Prompt Images
To: Hugh Fox <hughiedeweyandyouie28@charter.net>
From: Dane Frankie <frankied764@hotmail.com>
Date: August 3, 2021 3:32 AM
Subject: Hey
Hey H,
I know this is probably for nothing, and much more for me than it is for you, but on the very off chance you’re reading this, I need you to know how sorry I am. I’ve been going over and over it in my head for the past few weeks, thinking about all the things I could’ve done differently. From my latest count, there’s at least three dozen of them, and that’s about how many regrets I have too.
Somewhere in the multiverse, there’s a Dane who does it all differently. He doesn’t lie to you, and lie some more to cover his ass. He’s just upfront, like you’ve always been with him, like you’ve always asked. He doesn’t blow up on you when he’s confronted. He doesn’t call you a selfish, hyperactive asshole, because he knows you’re not (except maybe the hyperactive, but you’re on meds for that, so does it count?) He’s just a better friend to you, which means you’re most likely hanging out right now, rather than him sending you this email.
I wish I was that version of me, or that I could’ve learned a few things from him sooner than this. Because now it feels too late, and like all I have left to do is wish for things that have little chance of coming true. Near the top of my wish list: that you do read this, and that you can forgive me.
I miss you.
- D
——
To: Hugh Fox <hughiedeweyandyouie28@charter.net>
From: Dane Frankie <frankied764@hotmail.com>
Date: September 12, 2021 3:48 PM
Subject: Guess what?
You never will guess who I just saw. Okay, you probably could guess, and but since we both know you’re not going to, I’ll tell you: Gus Fucking Germain. The GFG is back and I am F pissed. He came to the soccer complex looking for me. I guess my parents, the Benedict Arnolds, told him that I would be there, although he said it was the first place he was going to check anyway, acting like he still knows me. As if he didn’t ditch both of us.
He said that he wanted to know how I was doing, to which I said he would’ve fucking knew if he wasn’t an asshole. He tried to say he was sorry, but sorry is the last thing I want to hear from him, especially about this. About us. I jacked the ball at him. It missed him, but I meant for it to and I literally got less than an inch away from nailing him in the head. AN INCH. That’s still pretty good aim, considering. Then he left, and I hope it’s good riddance to that guy.
He can’t just come back like this, you know? Pretending like he understands, like he’s going through this, too. He doesn’t and he’s not, and, I don’t know, but I don’t think I can handle him right now.
Anyways, I just needed to tell someone, and you’re the only person I could think of who would get it, so sorry for the rant.
I guess, though, why am I even apologizing? Not like you’re reading my messages anyway.
- D
____
To: Hugh Fox <hughiedeweyandyouie28@charter.net>
From: Dane Frankie <frankied764@hotmail.com>
Date: October 16, 2021 2:02 AM
Subject: You win
…So Beth and I broke up. I can hear you now, “Surprise, surprise. I told you so.” Cue maniacal laughter. But before you get too ahead of yourself, it’s not for the reasons you said it would be. Beth isn’t actually a bad person. Yeah, she’s a little rough around the edges, a little glib, and she calls people out on her bullshit (sound like anyone you know?), but through all of this, she was the person I leaned on the most. She’s never told me I’m too much or that I need to pull myself together, “man up,” even though other people have, some with good reason. She did nothing wrong for me to break up with her, so you can eat your words on that. The great Hugh Fox was actually wrong about someone. Who would’ve thought?
What ended things with Beth was you. Not that it’s actually your fault, unless you’ve been messing with my mind and that’s why almost every time I looked at Beth, I thought of you. No matter what I did, where we were, what we were up to, there you were, and that’s a huge damn boulder I haven’t been able to get past, and a weight that I can’t ask Beth to help move when she didn’t create it. Believe it or not, she didn’t make me do what I did. She didn’t make me hide her from you or lie, because I was too afraid to tell you what was really going on. Those faults are all mine.
Still, even though you were wrong about her, do I wish I would’ve listened to you from the beginning? Knowing how it would end for us? Yeah, 100 percent. Add it to the growing list.
So, yeah, in this no-win game, you won. Congrats. I hope you’re happy.
Really, I do.
-D
____
To: Hugh Fox <hughiedeweyandyouie28@charter.net>
From: Dane Frankie <frankied764@hotmail.com>
Date: December 25, 2021 11:57 PM
Subject: A note from the North Pole
Ho, ho, ho, to the one and only H!
