austin

iv.

dear austin,

mr. ledman brought up finals at school today. i don't want to think about finals, honestly, because they usually stress me out. the way some of our teachers teach, you think about literally nothing but one topic for the unit and everything you've learned so far basically escape your mind permenantly. so you have to learn everything all over again. 

but anyways, the first thing he said was, "if you look on the bright side, mr. macke is lucky he won't have to take the final, because it's a real hum-dinger!" 

i wanted to punch him in the eye. who says that? that's awful. 

a girl started crying and was excused to go to the bathroom. i don't think she knew you too well. 

but yeah, i guess you are a little lucky, because he gave us a preview of the final and it looks like it'll be hell. 

i think you should know that linsday came out and said something pretty moving. all she said was, "someone's death saved someone's life." there's a little backstory, but that's not important just yet. what's important is that in art class she painted it on a huge canvas and they've put it up in the cafeteria. it says "lindsay smith. 12.5.2011." in black at the top. she painted it in purple and it's really simple, just some writing in purple paint on white canvas, and it looks inspirational. then at the bottom in purple and in bigger letters than lindsay's name, it says, "austin macke. 2.8.1997 - 11.29.2011. miss you." 

which angered me a little because i don't think she cared too much about you before you died. 

i'm sorry. i guess that's not a very nice thing to say. but you don't see me running around saying how much i miss you and know all these things about you and i hardly knew you. i act like i hardy knew you. 

i asked kyle what he thought about the poster and he shrugged. then he sort of poked my arm and asked me if i was okay. i nodded. it was really sweet to hear that question and hear someone mean it because nobody's meant it for a long time. 

it was also nice to hear it from kyle. you've got great taste in friends.

the poster got unveiled at lunch. the first two classes that eat lunch before us speculated that it was a big picture of you, and one girl that was in stu-co claimed that she'd seen the picture. it was a "candid." she'd practically yelled it down the hallways. she's gonna shit when everyone finds out she lied. poor girl.

mr. apple and mr. wednesday pulled the sheet down. remember how mr. wednesday always laughed very loudly at every lame joke mr. apple attempted? he also claps after mr. apple tries to say something inspirational. especially when nobody else claps. he had sweat stains in all the sweaty places and it was disgusting. 

some people choked on their milk, honestly. it was, of course, the fake grievers. i honestly hate them so much. one of them should have died in a car accident instead of you. 

i'm sorry.

i got up when they unveiled it and headed to the vending machines, mainly because i wanted a bottle of tea and also because i didn't want to look at it in case it was a picture of you. i like your eyes a lot, but if you look at a picture of a person who's died, the eyes do not look the same and i didn't want to see your eyes that way. 

kylie followed me. kyle followed us. 

we didn't say anything at the vending machines, but i took a lot of loud, deep breaths and it took me four tries to get the machine to take my dollar. they pretended to be really interested in my pressing the button for the tea and reaching down to pick it up. i walked out to the cafeteria and saw it, and it felt a little bit like if someone had thrown a little rock at my chest. i drank all of my tea in about ten minutes.