding one another and what the other person wanted. Even sex was a chore. I suppose the talking and the walking were fun but aside from that I couldn’t stand her. I missed my friends.

I did what any well-adjusted individual would and ignored them. I felt like they had already forgotten me anyway, so it wouldn’t matter. I’d focus on myself and figuring my life out before texting them. They’d probably forgotten about me anyway.

That lasted about two weeks and then I had to appease the phantoms that grew in my mind.

Do you remember me? I texted them after a while.

               I sent a message like that everyday, to not just Matthew, David, and Jacob but to everyone. Everyone I had ever known I sent it to them. I wanted them to notice me or even to at least acknowledge my presence.

The ones who responded were Jacob and Matthew, to which they just sent messages like lmao or lol. Probably thinking I was joking, remembering me as that strange, awkward kid from high school weren’t they. The bastards. But I loved them. On their Facebook profiles I saw that they had moved on with their lives. Jacob had a beautiful wife, and kids and Matthew was now a professional plumber all the while I was doing the exact same thing and now living in my studio apartment. Life went on I supposed.  

Text messages only elicited one-word responses. So, instead of trying to do more and more I found my friends addresses and decided to send them letters there. No response and I still needed something. I nearly visited them at their houses but figured that that wouldn’t be respectful. At least David could respond to me, I had loved David. He was the best bro I had ever met.

I walked up the stairs to my apartment’s rooftop and gave up. My head spun chaotically. The red-lights and cars zooming below that would have once appeared to me oppressive now looked comforting. Maybe now they’d finally remember me.

I couldn’t go through with it, I just couldn’t. I spent the weeks after trying as a recluse. Sitting in my bed watching YouTube videos. It was alright that Jacob and Matthew had forgotten me I supposed, which was undoubtedly massive cope. But David how could he have forgotten me? Maybe he didn’t have service in Vietnam.

I loved David so much I just wanted to hear back from him. What could he be doing in Vietnam right now I had no idea, but it was probably something crazy I figured. He was always doing something crazy that David. Jacob and Matthew had already made it known they didn’t really remember me, but would David?

I was at the gym when I saw the message notification. It was David.

I opened it, my heart pounding like a kid’s on Christmas morning.

Yeah, I remember you he replied. My heart warmed immediately, and I breathed a sigh of relief. 

Do you really?

I hope everybody enjoyed this wonderful story that I wrote today