It had beed three weeks. Three weeks since he had died. Three weeks since I went back to school. Three weeks since I'd lost my best friend. I tried to be normal, I tried to be strong. I was holding my 4.0 GPA and I was always aware of my surroundings, maybe that was the problem. Everything I heard or saw reminded me of him. In science we talked about cancer, what had taken his life. In history the seat next to me was empty, where he used to sit. In language arts we read books about people who lost their friends. Everyone cried, was sad, but they didn't truly understand. Losing your best friend was not something that went away in one day. It never really went away. It fades and you learn to live around it but it never truly leaves. I would open my backpack and all the notes we'd passed would fall out. I broke down in history that first week. All our notes had fallen out and as I put them back I read them. I cried. I'd grown stronger and put more effort in to actually living my life. It was hard but it was better than not living, then whats the point in being alive? I knew he'd want me to make the best of my life, I knew he'd want me to follow my dreams. Thats the way he was. His mom had come by and dropped off some of his artwork for me. I could barely believe she was still breathing. I'd hung the artwork and pictures on my wall, next to all my pieces. We'd designed our rooms together. We each had had an entire wall dedicated to our photography and artwork or, in my case, writing. We were best friends since the first grade. We were in High School now. Junior year, both of us sixteen. That was ten years of being best friends and he was gone. Lost. Forever. Ten years was simply not enough. Three weeks in and I still believed that. Sometimes I cried myself to sleep. Tonight I didn't. I simply slept.

It was him, by my side, as always. We were walking around the art display. It was fascinating, all the brush work. The lines swriled together till you couldn't tell which was which. There was no way to see where one began and ended. The brushe strokes just flowed together in a seamless piece of art. "I wish I could paint like that." He said.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because it's beautiful and worhty of prais. Because whoever painted it is going somewhere in there life."
"So are you. Yes, it's beautiful, it's amazing. No, you don't paint like that."
"Thanks, I feel so much better now." He sadi rather sarcastically.
"But your gift isn't painting, it's drawing. Your drawings almost come off the page they're so beautiful. They are unique too. They way you flow each line into the next, the way you apply different pressures and create different shades with the same pencil. You alway use only one pencil in each drawing and I feel like I'm looking at a rainbow. You make each line, each mark, the shade that matches the mood or the setting. I feel like I'm reading a vivid book. You have your own talents, never forget that."
He smiled. "Thanks. I'll renember that. I'll renember you." He said it like he was saying goodbye.

I left for school in high spirits. As i came on campus, I said hello to all my friends and looked around. He wasn't there.
"Where is he?" I asked the friend nearest me.
"Who?"
I gave her this look that said you know who.
Her face pinched in worry. "He's dead."
I shool my head back and forth. I knew he was dead but that dream, it was so vivid, so real, I thought it couldn't be true.
"No...no...no...no..." I whispered.
I ran. My friends called after me but I just ran as tears streaked my face. I hadn't cried at school since that first week. I didn't because I was trying to live my life adn also because I really didn't want to face the school counsler again. They jsut didn't really help. Now I cried freely. My dream been so real, it was almost an actual memory. No. He was gone, he was lost. I had to excpet that. I stopped next to the tree we used to sit at. It was then that I realized he was not lost or gone. He was with me in my heart and soul. As long as I remembered him and the part of me that he influenced, he would never be lost. Never lost. Never gone. Then he was there beside me, kind of transparent.

"I wondered when you'd finally see me here." He said.
"But..." I whispered.
"I promised you that I would never leave you, that I would always be by your side, didn't I?"
I smiled.
"I never break a promise."