Sab to the Rina

Four days after Jen died so did Sabrina.
Twenty four years old as well, she died on a Wednesday.
My best friend all through high school, glued to the hip. I remember ten years ago meeting her, almost to the day... Braces and curls and catholic uniform in Mr. Nick's history class. And that was it, for the next five years you couldn't tear us apart. Sabrina and Liz. We began to dress and look and talk alike. We were those annoying girls who couldn't stop giggling when together and you would never know why because we had too many inside jokes. We slept in each others beds, drank each others orange juice out of the carton, walked into each others houses without knocking. We made mixed tapes and videos and music together. If I went out of town for a week I would get letters and calls every day detailing even the most minute of events. We went on vacation together, to each others house for Thanksgiving and for family dinners. If you wanted to date one of us, the other better really really like you or you're out. We fell down on purpose, we shouted at boys, we stayed up late. We told each other everything and still had more to talk about. We dreamt about the white 67 mustang we would buy (together, duh) and her dad would fix it up and we'd cruise around as cool as any Rob. We made two person bands even though we both sucked at our instruments. We jumped into fountains and ran into bushes, we kissed boys and we cried about high school. We called in Limp Bizkit requests to KRZQ, and ate peanut butter and jumped on the sofa! (j/k we would never jump on the sofa)We would ride to school together and then call as soon as we got home to talk about what funny stuff happened after we got dropped off. We would watch movies like it was going out of style. We played soccer together, we tried to be track and field discus throwers together. We went to Palm Springs and wore matching sequined butterfly shirts on the strip. And sang karaoke. We had the same favorite foods. We ate fries with Ranch dressing. And drank Dr. Pepper. We were each others ally, we held each other up, we got in petty high school fights and we competed. But we were always together no matter what. Any bullshit could be solved with a Wendy's run and a Slurpee. And Night at the Roxbury. We would make our mothers and our brothers crazy. We had an encyclopedia of inside jokes. And nicknames. And matching outfits. Sometimes people would call us by each others names. Especially(and this was often) when our hair happened to be the same. We dressed up like 1980's bridesmaids and went to homecoming together with Melissa as a threesome of awesomeness. We made up stupid dances to random songs and videotaped them. We shared our art and our deepest fears. We were ridiculous together. We got each other. We shared a sisterly closeness to a sickening degree. Sharing clothes and food and lives. We ran together, we studied together, we partied together. I have hundreds of notes intricately coded written by her during some class or other. (Probably religion) We were so close it was almost telepathic. One look would say a million words. One roll down of a car window, one tiny movement of the face. We never went anywhere without the other one and if we did it was really boring. I loved her and she loved me. Sabrina and Liz, Liz and Sabrina.
I never imagined ten years was all I would get. And not even the full ten.

We began to lose touch one year after I moved to Seattle for college. Something had flipped and she began to find different friends and pretty soon we weren't talking on the phone as much, she wasn't telling me the truth, and our friendship began to fall apart. I last saw her maybe three years ago, and we didn't even have anything to talk about. There was something missing behind her eyes, something she was hiding from me and from herself. That hilarious, unrelenting humour was gone and something had replaced it. She no longer was this amazing girl who didn't care what anyone thought, the girl I loved and grew up with. Her sense of lightness had disappeared. A dark fog blew into her life and never quite left. Everything that had been hiding behind the jokes and the fun was burbling out. She was finding new ways to deal with pain she had been clutching onto for a long time. We lost all touch after a while and that is when I began to hear about the cocaine. I had almost lost a friend to heroine who was lucky and lived after emerging from a coma, she knew how I felt about this, and so she kept it from me. And she kept herself from me as well.
I don't know much about these years, only that they were dark and lonely. I should have been there for her, I should have come home and literally slapped some sense into the girl. But as life is, I didn't. I would change things if I could, and I'll never forgive myself for letting her slip into such a world. But I had to let her live her own life. We couldn't be hip to hip forever.I had my own life too and I had to live it. What can do?

I wrote her a letter before she went to rehab. I knew we wouldn't ever be friends like we once were, but I told her I would love to start over. If she got her shit together. And when she was healthy, when she wanted to, I'd be there, ready to begin a new and different friendship.
She moved to Austin, Texas she went to rehab, and for the past two years or so she had been on the up and up. She had her own apartment, she was finally out of the hellhole that Reno can be, she had a job.

During my year of travel we began to reconnect. I would see some Milk Bar in Australia that reminded me of our obsession with Clockwork Orange, or see some Indian dude in a Roxbury shirt. Or meet another upper thigh toucher, or see something I knew she would love. It was in no way on the level we once were, but it was something. I was curious about her life and was so happy that she finally got to move, something we had been plotting since teenagers. And every now and then we'd throw an inside joke each others way.I was happy, even if it was only an email here or there, i truly missed her and would take what I would get. I had no idea that things were beginning again. I thought everything was fine.
But she began drinking again in the past months and then last week it was all over. One too many things in a recovering body and that was it. I will never see her ever again.
We were supposed to grow old together in Palm Springs and fight over who was the Romy and who was the Michelle.
This is all wrong. None of this is right.
I miss her, I've missed her for a long time, I can only hope that no more follow in her footsteps. I can hope against hope that she is finally at peace. I'll have to live for both of us now. My Sabrina shaped space will always be there. My hilarious, beautiful, bootylicious Sabrina.