One Last Song ("I'm Too Young to Feel This Old")

A friend of mine has died.

When I got the news yesterday, I was getting ready for The Black Keys/Kings of Leon concert, running a little behind because I was looking up Black Keys’ videos on YouTube. Right as I found the ideal one to post on my Facebook profile, my friend Natalie messaged me on Facebook, asking if I’d heard the news about Nicole.

I had not. Of course, this now meant she was forced to tell me the news, whatever it was, via Facebook chat.

All I could do was stare at my computer screen and think how absurd the whole thing was. Here I was, about to post a video and some stupid comment about wearing a Goonies shirt and going to the show, and this girl, Nikki, my friend, my former co-worker, was dead.

I couldn’t believe it.

I had to leave for Indianapolis. I had to fix my hair. What was there to do? Believe it or not, I couldn’t cry. So I walked away from my MacBook and tried to get ready, but I couldn’t do that, either. I wrapped a scarf around my head, and that made me feel better for a second. I texted my friend Lauren. I talked to my friend Rachel. Suddenly it all seemed real.

On the drive to Indianapolis, I blared The Black Keys and wondered why I didn’t feel like crying. But my arms were covered in goose bumps and I kept alternating between sweating and having cold chills. I rolled the windows down. I rolled the windows up. I turned up the volume.

I thought about Nikki. I hadn’t seen her in months, not since before I moved back home. We weren’t close friends. We weren’t even the kind of friends who texted or met up for coffee or anything like that. The last time I had actually hung out with her was months and months ago, when a group of girls from work all went out together.

I remember that night, a few of us stayed out later and went to another bar. We’d had too much to drink, but it was one of those nights when you don’t want the fun to end. So you stay out, even when you probably shouldn’t.

Nikki sat next to me at the bar. Out of nowhere, she kind of spilled her guts to me about something. I remember feeling a little shocked that she was telling me all this—these things, these feelings that were clearly weighing heavy on her at the time. Because, like I said, we weren’t particularly close. Mostly, we just chatted while at work together, and when I’d get off of work and ask for a beer, she’d always wink at me and say, “Stella, right?”