June 8, 2016 is National Best Friend Day, and although I have a few very close friends I consider best friends, one of my best friends is no longer with us. Her name was Amanda, and I always called her Ams. Amanda was my best friend in high school.

We told each other everything, we did each other’s makeup, talked about boys, kept each other’s secrets, made sure we were in the same classes and started mischief. We went to parties and the town carnival together, told each other the honest truth, went on double dates (if you can even call high school relationships that) and borrowed each other’s purses and shoes, shirts and accessories.

If one of us was absent from school one day we made sure we skipped that class because our “partner in crime” wasn’t there. We also read each other’s poems, which developed both of our passions for writing in our freshman year English composition class. Now this might not seem like a big deal, but when you are an introvert and socially awkward in your freshman year of high school, it is easy to be scared that others will violate your trust.

But I trusted her with my poems and my short stories, and I was never disappointed. I bled my heart and soul into everything I wrote, with every little detail about tragic events, worries and happy memories being written. I even wrote a short story for our English class that year, called "Miss Misunderstood," and the only people I wanted to read it were Amanda and my teacher. Turns out, we had to read that assignment in front of the class (just my luck).

Amanda challenged my writing, she told me what parts of my writing sounded good and what didn’t, what I should add or leave out, where to end my sentence instead of letting it run on and on and on. She challenged my thoughts when I didn’t understand where my writing was coming from. She taught me to write without thinking, to type on a computer and let the subconscious mind flow onto my screen. This was a ridiculously hard task to learn, and I even got frustrated at the fact that I didn’t know how to do it. After a few weeks (more like months), I let the sound of the keyboard send me into a trance as I began writing from the subconscious level of my being. This is how I write today and how I will always write, because thinking too hard is overrated.

I truly forgot how amazing our friendship was until recently. When you are 20 years old and one of your best friends dies, you try to push all of those memories away to keep from feeling the pain of never seeing them again. I was cleaning my room and found a letter Amanda wrote to me in 2008. She wrote to me,

“Jess, you are an amazing writer. Not even kidding. You have a talent, a gift that you should use throughout your life. Not everybody can write. Use it to your advantage whenever possible. Don’t you ever listen when people put you down, don’t you ever give up and don’t you ever stop writing. When you worry what to do with the rest of your life, remember this: If you can help (in any way) just one person doing what you are good at and enjoy, then the rest of it, the worries, the hardship, the pain, none of it matters. Your life will add up to something. You just have to wait for the other factors to fall in place.”

And now, nine years later, I can say that I am doing it. I put off this talent for so long, and I’m finally using it, Amanda. I write for Odyssey, where my work is being published. I work for Crisis Text Line, where people who are going through hard times count on me to calm them down. I am doing something with my life and helping people doing what I am good at and enjoy. And the rest of the worries, hardships and pain are starting to not matter. I could never thank you enough for your friendship, the impact you made on my life and everything that you taught me when we were such a young age. I wish you were here so that we could celebrate National Best Friend Day together.

In Loving Memory of Amanda

July 13, 1993–August 16, 2014

“Life is fleeting. And if you’re ever distressed, cast your eyes to the summer sky, when the stars are strung across the velvety night. When a shooting star streaks through the blackness, turning night into day, make a wish. Think of me. Make your life spectacular, I know I did.” –Robin Williams