Polaroid Onestep // TommyInnit

Winter : 1

When me and Tommy first met we were only kids, he was just barely a year younger than me, only by a few months. When we met I was 8 and he was 7. It was winter and he had just moved in next door during one of the harshest winter storms.

I remember him running around his house with an old Sony camcorder, he had two dogs a black one and a tan one on leashes. they were puppies then. He had the camera lens in front of his face. I could hear his cheerfully muffled yells vibrating through my closed window.

I was sitting at the window with my face pressed against the frosty glass watching their family grab a bunches of boxes, running in and out of the house.

The next day he came up to my house with a small basket of cookies in one hand while the same camcorder was in the other one. I remember hiding behind my mom's legs and he cheerfully introduced himself and offered her a cookie. My mom ushered him inside away from the cold, my little sister, Lani ran up as soon as he walked in and said hello.

I remember my mother ushering me to say hello to the small blonde boy,

"Come on Toby say hi" she moved me from behind her legs and put her hands on my shoulders, I stuck out my hand and he eagerly shook it, his hand was really warm. "Hi Toby, I'm Tommy! Nice to meet you!" He gave me a big shining grin. He looked down at my socks, "Oooo you like Minecraft?!?" He asked with shining eyes, "y-yes?"I said uncertainty "I do too! Do you wanna play Minecraft in real life?!?" "Okay!" he took my hands and ran upstairs. we played for hours, well until his mom came and grabbed him apologizing to my mom about how he just barged in.

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If only things were as easy as they were then, I miss him. I stood up and walked to the same window I sat at years ago with the same frost covering my window. I looked over at his house, empty. The only things left was a wilting lavender bush and an empty house.

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"TOBY!!!" Tommy yelled he ran over to me with his infamous camcorder in hand, it was facing towards me. He stopped in front of me, I was on the tree swing in my backyard, the ropes twisted and groaned as I came to a swift halt. "Hey Tommy! What's up?"

"I was wondering if you wanted to vlog with me today!"

I jumped up from off of the squeaky swing, my short 10 year old body giving Tommy a High five, "okay, LETS GOO" I giggled as we ran off. "HELLO NUTPIGS! Welcome back to the daily vlog series! I promise that we'll have a Minecraft video soonnnnnn, but I'm with my best friend Toby! Check out his channel Link in the description!" 

Tommy didn't even have a YouTube channel yet. I didn't either.

The warm spring breeze brushed our hair as we ran around the yard vlogging our experience, in the great outdoors of my backyard. We flopped onto the soft green grass below us and stared up at the sky, I put my arm up to block the sun from my eyes, Tommy had his eyes closed. We laid out on the grass for a long while making brief conversation and discussing what we'd like to do in the future.

A bee slowly flew over to me and landed in my nose. it was a bumble bee, I was about to freak out when Tommy stopped me from hitting it off, "wait Toby,, look at how pretty it is!" Tommy leaned over and watched the bee with a big smile on his face. "We have a bunch of bees that like to hang around the lavender bush, I love watching them." He whispered to me trying not to scare the bee away.

I could feel each tiny step the bee took with all 6 of its legs suddenly flying up and zooming away. I never realized how special bees were until that day.

I could feel each flap the bee took as it vanished, the wing power was almost as powerful as a fan.

I looked over at Tommy in Astonishment, "Tommy!! That was sooo cool!!!" I said excitedly, sitting up to face him. He smiled back at me "Toby do you wanna see if there are any bees over at the lavender bush?!?" Tommy asked happy that I shared the same enthusiasm about bees that he did.

"Yeah totally!" I stood up and grabbed his hand as we ran off into the front lawn hand in hand.

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I felt my lip quiver at the sight of the bush, it had only been two weeks since then, I haven't left my room, my pajamas are dirty, my room is dirty, and I haven't streamed in weeks. I can't even remember the last time I ate.

I stood up leaving the window behind. I walked over to my bedside table and pushed all of the garbage onto the floor. So much garbage, Tommy would be upset if he saw my room like this.

No, he is upset, he's just next door, getting ready for a movie night, our movie night, it's 6:56 pm, he should be coming soon.

He's not dead.

He is not dead. No way Big Man Tommy would die. Impossible.

I laughed, feeling my eyes starting to water again, he's not dead.

I was in pure absolute denial.

I opened my nightstands in search of a sign, some piece of Tommy, of him, to remind me of him. To remind me of how funny he was, or how loud he was, how badly hurt he was. Ahaha, I tried watching his streams but, that was the online Tommy, I needed offline Tommy, online Tommy was forever, but that's not my Tommy. Not my Tommy.

I picked up a small camera, my eyebrows furrowed, and my face scrunched up, fuck. His camcorder laid dormant in my hands. I quickly flipped it open. Dead. Tears began rolling down my face, fuck. I clutched the camera tightly holding it close to my chest as I broke down, tears quickly slid down my face, my swollen eyes quickly broke through the weakened dam. My family could hear me, they could hear my loud sobs as I cried to the camera. I knew they could hear me. But It hurt too much.

I needed to get that charger.