I don't remember when you died. What time. I didn't know. I just remember getting that phone call. From Dolan. I had just come back from visiting my parents in Uruguay with my friend Denise. We walked in my dorm room and were greeted by the usual blinking answering maching (which was usually for my roommate). I pressed play, fully expecting an aural assault by Stanton. The biggest musical fucking genius I know. But it was Dolan.

"Ali?" - and I could hear it in his voice. The trepidation. The cheap high that they were that New Year's Eve in Lan Kwai Fong. I could hear the last thoughts of Jody, the slow motion as he fell backwards, the desperation of my loved ones as they tried to hold hands to form a barricade around him, the last gasps as he was trampled to death while they watched, unable to stop it. I heard it all in those two syllables.

I screamed. The completely trite scream that we are forced to relive on Lifetime after Lifetime movie. Empty body. Empty mind. Just horror and fear and desperation and loneliness and "Oh my god when we talked I couldn't tell you that I loved you because I was scared that you were different and I couldn't bear it if you didn't love me anymore and you were depressed and I was 17 and scared" emptiness. A reflex. Like a sneeze.

I called Dolan, blubbering. Unable to form sentences, syllables. He explained everything, detached, because he had had time to process. Time to see him. Time to mourn. Time to watch Jody die. Time to crumple up a great big piece of himself and throw it away with the rest of himself. Damon told me that he was jaded yesterday, and I know it starts there.

There was no wrong, no hurt when we were all together. I was ensconced in big brothers. Jody, Damon, and Dolan particularly. Jody would wrap me up in his acid washed jean jacketed arms and hold me close and tell me that I was worthy. And when you are 12 and flat chested and ugly duckling as hell, that is the closest thing you'll ever get to love. He would write me backwards notes in Math. He would hold my hand because I was still a little girl. He protected me at all costs. As did all three of them. Damon? The first boy that told me I was beautiful, for which I have never forgiven him. He whispered "I love you" into one of my first vodka and orange juices because we used to be open with each other like that and has never shirked duty ever since. Even though we've grown up. Dolan. There are no words for him. God he challenged me and I hated him for that. But out of that stemmed a deeper love that is as much alive today as it was then. Even though I watched him kiss Peggy Chung with his eyes open and though, "EW." But Jody, Jody was it. My best friend's boyfriend.

I remember the flip of his hair. Long, brown hair - which he refused to cut, because we were SO COOL then. I remember the way he smelled. Like cigarettes and laundry soap. And sometimes Dar's perfume. If you stood just so when he turned to face you, you could catch the pot from that afternoon. Except it wasn't pot back then. It was magic. We'd all sit on a big warm rock - just like the lazy lizards you see on the Discovery Channel - they'd throw in some Beatles, Pink Floyd, Zeppelin, Metallica and INHALE. I watched, and more often than not, would curl myself up to the left of him and Dar and bask in their warmth.

Did I love him? Most definitely. Unconditionally. I think about it every day. I think about Damon every day. I think about Dolan every day. I think about the week that Damon and Dolan and I got together after his death. I think about Dolan, mourning under cover, mourning under drink. And Damon. Mourning in anger and grief. And me. Mourning in guilt. fear. Reluctant to talk to the two who were left for fear they would die too.

I was the only one who didn't make it back for the funeral. I'm a selfish bitch that way. Seeing Jody's body in a casket, remembering that the last time he saw me he wrote "Je T'aime" on my hand, that would have killed me. You don't love like you do when you're innocent. You're overreacting, you say. You don't know me, I say.

I dreamed about YOU. I LOVED you. I LOVE you.

I believe in something greater so I can see you again. This time, I'll write on your hand. I'll hold you in MY arms. I'll whisper in your ear that it doesn't matter what they fucking say because all you need is for us to love you. Just like always. Just like now.

Eyes open.