The last time I saw you, we were barely fifteen and yet gathering no attention when we took our usual seats on the rickety wooden bench at the playground on 5 th street. All the mothers there knew us, we’d been there so long, and we in turn knew them and their children. Some of the faces were more familiar than others. Your neighbor from down the street. My old music class teacher. But all the faces seemed to coalesce into a blur, until I had eyes for nobody but you. We knew every kid at the park by heart, too. You seemed to enjoy yourself the most when you were playing football with a couple of the four-year-olds who seemed to huddle around you like you were a warm fire on a winter’s day. They followed you like puppies, really, they did. You might have been their god, for all they knew. And me? You remember, I stayed with the girls.

It was kind of sexist of both of us, to claim property to the parts of the field that we did – you and the boys to the baseball plain, the girls and I by the daisy field. Sometimes, I would make daisy chains with them. I taught them how to slit the stalks and braid them together. I like to think that I contributed to their education, that I had helped them in life by teaching them to make daisy chains. From daisy chains, they soon learned to make daisy necklaces, and bracelets. They liked nothing better than sticking those daisies on me.

I used to quietly work while they worked along side of me, making my own crown. I used to give out all the best daisies to the little ones, but I kept some of the good ones for myself. You never realized what I used to do with the daises. I used to make a crown and throw it into the small pond and the very back of the park, wishing on it. Sometimes, my wishes changed – to be smarter, or thinner, or more popular – but for the last couple of months, I’d been wishing that you would notice me, in that way.  Boys are so clueless sometimes. But soon enough, I no longer wished on daises, but on air. The playground was closed. The field was dug up. Neither of us had any interest in going to the “cool” new playground down the street anyways, with its steel exterior and cold, hard benches.

But one Friday, something miraculous happened. We were sitting in my bedroom. I was chaining paperclips together. We’d both changed over the years. My hair was longer. I’d grown taller (not thinner) and changed my posters on the walls from boy bands to models. My trophies no longer consisted of “We Appreciate Your Participation!” ribbons, but of real marble ones from Debate and Mock Trial. Your hair had grown darker, but your eyes had grown lighter. We’d both had our first kisses with people that didn’t really matter in retrospect.

We were making idle small talk when you seemed to light up, animating about a point that I’d remarked in passing.

“Did you know protons could die?” I’d asked you.

“What do you mean, die?” you asked, leaning forward.

“Die, like cease to exist.”

“But that means they’re not forever.”

“Guess not.” I wasn’t that excited. The studies had been around for years and years. In fact, I was a little astonished you hadn’t heard about it before.

I can't recall what you said next. I was too focused on your eyes, which burned ice blue as they stared into mine.

Suddenly without warning, you leaned right into me, so close our noses were touching. My eyes were questioning, but yours seemed to burn with passion. Then you touched your lips to mine.

But you were a few years too late.

At your funeral, there were hundreds of people. Everybody was crying. I was too stunned to say anything. They'd smoothed your hair over the wound. The doctors had done well in stitching you up too. If only doctors could stich up my broken heart. I covered your blond hair with the last daisy crown I'd ever make. It was perfect. The petals of the daises were white as snow, the stalks perfectly slit and molded together so they looked seamless. The green stood out against your hair, I remember. Your eyes were shut. You could have been asleep. You should have been asleep, in that light, easy-to-rouse slumber that you always seemed to stay with. But you weren't asleep.

For the first time in three years, I have been able to let you go for some time. I love you, Jason, and I always will.

–April 27th, 2013.