Photo by MAX DEARINGER

Friendsgiving is the worst. There’s no unspoken-but-obviously-present family drama. No weird cousin you don’t want to be with. No grandma pretending you should be modeling for cologne advertisements. Just down-to-earth, true time with friends.

But what are you supposed to do when your best friend might not even be alive on earth for the next Thanksgiving? How can you put a smile on your face and act like everything is normal when he could be gone in a week?

———

Logan would always take my phone and he’d text my crush, “Ryan likes you btw” and he’d get both of us yelled at by math teachers for making stupid sounds, but no matter what happened he was always there. To laugh with me and make stupid jokes. To get in trouble with me. To tell me he liked the same girl. Something was always the same between the two of us. 

Sleepovers at Logan’s house turned into flag football on the long, hot road right outside of his duplex turned quickly into popping my finger back into place after missing the flag and grabbing into Gabe’s pants then hiding it from Logan’s mom, Ashley, so she didn’t send me home. I’d hide my finger under the couch as everyone played video games in the cluttered living room, wincing in pain every time I even moved it. They’d ask me if I wanted to play Minecraft with them and I’d say “nah I’m good, I’ll sit this one out,” when in reality I thought if I moved my finger it would fall off. But I didn’t care. I was having the time of my life cracking stupid jokes and just watching my friends wrestle each other with couch pillows while I cautiously avoided any flying projectiles.

That was the last time the four of us were together. Summer after sixth grade. Gavin the elusive moved off to Spain with his family. Gabe and his pants of doom moved hours away to Euless. Two people gone. It seemed like the end of an era. By the first day of seventh grade it was just Logan and I. Everyone else was still in touch, but it was never the same. Despite everyone leaving, he was still my rock and not much changed. We got up the same tomfoolery and stupid jokes as we did before — just less. We had different classes, different electives, different reasons to be at school.

It was almost as if leaving were an omen.

But I still trusted him with anything and everything. The crowded and loud hallways always turned into talks about literally anything with each other. How hot he thought Mrs. Wrobliski was, how he cheated on a math assignment, how annoying he thought some students in his class were. He was my Ol’ Reliable, and I was his.

It was almost too good to be true.

It was. 

Logan told me near the end of the school year he was moving. “Awesome!” I’d said, since his family had been talking about moving out of their duplex into a family home. “Will you still be zoned for Legacy?” and that’s when I’d thought the bomb dropped.

He looked me dead in the eyes and said, “No. We’re going to Illinois.”

What did this mean? Am I stranded? I have more friends, but nobody else I can talk to about farts and dinosaurs and X-Men movies and not get looked at like a crazy person.

What do I do now?

That question repeated in my brain over and over for the next year while I tried to figure out how life would be different now. Eighth grade came and went. I’d made new friends and gotten close to them, but nothing would ever be the same as Logan. The two of us still called each other and played video games for way too long until our parents came in and yelled at us. Dumb jokes and stupid secrets spilled out like a dam and everything seemed unnaturally normal. We were so far apart, yet it felt like we were still within an arm’s length of each other. The uneasiness always leads to something unexpected.

———

Having not heard from Logan in a couple days, it broke me to see “I got shot” light up my phone screen. Finding what to say had never been a problem between us, but at that moment it was the biggest block I’d ever had. “What?” I responded, holding back what I was thinking. What does that even mean? Are you OK? Is this a sick joke? He responded almost immediately saying, “Yeah. 9mm into the knee while walking the dog. Can’t walk.” Now, all that was in my head was confusion. Who would shoot a 13-year-old boy walking his dog? Before I could even respond, he cracked at his own sick thought of a joke. “I didn’t actually get shot, but it really feels like I did. My knee hurt like crazy.” The blue light from my phone went into my eyes and processed through my brain. “Just got released too. Doctors said it’s just growing pains. I have to take some ibuprofen then I’ll be fine.” A sigh of relief could be heard around the world, but my questions aren’t answered. I stare at the phone blankly before I conclude; it’s not worth it to nag on the situation. I’m glad he’s OK. I’m glad they didn’t find anything serious. I’m glad he’s alive.

———

Mashed potatoes and friends. There’s no better combination. The smile on my face before my church’s friendsgiving was impossible to break. I put the lid on my mashed potatoes my mom and I had been working on for the past hour. “You should go get ready to leave Ryan, I’m getting a call,” my mom said. Great idea. I skip up the stairs thinking about all the food I can eat there. Brush my teeth. Put on a nice red flannel shirt. Walk back downstairs. Ready to walk out the door, my mom walks up to me with the look on her face. No words can explain what her face meant. I just knew. “Ashley called,” she said. Normally, this would be a good thing. Normally. Logan could be the biggest prankster on Earth, but I know a mom would never tell a lie. A tear rolled down her cheek and mother looked at me with her big brown eyes and told me the real nuclear bomb. 

It’s cancer.