Do you remember the summer we first met? We found clear silicone tubes in the forest by the playground and brought them home with us. They looked like coils of shed snakeskin. We drew patterns of red and blue scales on them with your brand-new 16-pack of Crayola markers, to cover the reddish-brown stains we couldn’t wash out. We named them Frosty and Ash. They made an excellent addition to our collection of pet rocks, until your mom got home and told us to throw them out. They were dirty, she said. We told her we had washed all the dirt off. There was no way to wash the dirt off, she said. They would always be contaminated. They had been used for something bad. She wouldn’t tell us what. 

Do you remember that group assignment in our sixth-grade health class? We were supposed to research an illegal drug and give the class a presentation on the risks. We chose LSD and you gave the class step-by-step instructions on the various methods of manufacturing it. You stunned the teacher with your prodigious chemistry knowledge and your use of words like isolysergic acid diethylamide, dichloromethane, and anhydrous hydrazine. You explained that it was almost impossible to fatally overdose on LSD, so there were practically no risks. It took the teacher a few minutes to decode everything you had just said. Once she finally did, she made us redo the project and sign pledges saying that we would never do drugs. Ever. 

Do you remember our first time smoking a joint? We hiked six kilometres into the woods behind your house so we wouldn’t get caught. We sat on a rock surrounded by cattails. You didn’t know how to roll a joint. The paper was soggy with your saliva and it flopped out of your mouth like a wet leaf. You burnt the side of your thumb relighting it a million times. You plunged your hand into the cold stream and told me you could feel the water’s heartbeat.

Do you remember when you got a B on your report card and your parents yelled at you for ruining your perfect GPA? From my house next door, I could hear them screaming about wasted potential and lost university scholarships. Eventually, their anger turned from you to each other, and you snuck out the back door. We sat face to face on my bed and listened to “Protect Me From What I Want” by Placebo, your favourite band. We put one earbud in each of our ears and turned the volume all the way up to drown out the sound of your parents fighting. I pressed my hands against your ears, hard. 

Do you remember in the tenth grade when you snuck a water bottle full of Fireball whisky into chemistry class? You took a shot, puffed up your hot-pink cheeks, and spat the whisky onto a Bunsen burner. The spray of alcohol made the flame roar. Your copper hair glinted like dragon scales in the glow of the burner. You were grounded for a month, and I had never missed you more. When your grounding ended, I wrapped my arms around you and pressed your heartbeat into mine. I thought that maybe if we squeezed each other tight enough, we’d liquify, mix together, and drain through the floorboards into the earth, away from your parents’ watchful eyes. Before I let you go, I slipped a small ziploc bag into your back pocket while your parents weren’t looking. 

I know you don’t remember prom night: when you saw the photos the next day, you told me it felt surreal because you couldn’t remember taking them. Your prom date was a senior in college — four years older than you. You were only dating him because he could get his hands on anything you wanted. And you wanted it all. My dirt-weed wasn’t good enough anymore. After my sixth glass of punch, I lost track of how many pills you’d taken. Your black pupils, reflecting only my face, nearly eclipsed your grey irises. You stumbled outside to smoke a cigarette and the ash fell on your white satin dress. I asked if you were feeling okay and you slurred that no one ever dies from too much ecstasy: it’s the depressants that’ll do you in. You told your parents you were sleeping over with me, but your boyfriend drove you back to his frat house that night. As you climbed into his souped-up Honda Civic, your spaghetti strap fell off your shoulder. I let you go. You told me that the last thing you remembered that night was your boyfriend slipping your corsage onto your wrist. The first thing you remembered the next morning was the smell of your corsage’s white lily and baby-blue forget-me-nots crushed under your cheek. 

Do you remember any of the weekends we spent binging together since prom night? Do you remember when we both puked a burning mixture of tequila and half-dissolved pills into a nightclub’s toilet, while a line of people pounded on the door outside? We tried to hold each other’s hair back, but we dropped a few strands into the toilet bowl. Red and black hair mingled in the water, like Black Dragon heroin shooting up the blood in your veins. I swore, like I did every weekend, that would be the last time. You told me that remembering is a darker shade than blacking out. 

Do you remember last night, when we went out clubbing for your nineteenth birthday? You gave the bouncer the wrong ID — the one I made you in high school that says you’re twenty-two. You wore your sequined dress. You looked like a prism — like if I touched you, I might be refracted into pure light. You were a rainbow, and I thought I’d be chasing the end of you for the rest of my life. I thought you’d never come down to earth. You flowed like rushing water across the sticky dancefloor. You moved with such ease that I thought you might grow wings.

Do you remember me? Your blood sounds like a stream of water as it runs through the tubes of the ECMO machine. They say your heart stopped for six minutes. They say you might die waiting for a new one. They say you might never wake up. They say you won’t be the same even if you do. It’s been less than twenty-four hours, but I have never missed you more. There’s a blizzard raging. The white outside your ninth-floor windows is blurring into the white walls. I can’t tell where the boundary is anymore. You’re so pale you look transparent. I think you could step right through glass or concrete into that flurry of white nothingness and never find the ground. I’ll follow you anywhere, but I don’t think I can fly. I bought one last dose of heroin: expensive, pure, white for once. I’ll shoot fire up my veins and let it burn my blood clean. I’ll let it burn me into a cloud of smoke. When the white-out clears, I’ll fall off the edge of cloud nine. I’ll come down hard.