In 9th grade I took a required Spanish class and that’s where we met. She sat a few rows behind me and I enjoyed listening to her boisterous comments and humorous antics. She was a short and lively girl with dark curly hair and whose eyes squinted when she smiled. Her name was Rachel and she was in 11th grade. I shared a similar attitude and pretty soon the two of us were cracking jokes together and we became partners for every assignment in the class. Rachel and I began to socialize outside of room 214 and it did not take long before our friendship spilled out beyond the hallways and basketball games of South High School and into the rest of Minneapolis. We went to the malls together. We went out for late night dinners at Perkins together. She came over to my house and I spent time at hers. We had all the inside jokes of best friends and we shared laughter and tears like sisters. My parents loved Rachel because she always took their side when I argued with them. Rachel did her best to convince me to be a good daughter and respect my parents. She was like a mentor in that sense. But Rachel did not always make the best decisions for herself.
At some point in her senior year, Rachel began dating some knuckle-head named Red. She talked about him at school, and that’s if she came to school. She had begun missing classes to spend time with Red, who was in his 20’s. She spent time in his run down apartment and told me how great he was, though I knew he had no legal income nor was he a student. I let her make her own choices though, and I figured since she was a smart girl, she’d wise up soon enough. Rachel wanted me to meet her new flame and one day while we out gallivanting around town, she pulled into his apartment complex and we approached the door. When she rang the buzzer to be let in, his baritone voice barreled through the speaker at us “Who is it?!” he yelled. I can’t remember the precise sequence of events that followed, but I am sure I answered his angry question with some sarcastic answer, trying to make Rachel laugh and the next think I know, he is bolting down the stairs and coming right towards me. He began to yell at me angrily and threatening to hurt me. Mind you this man was a decade older than me and he had to have been a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier. But the he did not relent and instead he held me against the wall while Rachel touched his arm and pleaded for him to stop. He pushed Rachel violently out of the way, and she fell to the floor of the stairwell. I could almost taste the alcohol on his breath as he spoke inches from my face. I saw his bloodshot eyes and smelled the smoke in his hair. He was high, and drunk, and mad. I did my best to speak calmly and pacify him. I apologized and gave him every answer he wanted. I had done nothing wrong, but I just wanted to get out of this man’s way as soon as I could. Rachel kept trying to placate Red and was up on her feet again to touch him gingerly. He took his hands off me and faced Rachel. She kept apologizing to him and letting him know how wrong we were for joking with him over the intercom. I stood in disbelief as my best friend, my mentor, became weak and foolish. She never looked at me or asked if I was ok. As she continued to console this maniac, I slipped down the stair and out the door. I walked and walked thinking she’d be behind me soon enough. I imagined she’d hurry out feeling sheepish and come find me and take me home. But she didn’t. I walked a few blocks to a pay phone and called my mom. I stood waiting for a ride for nearly and hour, and Rachel never came out to find me. She had chosen Red, and his violent temper, over me. And I was crushed.
I did not hear from her until we met in school later that week. We exchanged pleasantries and acted as if we were merely acquaintances. Her eyes said sorry, but her mouth did not. I asked her if she could bring me my hooded GAP sweatshirt she had borrowed. She told me she would. Graduation soon came and Rachel’s celebratory open house soon followed. I stopped by the party her parents had in her honor to drop off the gift I had bought before her and I had our falling out. She smiled a genuine smile when I came to the door and we hugged upon my entrance. It was nice to be with her and her parents on this important day. I did not stay long, and upon my departure, I asked again for the borrowed shirt. She said she could not find it, and I left disappointed.
It’s strange to me how something as trivial as an unreturned shirt could put me over the edge. It started in the stairwell with Red, and ended with the disappearance of my stupid shirt. Rachel went off to Marquette to college, and I stayed at South High School and found new friends. The last time we spoke was at her open house.
I thought about Rachel when I drove through her neighborhood, and when I walked past her old locker. I thought about her every time I saw a black Geo Metro or when I went shopping at her favorite stores. I thought about her a lot when I started to pick up the phone to call and tell her something or when and opportunity for one of our inside jokes would present itself and I had no one to laugh with. I never tried to get a hold of her while she was at Marquette. It was before the days of cell phones, and I thought it would be too much trouble to find her. Plus, she never gave me my shirt back. I know how petty this sounds, but at that point, this was my mentality.
