I’m so sorry.

18Nov08

I want to go to sleep, but I can’t, because I keep staring at the photo of TB and saying, or sometimes just mouthing,

“I’m so sorry.”

I’m so sorry that you’re gone. I’m so sorry that your family is losing you. I’m so sorry that your friends are losing you.

And I’m so, so sorry that I — someone you never met, someone who is 20, someone who has only taken 5 journalism courses and has no expertise in news, someone who is too preoccupied with how her hair looks or if she’ll get a C in Poli Sci to give a shit about much else — had to treat you like a news piece for eight days.

These days I’ve been waking up like a gunshot to the latest news about you, flying furiously (but whizzing dizzily) through the day until suddenly my body smacks back down into bed and it’s over, for a few hours, until the next day. And I sleep like an exit wound (whatever that means, right? But I know what I mean, I know what I mean too well.).

According to the report, they pulled your body out of the lake at about the same time I was looking for my sock and trying not to wake him up. What the fuck is this world? Who am I to decide how your friends and family will learn how you died, where you died, when you died? I’m a kid who can’t find her sock.

But I had to decide, and I hope, I swear, that I did okay by you. I know it’s always about reporting to our audience. I just never thought the reader I’d care most about would be dead.

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