Freshman year started out like you would think it would. You go into it feeling scared and unsure of what’s going to happen throughout the course of high school but, you always have your friends by your side. I met some of the most important people in my life that year and I knew they would always be by my side through everything. High school also comes with a lot of stress and anxieties as well. You want to try to find yourself and where you belong in the world, you don’t want to disappoint anybody, you don’t want to hurt anybody. That comes along with making questionable decisions because we’re not sure where we want to be and who we want to fit in with. Freshman year is the year to try things.
My friend decided to try questionable things because he struggled so much; he struggled with life and loving himself the way he was. Freshman year was when he decided to start drinking and smoking pot. Freshman year was the year he decided to distance himself from the world and try to figure it out by himself. My friends and I were so against it but, we thought “he’s just experimenting” or “it’s just a phase, he’ll get past it.” So, we let it go. We all still continued to have the same friendship we always had. The year went by way faster than we thought it would, we finished freshman year! Sophomore year was going to be harder and we knew that, we were all still the best of friends too but, the phase that my one friend had begun had not ended. Sophomore year is the year he started taking pills; Adderall, Xanax, anything he could get his hands on. His family decided to place him into rehab in 2014. He tried and tried but, nothing was working for him. We thought he would get better but we were wrong.
He was the kind of kid that was always there for you, but wouldn’t ever let you listen to his problems. He never wanted any of the attention on him. Our friendship with him was strained towards the end of sophomore year and he was in and out of rehab so, it was hard to stay in contact. I wrote him a note that year and never sent it because I was so scared, so scared of what could happen to him. I always wanted him to know I loved him and cared about him. I thought he would know that. I know he knew that. He left school that year and started being homeschooled. We visited him when he got home from rehab and he seemed so happy. He was laughing and smiling again, he was his old 9th grade self that we loved so much. The year ended again, and we were finally juniors! Junior year was the worst, we were dealing with him going in and out of rehab again and again. Nothing could heal him, nothing could heal the pain he was feeling; he tried to numb it with drugs again. He came back to school that year for a while. He seemed to be doing a lot better in our eyes. Then, one day we were sitting in class and he didn’t look too well. I leaned over and I said, “Frankie, are you feeling okay today?”, he smiled and nodded at me. Less than 5 minutes later, he fell out of his chair because he had been on pills and they had made him tired. The teacher sent him to the nurse and the nurse sent him to the office. They had found a whole bag of Xanax in his pocket. He was expelled from school after that incident and wasn’t allowed back.
He was sent back to rehab, yet again. We all lost contact with him. He had been gone for a long time and was not the boy I knew. not the same boy we knew and loved so much. We distanced ourselves because we didn’t know how to act, how to feel around him. The year passed on, we didn’t hear anything from him and the senior year came up so fast. The year went quickly and he had come back from rehab in January of 2017. He reached out to me and my best friend. He seemed so happy and so content with his life and had been doing so many great things. I am so glad we were able to catch up with him because we missed him so much. He wanted me to take him to prom and I told him he couldn’t because he had been expelled. He missed out on so much with us and all I wanted to do was bring him with me.
April 21st I got a call that nobody ever wants. I dropped to the floor with tears coming down my face. My friend, who I had in my life since middle school, the boy who always listened to our problems, the boy who always was full of love, had overdosed. My friends and I didn’t know how to react, what could we do? There’s nothing we could say to him now. Nothing could bring him back. We went to the hospital the next day. He was strapped up to machines helping him breathe. He was pale, his eyes were closed. There was a body with no life in it. I stood there holding his hand, talking to him, wishing I had said so many more words to this boy, this boy that I loved so much. Cocaine laced with fentanyl had taken my friend. He had been battling with heroin and cocaine use that year. Never in a million years did we think it would end this way. He had applied for colleges, and was so excited to start his life. He was so smart, so handsome, had so much life left in him. All I wanted was my friend back. We skipped school and spent days in the hospital knowing that his body was slowly shutting down. April 25th was the day that we all had to say goodbye to our friend, the friend we grew with, the one who listened, the one who made me laugh for four years. We gathered around him, holding him, talking to him, wanting him to know how much we loved him before we had to say our final goodbyes.
After we had left the room, he passed away on his own. They didn’t even have to pull the plug. He knew we wanted to say goodbye, knew that we had to get our final goodbyes and feel closure. It was utterly and completely the worst day of my life. I had never had to deal with a loss. I never even wanted to think about this happening, especially to somebody so young, so beautiful. After we had said our goodbyes, we all went out onto a balcony and cried. Cried about the good times and the bad times, cried about our friend’s life taken too early. The sun set so beautifully that night. It was sparkling a beautiful yellow, orange, and purple, we knew it was his final goodbye. The weeks were long and hard, but we always kept his memory alive. Losing somebody so early is something that I never want anybody to go through. We made bracelets that say “Fight for Frank” and passed them out at school to raise awareness of what drugs can do to you. I will never forget all of the memories that we shared, the times he made me laugh so hard tears came out, the times where he would hug us and listen to us talk for hours on end. I will always be fighting for you Frankie, we love you more than you will ever know.
Image Credits: 1