When you’re in the union now, at Genesee Community College, everything seems quiet. We all sort of seem like we’re out of it, and you might even see some kids crying near the fireplace, or at the pool tables. What you won’t see, is a sweet girl in a blanket asleep by the fire, or a hilarious guy in a GCC hat playing pool. Because car accidents stole them both away from our school.

Tori wasn’t what I would call my best friend, but we talked a number of times either at GCC or Darien Lake where we both worked over the summer. At work she kind of always had this expression that said, “I would rather be in bed.” I probably had the same expression though. At school she was always with the nerds, or hanging with her boyfriend. I enjoyed talking with her over the year I knew her. She was one of my best friend’s little sister, and that’s how I met her. Our last conversation was about how much I missed her sister, because she didn’t come back to school and never answered my texts anymore. Before the accident she had told Kenzy, and had a message for me that she never got to deliver: Kenzy missed me too.

When I found out that she was gone, I started to shake. I didn’t believe this was all really happening, but it was.I spent days not able to leave my bed, all I was doing was crying, and sleeping, and then remembering, which led to crying some more. I went to calling hours with Marissa, and I had to beg my legs to keep me standing, and moving forward. When I got up to her casket, I didn’t see my friend. I saw someone who had a slight resemblance to her, it didn’t really look like her at all. Then I spotted Kenzy, and I wrapped her up in a hug. I wish it didn’t take the death of her sister to have her by my side again, but sometimes, that’s what it takes.

Dedoszak was one of my closest friends, and one of the first friends I made here at the college. I didn’t exactly know his name for a while though, so I just called him by his last name, most people seemed to. When we made a family tree at school, he became one of my three sons. He knew how to make me laugh on a daily basis, which was hard to manage. When I cut my hair he started referring to me as “young man” but I didn’t mind, that was just the way he was. When I started coloring it, he came up with an assortment of names for me. “Asparagus” and “Broccoli” when it was green, “Kirby” and “Pussy-Pink Power Ranger” when it was pink. He never could find a perfect name for the blue, so it was back to “young man” when he was addressing me.

The night I found out, I had just got home from working the coat check. I had decided to check my notifications of Facebook, and it was the first thing I saw. My heart seemed to stop and so did time. I had just lost Tori, I couldn’t be losing Dedoszak as well. But I was losing him too, this wasn’t just a sick joke like I had hoped. This one stung more, because I had been closer to him. He was one of my best friends, and now he’s gone, and I still have yet to come to terms with that.

When you’re in the union now, at Genesee Community College, it’s way too quiet.