So weeks turned into months and months into years. When I entered college, I began hearing that Rachel was back in Minnesota and living with a new guy. People who were closer to the situation would tell me how this new guy would put his hands on her and leave bruises. I was told of an argument Rachel and he had that ended with a phone being slammed into her face, shattering her cheek bones on impact. I felt like I did not know this Rachel, but I felt sad for her nonetheless.
One night a group of friends and I went out to a local sports bar for dinner. I walked in an spotted her immediately. Rachel had not noticed me yet, but there she was, dressed in all black with a black apron, waiting tables. I watched the familiar bounce of her curls and cadence of her stride as she walked back into the kitchen. My party was sat and I chose a seat that would avoid eye contact with Rachel. I told my friends about her over dinner. I did not use too many harsh words, but I did not talk about how great of a friend she had been, nor the great memories we had in common. I remember telling my friends that I hoped Rachel would not come speak to me. It had been nearly 3 years since I had seen her last. Three years in the same city, knowing the same people and going to the same places and she and I had not crossed paths until this night in November. And still, I did not even want to smile at her or say hello. I held onto my trivial grudge as I left the restaurant and I did not look back. Two hours later, Rachel was killed.
Rachel left work that night, shortly after seeing me there at the restaurant, and headed home. On her way home, a drunk driver, going the wrong way on the freeway, plowed into her car. Some people were glad that it was a tragic car accident that took her from us, and not the hands of the man she loved. Many people assumed he had killed her when they heard the news. Friends were almost relieved to hear how her life abruptly ended. She was living in fear and had lost her self worth over the years. But she was still Rachel. She was still the girl that taught me how to love my family and the value of this unconditional love. She was still the girl I loved to laugh with and confided my deepest adolescent secrets in. She was a close friend who lost her way. And I feel like I could have helped her find it again. I cried so hard when I got the phone call. I thought it was a prank. How could it be so? I just saw her. I waited to pass the news a long until I saw the obituary with my own eyes. I saw the picture in the paper that I remembered so clearly from year before. It was Rachel standing on a dock at Lake Harriet, her curls behind her and her face to the wind. It was her senior picture that she had written on the back of and handed to me in the hallway. It was the Rachel I remembered and I longed for her. But I had missed my last chance. God, or whoever is out there, brought me face to face with Rachel that night. I was one of the last familiar faces she saw before the accident. And I blew it. My eyes caught hers and I averted her gaze. I was blessed with the opportunity to make amends and make things right, but I was too involved with myself to notice. I was too foolish to forgive. I have played the “what if? game” on numerous occasions since her death. What if I had forgiven her and what if I asked her out for a coffee after her shift? What if I invited her to stop by when she got off? What if I could have prevented her being on that stretch of the freeway at that time? But I didn’t.. I was cold, and I said nothing.
I spoke at Rachel’s funeral. I stood up in front of hundreds and hundreds of people who loved her. I stood at the podium with the assistance of a couple other friends, and I told Rachel how much she meant to me. I told everybody in attendance how I saw her that night, and I said nothing. I almost collapsed in agony. But I needed to feel vindicated. I wanted everyone to know that I should have forgiven her and spoke to her. I should have smiled and hugged her. I should have remembered how much I loved her, before it was too late to tell her. That’s the lesson I shared and walked away with. Forgive those you love, because you never know when your last chance to do so, will be.
I dreamt about Rachel for weeks. She spoke to me in my dreams and told me she understood. I felt some solace in that. I got a fortune cookie a few days after the funeral that said “It would behoove you to forgive those who have trespassed against you”. Talk about preaching to the choir. It was a nice reminder though, and I tucked it into my wallet, right next to a small picture of Rachel and I from one of those little photo booths. I still have it now, almost a decade later. I have remained in contact with Rachel’s parents. She was their only child and I think it helps them to know that the memories of Rachel extend beyond her family. That her friends have not grown up too much to remember her. I have gone to her gravesite and cried to her. I have cleaned the headstone and replaced flowers. I have sat beside the headstone and told Rachel of my current life. I will continue to keep her in my thoughts, though I wish I would have had the foresight to do it sooner. I wish I would have spoken to her and cared for her that tragic night in November, instead of turning my head away.
