I knew him a long time ago. About this time last year. He knew me. We knew each other well. Things were good, things got bad. We stopped speaking. For what reason, I don't remember. I miss him. He was a good friend.

He was a friend of a friend originally. Gradually, I began to like him better than I liked my friend who introduced us. He was unlike anyone I had ever known. He was smart, funny, talented. He could relate to me. He always knew the right thing to say. I sought comfort in his word. I looked to him in times of need. He always knew exactly what I wanted to hear. And he said it. But he meant it. There was meaning in all of his words.

We didn't date. We were just friends. I valued his friendship more than a lot of things. He was everything I hoped to become.

He was the only son of two actor parents. They moved around a lot and finally settled down in the small town of Fredricksburg, Virginia. Their house was cluttered but cozy. There was lots of theatrical books on the bookcases. They had a dog named Shakespeare. He was an actor as well. An amazing actor. I was astounded when I saw him on stage. His acting was of professional caliber. He was a writer, too. He wrote songs, poems, plays, musicals, monologues. He was in a band. He was a creative genius. I envied his motivation and patience. I wished I could write as well as he did.

He wanted to live a bohemian lifestyle. He wanted to live in the village and sit in coffee shops and write his poetry and smoke his cigarettes. He wanted to live on the edge and have to struggle to pay the rent. The idea of not knowing where his next meal would come from appealed to him. He was an amazing idealist. He wanted to do his own thing. He wanted to be free.

My feelings for him grew. I wanted to be more than a friend to him. But it was impossible. He had a girlfriend. I had a boyfriend. Consequently, my boyfriend was his roomate at college. It could get messy. But that was not the biggest problem. He lived 350 miles away. I had met him in person once. The rest of our relationship was based on IM conversations and phone calls. But still I felt it. It hurt me sometimes. He knew how I felt. It became more difficult to talk to him. We had a falling out. Things were never the same.

My boyfriend and I broke up, and my feelings for him was an underlying cause. Even though we were speaking again, he thought it would be better if we did't for his roomate's sake. I didn't think he was right, but I agreed. We kept our distance. It hurt. Possibly more than breaking up with my boyfriend. But it was done.

He didn't return to college. He moved into an apartment with three of his friends. He was starting to live out his ideal lifestyle.

He wrote me an e-mail.

I responded. We IM-ed. It was nice. Relieving. Although I no longer have any feelings towards him other than platonic but it was still nice to be speaking to him. I started thinking about him. What we had, what we had lost. I realized that I wanted to see him. I wanted to hear his voice. I want to talk to him everyday.

I always wondered how he was doing. It was about five or six months after my ex and I had broken up when he wrote me that e-mail. Everytime I sign online, I hope that he is on.

I wonder if he will read this. He has the URL of this page. I wonder if I want him to. I don't know. Maybe he should. Maybe he shouldn't. I don't know.

He was a good friend to me and a good person.

I miss him.

His name is Brandon.