A/N- I wrote this on my phone, I'm not entirely sober, I'm sorry for any mistakes, and also for this because it's sad. And also for saying I'm not sober, you didn't need to know that..

Title from 'Bowlegged and Starving' by Jay Brannan

You would have been twenty-one today. I would have woken you up early (by early I mean eight thirty which isn't really even that early for me or for any other reasonable person, but it would have been early for you). You would have complained, grumbling, shoving me off your bed, and burying your head into your pillow with your nose scrunched up in that cute way you always used to scrunch it when I was 'too bubbly'. You would have complained, but you would have given in eventually, you would have gotten up and followed me downstairs because you always did give in to me in the end.

I would have made you chocolate chip pancakes with cute shapes, but they would have been unrecognizable blobs because we both know you are better at this than I am. But you would have smiled and played along when I told you that the blobs were a heart, mickey mouse, and an elephant. You would have eaten the heart last and gotten chocolate smeared on the corner of your mouth.

We would have spent the day lazing around the apartment with Aubrey making fun of us for being lumps. I would have talked you into watching at least one Disney movie, and you would have somehow talked your way into my pants. It would have been perfect.

Tonight we would have gone out to the club we always went to with the Bellas and you would have finally bought me that drink you always used to talk about. The one you never could buy me because you used to spin at the club so the bartenders knew exactly how old you were and they took a great deal of amusement in not letting you slide your fake past them. We would have danced closely surrounded by our friends, the pounding music, and the heat, and your hands would have never left my hips.

Your hands should never have left my hips.

Tonight we would have called a cab- because we always did call a cab or an uber, or a lyft, or trusted Aubrey not to drink, because you always did trust so easily with me- and we would have gotten home late.

But today I'm painfully sober because you aren't here to buy me that drink, it's eight twenty in the morning and I'm trying so hard not to think about how the light creeping through my window and landing on the empty side of my bed should be landing on your sleeping face. Your head should be on my shoulder, and your arms should be around my waist- your hands on my hips.

Your hands should never have left my hips.

Today if I stay in bed for too long (by too long I mean until nine thirty which isn't really even that late for me or any other reasonable person, but it's late given what day it is) Aubrey will come in and check on me. If I'm still in bed she'll suggest we go to visit Westwind, but I've already made that mistake.

One year ago when you would have been twenty, I let Aubrey drive me to the cemetery. She cried, but I couldn't. It didn't feel like you, don't get me wrong, your grave is beautiful. It's white granite, on a hill in a a neat little row with the other stones overlooking a lake. There's a man buried next to you, his name is Jeremy Schmidt and he died about a year before you at age eighty three.

I used to visit more, right after the funeral but I can't anymore. I thought time was supposed to make it easier, but I don't think anything can make visiting your resting place easy. One day I found your headphones in my desk drawer. They were shiny but worn down from where you used to play with the chord when you were mixing. Your fingers always twisted that chord to the breaking point and your hands were always on my hips.

Your hands should never have left my hips.

I found your headphones in my drawer and I wanted to leave them with you, but I couldn't just leave them next to your headstone like the wilting flowers next to Jeremy's so I brought a hand shovel and I buried them just under the surface of the dirt.

Today you would have been twenty one, it's eight twenty-two in the morning and I can't visit your grave but I can't stay here. I don't know where to go.

I could go to the last place you were alive, but that brings up some technical definitions I'm not sure I'm apt to deal with today. See the last place you were alive was at that intersection because the paramedics told me you died at the scene, but they still took you to the hospital. Because that's what they do. They took you to the hospital where they did 'everything they could' before they officially could declare your death.

I could go back to the hospital where I fell apart in Aubrey's arms because they made me wait for an hour before your father got there to tell me that you had been dead all along. I should have known the whole time I was waiting that you had to have been, because you were a fighter, and if you had just been given the opportunity to fight you would have fought like hell. You would have fought tooth and nail until your hands were bloody. Until your hands were bloody, but your hands should be on my hips.

Your hands should never have left my hips.

I could go back to the street corner. The one with the new signpost because the old one was bent beyond recognition when your car slammed into it. The street corner where you died. For a while I would detour so I didn't have to see it, but the glass was cleaned, and the blood was cleaned, and the sign was replaced, and the skid marks faded, and now sometimes I can drive past that corner.

I've thought about the odds of it sometimes, the odds of you being just far enough across the intersection for him to have hit you, the odds of him going fast enough for the impact of his truck t-boning the driver side of your shitty little corolla to send your car skidding, the odds of you skidding into the lamp post. I've thought about the odds, and I can't think about it too much because I can't help but think about how unfair it all is.

Today you would have been twenty one years old but instead you're six feet under. Your ribs were broken, your lungs collapsed immediately, you spent your last moments trying to breathe even as you bled out. You died with your hands at ten and two on the wheel.

Your hands should never have left my hips.

Today you would have been twenty one, it's eight twenty-five in the morning and I can hear Aubrey making coffee in the kitchen. It's eight twenty-five and if I close my eyes and focus on the sun streaming through the window as it climbs across my body I can almost pretend it's your warmth against me. I can almost pretend it's the last night I held you. I can almost pretend it's Bella's movie night and we are cuddling on the couch and your hands are on my hips while my head is on your shoulder. I can almost pretend you are volunteering to go out and buy some ice-cream because nobody thought to get any earlier but now everyone has agreed sundaes are a good idea.

You told me to just stay and enjoy the movie.

I can almost pretend you are slipping on your jacket and grabbing your keys. I can almost pretend I can feel you kissing my cheek and you giving me a quick hug before you leave. I can almost pretend I feel your hands slipping off my hips as you walked out the door.

Your hands should never have left my hips.

It's eight thirty in the morning and I need to get up. I'll have a cup of coffee (no pancakes of any shape) and I'll go in search of a place I can call home.

Today you would have turned twenty one and I let you take your hands off my hips.

A/N- Tell me what you thought- I'm sure sober me will appreciate praise for drunk me's work. Or at least maybe then she won't be so mad at me when she wakes up hungover. She's a bitch when she's hung over. Even though she's me. So really I'm a bitch, but it's her.

A/N 2- Update- Sober me read the A/N from drunk me and was offended by how much she called her a bitch but decided to leave it so future drunk me's could have it as a reminder.