Losing Tommy Quincy was the hardest thing that I had ever done.
It happened in tiny bits; at first I forgot the smile on his face, I buried myself in old photographs and my sister's old BoyzAttack posters, trying to embed it in my mind. It happened like that for a while; I tried to memorize the exact curve of his mouth, the exact slant, the angle, the shape of his lips, but I had lost it so easily, and it was fading quickly from my mind, so I did all I could to remember, tacking up the old posters on my wall and putting the photos in my room, by my bed; but the photo's faded and the posters ripped, and with them went my fond memories of his perfect smile.
I comforted myself in knowing that the only thing that I had lost was his smile, but I think that I died a little bit more every time that I thought about it, I was losing him and I could do nothing to help that fact, so I thought of him fondly in my memories, never smiling, but always there within reach – the perfect angel's face, and the strong scent that I had always coupled with him, and his scent was the next thing that I lost.
One day I just woke up, and I thought of him, still not smiling, because I had lost that particular part of him, after all, it had been one year and four months without him, things would eventually start fading from memory, but I didn't ever expect to think of him, to remember him without his scent.
Normally, I could pick it out in a crowd, I could pinpoint the man that was wearing the same cologne that brought me back to Tommy, but I just woke up one day and it was gone, I couldn't imagine that smell anymore, was it soft, or strong? Did it smell woody, or did he smell like the sea? I couldn't even tell you anymore, but what I can tell you is that the day I lost his scent I felt like something inside me had been torn out, maybe my heart, but I know that I felt like I had lost a limb, like I had lost my other half – it was then that I realized that I was truly losing Tommy Quincy, and I had absolutely no choice in the matter.
I cried for days; it was like losing him all over again.
Because that's exactly what it's like when you lose somebody like that; you lose them a little bit more every day, but then you bring them right back in your memory, and you have them there, until you go to sleep, wake back up, and you realize that they're still gone, and you lose them all over again, and it's a painful process, like hearing the news for the first time, Tommy's gone Jude, and he isn't coming back.
Was he dead or did he leave?
I can't even tell you that anymore; I don't know if it's another bit I've lost, something else to hurt over, or maybe I've just blocked it from memory, but all I know is Tommy is gone and he's never coming back, and I'm losing him all over again every single day, and every single day that he isn't there, it hurts just a little bit more, and just like that I lose him a little bit more with every day, with every breath I take.
Yesterday I lost the color of his eyes.
I had lost the exact, precise shade many months ago, sometime between the smell of his skin and the feel of his stubble scratching against my skin, but I could still remember them shiny, the color had always been there, until yesterday, when I woke up, imagining him; scentless, unsmiling, and clean shaven, that I realized I couldn't remember the color of his eyes.
I know his brother had green-blue eyes, big and shiny in his head, even his younger brother had clear sea-blue eyes, and his dad had dark brown ones, but I couldn't pinpoint the color of Tommy's eyes. Had they been brown, or had they been blue?
I sat on my bed, and I just thought to myself, trying to bury myself in memories, but just like his smile, the color of his eyes seemed to escape me, because in my memories, sometimes they were brown and sometimes they were blue, and I didn't know why that was happening to me.
So I sat at my window, smoking, because I still remembered that cigarettes that he used to smoke, and I looked out the window, up at the full moon, because I still remembered that he had always loved the full moon, and I realized that none of that even mattered anymore really; all that mattered anymore was that I would go to bed, having lost yet another part of Tommy, but having kept even more, but I would wake up again, in pain again, having lost another part of him again, (and today it was the tattoo on his shoulder) but at the end of the day I was just losing Tommy Quincy all over again, and it hurt.