I met my friend J. in math class my junior year of high school, after he grabbed my butt and blamed it on the horrified shy kid sitting next to me.

Often when I closed my locker at the end of the school day, he would be waiting slumped against the wall at the end of the hall, hat pulled down low over his eyes, waiting alone or with one of his friends to give me a ride home. Most of our time spent together consisted of awkward conversations in his little white pickup as we drove around town. Sometimes he would invite me to a party, something I was not popular enough to know about otherwise, and once I was invited along to spend an evening slamming beers in a parking lot with his friends before going to a Dinosaur Jr concert. I filled endless pages in my journal analyzing my involvement with this boy, what he said about what I said about what he said, what this and that meant, whether he liked me, whether he wanted to be my boyfriend. It was an unusual situation; I don’t ever remember us hugging until years later. For me the peak of our romance was the night I ran into him unexpectedly at a party in the Washougal woods and, staggering drunk, he took my hand and pulled me around the party announcing me as his girlfriend before beginning to shout – in reverse of the Limp Bizkit song popular at the time -- “I didn’t do it all for the nookie!” I suppose a teenage girl’s naiveté and optimism spring eternal.

Sometimes J.’d invite me to come watch his band practice or to go with him to one of his friends’ houses. I never quite felt like I blended in. Although I liked him and he was nice to me, I felt different from both him and a lot of the people in the new circles he brought me into. And, while I was quite enthusiastic about drinking and the way it took away my shyness, he and his friends were perpetually stoned, which made me uncomfortable and did nothing to help the already stilted conversation. Also, I suppose it was a class thing. He was from a family the likes of which can probably be found in any small town, where an uttering of a last name leads to knowing nods, a family well-known by school authorities and local police. My family was by no means well-off, not even middle class, but my parents and relatives didn’t lounge drunk on the couch or lose jobs or get arrested, and the parents and relatives in these circles did, and I felt the disparity between our lives. Despite my obliviousness to the realities of life in my town, I also had a growing inkling that other things were going on, if not with J. then at least with his friends. My little sister, forever more streetwise than myself, hinted at these things, but reality didn’t hit until one evening when I watched some teenaged acquaintances share around a small bag of what I later found out was crystal meth, one doing a line before nonchalantly turning back to math homework.

J. and I both gradually spent less and less time at high school, with me taking community college courses and him at a technical school, and eventually we didn’t talk much. One of the last times I remember spending time with J. after high school graduation, he called to ask me if I would give him and his friend a ride to a diversion class related to them being arrested for stealing cans from a recycling center. I agreed but felt stupid afterwards, annoyed with him, and vowed I wouldn’t do anymore of these favors.

The summer after graduation I socialized with a older friends, and most nights we got together to drink too much and play Goldeneye or Mario Cart on Nintendo 64. It was through these friends that I met D., a boy with dimples and a girlfriend whom I promptly developed a crush on. I had heard rumors about him and what he was involved in, but didn’t pay them much heed. One afternoon he asked if I could drive him home – I had a decidedly lame 79 Datsun that beeped in reverse, but even that was more of a car than he had – and partway down the road asked me to stop by the gas station, where he needed to talk to someone. That someone turned out to be my friend J., who barely talked to me during their brief interchange. As I drove away, D. wanted to know if he was a friend of mine.

“You should know, he’s into some bad stuff," he told me. "You don’t want to get involved in that.”

“And how would you know?” I asked.

“Because I sell to him.”

On hearing this I immediately thought of the night I drove with J. and his friends to downtown Portland for some mysterious reason, and I was told to wait outside while a couple of them ran in to a seedy strip club. When I had asked what they needed to do in there, I had been told I didn't want to know.

***

Flash forward a few years. I go to a concert at a Portland arena where J. is now working and we run into each other. It turns out both of us have moved to the city and are doing good for ourselves. In our phone conversations and lunches out over the following months, he tells me the saga of his coming clean – from everything. He now abhorred even cigarettes and lived in drug-free housing as part of getting his life back together. Soon he had a girlfriend, and a few months later announced that she was pregnant; when I wasn’t sure whether congratulations were in order, he assured me that he was happy about it, that these things happen for a reason. The relationship didn’t work out, but he was a committed father to a beautiful little boy with curly blond hair, and enjoying success at work. Like me, he finished his degree at community college and then transferred to PSU, where he found an interest in his studies that hadn’t been there in high school. n>The skater boy I had had a crush on in high school now usually dressed as if he were heading for the office, with dark pants and a tie, and to my utter surprise, even took up jogging.

One summer night about two years ago, we hung out at J.'s apartment listening to records and talking, discussing the philosophy books he’d gotten interested in and rambling on until we realized that the sun had come up. As I drove home I remember a warm feeling of things having come full circle; here I had spent a long time pining for this boy when we were both struggling and awkward, and now we were not only reasonably happy and adjusted adults but actually friends. I liked that there was history there. I don’t keep in touch with many people from my past, and I appreciate the ones who are still around, the ones I have maintained a connection with despite time and distance and change.

Last summer, the summer before I joined Peace Corps, I was in a frenzy to spend time with friends one last time and say goodbye before heading off into the unknown for two years. I got a hold of J. and one day met him at his apartment, where he showed me pictures of his son and talked with wonderment about him and his development. It made me happy to see how he was enjoying this role, fascinated as his son’s personality blossomed with all its little foibles. Some new friends of his that I hadn't met called, and he asked if I would mind meeting them at a local bar. Once there, I was surprised to see him follow my order of a beer with one of his own. I wanted to say something, maybe joke it off. Hmm, this is new. Or just call him out. Hey, doesn’t being an alcoholic mean you aren’t supposed to ever drink again? But I worried, worried about saying something uncomfortable. I felt I didn’t know proper etiquette around sobriety, and worried about embarrassing him in front of these new friends if they didn’t know his history. I watched him drink, no faster than I did, and without ordering multiple rounds or acting any differently, and the thought of saying something seemed more and more out of place. In the end, I didn’t mention it. As we all left the bar, I gave him a hug outside before walking to my car, noting that he seemed skinny, but then he had always been thin.

Two days ago I received an email from a mutual friend informing me that J. died last Friday from an overdose of heroin. I know how many people feel about drugs and the people who use them, and can almost imagine J. himself in his newly-sober faze four or so years ago dismissing overdoses as a natural consequence for junkies, but I can’t feel this way. Addiction and human behavior are too complicated. Since getting this news I have been overwhelmed with thoughts of the new person I had gotten to know these past few years, the smart and darkly funny guy who said to stranger’s request for a cigarette, “You know, I hear those things cause cancer,” who loved to talk about his son’s new words and quirks and was looking forward to finishing his bachelor’s. I think about the last time I saw him, the twinges of worry I felt that day, and wonder if at that point a problem was already building. I think about this past year that I've been away and out of touch with him and wonder who he had around him, if he had friend trying to buoy him as he began to slip backwards, if anyone knew. But most of all, I feel sad.

Gone.