“Lie In Our Graves” by Dave Matthews Band from Crash

Dear Eric,

I read the paper today. I saw the headline and I confess I was stunned. I know it’s silly, but I just never expected it. Especially not now. But there it was in black and white.

When’s the last time we spent time together? It has to be years, right? The reunion maybe? I want to say it was more recent than that but I can’t remember for sure.

Could you imagine that when we were 10 or 15 or 20? How much time we spent together back then? How often we talked? To go days without speaking seemed impossible, never mind years. And to not know enough about each other to be taken surprise by something like I just read? It’s incomprehensible.

I suppose it’s both our faults. I know Melinda was pretty uncomfortable with you spending so much time with me. For years, I hated her for it. And I resented you for just giving in. Or what I imagined was you just giving in. How could you choose her over me even if you two were engaged and we were just friends?

I get it more now. Now I’m just sad about it.

Of course, if I’m honest, it isn’t like Sam was anymore understanding than Melinda. He was just as suspicious and uncomfortable, he hid it better is all. But every now and then, he’d mutter something or give me a look and I knew what he was thinking.

And they weren’t exactly wrong either, were they? We weren’t cheating on them, ever, but we did have a deeper bond. We didn’t have sex ever but we shared all kinds of things we didn’t share with them now. Some things even now I haven’t shared with Sam.

Truth is, I can’t believe either of us would choose people to spend our lives with people who were not able to handle you and I being friends. I guess I thought someday everyone would grow into it. I wish I knew now that that wouldn’t happen.

No one understood me like you. No one made me laugh like you. No one made me feel safe like you. And, if I’m honest, every day that we didn’t talk over the years, I grew a little colder, a little sadder.

Our kids should’ve been friends. We should have spent holidays together. We should have just hung out more.

And then I opened the paper today. And I saw the headline. The accident. So I wrote this letter you’ll never read to tell you how much I missed you. How I never stopped missing you. And now how I’ll never stop missing you.

If there’s any justice at all, I will see you again. Until then I love you. Save me a spot behind the pearly gates.

--Kylie