I knew that one day we would have to say goodbye. I was already prepared to say it even though he was my best friend. But I wasn't ready for him to be taken that very day, with no warning or chance to say goodbye.
I though we would live to be 100 and we would be those people in the nursing home playing tricks on each other and eventually just peacefully dying of old age.
I guess that was too much to ask for.
I assumed that this was gods way of saying that I should have appreciated it more. Appreciated him more. But nothing can change what happened. Nothing can change that he is gone forever.
No matter how much I hate to say it, he is gone and I can't go back and wish away the accident.
I guess your wondering what happened to him by now.
It was early Saturday morning and I was ready to see my best friend Logan. We hadn't had the chance to talk for almost two weeks since we both started college.
I walked to the small diner on the corner street and found him sitting at a small booth made for two. I remember the first time we met. It was at this diner and he saw me alone at that small table against the wall studying for my chemistry test the next day. He sat down and helped me study and after that we came to this diner, to the same table in the corner, and talked and laughed for hours until we forgot about the world around us.
I mentally slapped myself out of the flashback I had and walked through the door, ringing the rusted bell above the doorway.
He looked up and smiled at me with those hazel eyes I could never forget if I wanted to.
"I ordered our usual order; small coffee with sugar and a plain bagel for you and a tea and blueberry one for me." He said as he scooted the chair opposite him out with his foot for me to sit in.
I remember, out of everything about him that day, the red scarf he wore around his neck. It might have looked like nothing to anyone else, but I knew what it represented. It was the scarf he wore when he was going through something rough. He told me once that it was his fathers and once he died, he wore it to get him through the hard times.
"Wow, we come here so much it's not even a test of who wants what anymore," I said with a small laugh,"So I see that you are wearing your dad's scarf, what's going on?"
"Well, that's why I asked to meet you here."
He looked down at the table or maybe even the floor, looking away from me. I could tell what he was about to say would be bad news and I could see how much stress it was putting on him.
He looked up slowly and I could see his eyes turing red as he tried not to cry.
"I got accepted into a very high end college today," he said, and I was confused on why he was so sad,"The issue is that it is in Beijing."
I was shocked but I was prepared for him to be going away to college soon. We ended up changing the subject to our job at the store down the street and about how much time we had before he left.
The reality of how far that was didn't hit me until after I was back in my dorm room and he was back at his apartment down the street.
I realized he would be half way across the world with an ocean between us.
I couldn't have been more happy I didn't have a roommate because I ended up crying myself to sleep after about three hours of looking out the window and thinking back to when me and Logan were younger.
I remembered every day I would go to that diner because I didn't want to go home to my father. He was a cruel man once my mother died from cancer. I usually stayed out of the house as much as I could. I was always alone at the table until Logan said hi that one day. From then on we went to that diner after school and did homework, and afterwards we would go bowling or just go to the park and relax.
I also remembered the day he told me what happened to his parents. He told me about how his father would go to sea each month and make a ton of money for his mother and him. He told me about the day the police showed up to his front door and how they preceded to tell him and his mother how his father was lost at sea in a tragic and horrific storm. He was three at the time, but he remembered it vividly.
The next day we met up at the park and sat on a bench while he told me about how his mother brought him to the Allentown Pennsylvania Orphanage. She told him how she would miss him but without his father she couldn't support them both. He told me about the family he was given to and is currently with who lived only two blocks away from the orphanage. I met them once and they are nice people but they were never home, and Logan was home alone every day from 6am to 10pm.
All the memories flooded into my mind and it hurt so bad I could barely stand it. I knew how hard it would be to even talk due to the time change and signal and that we would both be busy enough as it is with school and work.
The next thing I knew it was Sunday morning and I only had two weeks to spend with Logan before he left for Beijing.
Those two weeks were spent at school during the day and to our part time jobs at the the convenience store bagging groceries and putting supplies back in the right places. By the time we had a chance to hang out with him it was already the next Sunday. We got together around one in the afternoon and got our usual from the diner and took it to the zoo a block away. We sat down across from the seal exhibit at a small table with a navy blue umbrella over it. We talked between bites and sips and occasionally would just stay silent and watch the trainer play with the seals as the children laughed and jumped in excitement in front on the glass.
We wandered the zoo for about an hour before we decided to walk home and I had to start preparing for classes the next day and he had to start packing for Beijing.
The next week was harder than I can even begin to explain. Besides Logan leaving, I was forced to go home each day after school and work to help my dad get ready for a party on Sunday. The worst part about it was that I had to cater and host the party while my dad socialized. This meant I would miss walking Logan to the plane and that I wouldn't get to say goodbye to him in person.
Finally the day came and even though I was busy all night, I couldn't stop thinking about Logan. I texted him goodbye but he never replied. I knew he was already on the plane and would be able to talk until the next day.
I got home after the party and kicked off my converse, slipped into my pajamas and fell asleep faster than I had in the past month.
When I woke up, I knew I didn't have any classes that Monday due to a meeting day between the school board. I expected a text from Logan but was alarmed to find a blank screen with the words saying no new messages.
I decided to ease my mind and turn the television on and watch the news while I had my usual bowl of cereal, hoping to find a happy story of the cat who was saved from being stuck in a tree or the little girl who won the science fair. Allentown never had much going on that was worth watching. I found myself instead faced with a screen filled with my worst nightmare. There was a plane crashed in the water on the outskirts of Beijing. All we could see on the screen was smoke billowing out of a hole in the side of it and a few life boats floating away to the nearby city of Beijing. The headlines said that there were many injuries but almost everyone was okay. I hoped with all my heart that Logan was one of then but was soon hit with the reality that he was the one out of three people who were killed. His picture flashed up on the screen along with two others and then was quickly changed to blackness as I hit the power button.
I had rivers of tears already streaking my cheeks and I could feel my face beginning to turn red with both anger, disbelief and just pure sadness.
I knew I had to get my mind off of it so I decided to go to work early. Once I got there, I was about to check in with my boss to tell her I was there but I overheard two people from my school talking about the crash. I ran out with my head down and ran straight back to my dorm and laid on the bed until I fell asleep from crying.
To possibly be continued...
