Dear friend,

I really like Sam. I know I have told you that before, but I'm telling you again because I like her so much. I hadn't realized just how much till now.

We went to King's last night. It was me, Patrick, Sam, Alice, Mary Elizabeth and Bob. We ate burgers and fries and I reminded Sam that in exactly 48 hours, she'd be at Penn State Main Campus, having grilled stickies with college guys. This made Sam sad; I could tell because of the way the skin next to her eyes creased when she tried to smile. Sam said, "What better a reason to enjoy tonight while it lasts!"

Patrick clapped and I knew he was about to make a scene. He leaped over the bench onto the table of the booth next door. The manager stared at him for a second but then he just went back to sorting bills at the register. I wondered if the manager honestly didn't care that one of his customer's had jumped onto a table and was simultaneously perturbing the entire restaurant and was violating at least five different sanitation laws. Maybe working at King's wasn't very exciting, and this, what Patrick was doing, brought variety to his day.

"ATTENTION!" He tapped on a glass with a fork as if he were making a toast. He made a speech about how this was the last time we'd all be at King's together, and about how much he'd miss the substandard food, and how the other kids stuck in this town could, "suck it, bitches." He qualified that by saying he didn't mean to call me a bitch, but I still could suck it.

Sam giggled and sipped her water and wiped her mouth with the napkin and looked so beautiful. She told me last night that it's me she will miss most. She says that tomorrow night, she wants me to come over to help her and Patrick finish packing, and that she has a present for me. I don't have anything to give her that's worthy of giving. I needed to give her something that would really mean something special, so she'd remember it and remember me even at college. So she wouldn't forget about me.