Santa made a stop at my house last night, and by Santa, I mean your favorite people, Meghan and Mitch Frankie, but since Nicki hasn’t figured that they’re one in the same, they’re still going by Santa (thought you’d want to know). I asked my parents when they were going to break it to her, and they said maybe in a couple of years if she hasn’t realized it by then. Don’t want to take away the magic before they have to. Apparently, the world does that enough on its own (my words, not theirs).
Anyways, good ol’ Santa brought me two tickets to see Van Hudson at The Ballroom in April, and if this would’ve been last year, I would’ve freaked the hell out. How long have we been waiting to see them? How long have we dreamt about going to see them on tour when we didn’t have to worry about Covid and we could actually drive ourselves? Forever? Well, probably closer to three years, but it feels the same.
This is this year, though, so I didn’t freak out. I just kind of… sank. All I could think about was how half of the fun of going was getting to go with you─and half is a conservative estimate. I can picture you screaming the lyrics so loud that you’d have no voice the next day, and we’d head bang so much we’d get a crick in our necks, but no matter what we lost or hurt, we’d put it down as one of the best nights of our lives. It made me so fucking sad, and miss you so fucking much. More than usual, and that says a lot.
I tried to hide it from my parents, act like I was really excited, but I think they could tell I wasn’t. They said they bought them before everything happened, I’m pretty sure with you in mind for the second ticket (I think you’re still their favorite too, BTW), so I’m not sure if it wasn’t for that if they would’ve gotten them for me. Maybe they still would’ve, you know like a consolation gift, if that’s something you do when your kid loses your best friend. Who knows? It’s one of the many things we’ll never have an answer for, and in comparison to all the other things I want to understand, it ranks pretty low in importance.
If it wouldn’t hurt my parents’ feelings, I wouldn’t go, but I know it would, and I’ve kind of resolved myself to not hurt people anymore. I don’t know who will go with me, though. It feels wrong to give anyone the second ticket that was meant to be yours, so if you could somehow find a way to come with me, I’d put it down as the best night of my life. If that can’t happen, maybe I’ll take Nicki with me and she can learn to mosh before she learns about Santa haha. That seems like something you’d approve of.
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, the whole shebang, H.
-D
_____
To: Hugh Fox <hughiedeweyandyouie28@charter.net>
From: Dane Frankie <frankied764@hotmail.com>
Date: April 15, 2022 9:34 PM
Subject: A Song For You
Hey, H,
I feel like I should start out with an apology, which must be an absolute shock to you hahaha, but it is needed. A couple of them actually.
I know that we said that we’d never be friends with GFG again (heretofore referred to as Gus), but over the past few months, it’s started to become hard not to be. The dude was like stalking me. He kept showing up at the complex and playing on the field next to me, and then he registered for the winter soccer clinic, and he wouldn’t. let. me. avoid. him.
He freaking cornered me in the locker room in February and wouldn’t let me leave until he apologized for what had gone down between the three of us. I hate to say it, but it was actually a pretty damn good apology. He said he wished he would have handled things differently, and that we could’ve stayed friends rather than him treating it like it was either-or, and then just not have treated us like shit. He said he’d do anything to make it right because he literally couldn’t sleep because of it. He was the definition of groveling. You would’ve loved it. The only thing that would’ve made it better was if he would’ve gotten on his hands and knees, but beggars can’t be choosers.
We started to talk after that and then hang out. He’s not really part of the “popular crew” anymore, even though they haven’t completely casted him out yet. He gets invited to their parties, and he’s brought me along to a couple, but they’re nothing to write home about (although I guess I’m writing to you about them, so maybe they are). Our hangouts, the three of us, were a lot more fun, a million times, and Gus agrees. Now we just play video games, watch movies, and talk about oh-so-positive topics like our regrets, of which we both have more than we wanted to at 17.
A lot of the time we talk about you, and I’m sorry if that or the fact we’re even breathing the same air pisses you off. I don’t want to do anything more to make you mad and I didn’t plan on ever becoming friends with him again, but unlike I thought, he does get it. Maybe not in the same way, but he understands. He misses you, too. We both wish we could’ve been the one in the car instead of you. You were the best of us—not that we set a high bar for you to beat, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t surpass it more than anyone could ask for, because you did. Way more.
So, for my second apology. If Gus is the injury, then me taking him to the Van Hudson concert is the insult I’m adding to it. Since Christmas, I had been trying to think of someone to ask, but the circle of who I was hanging out with was basically nonexistent outside of family, so the options were limited unless I wanted to look completely desperate, and that’s not on my to-do list. Also, my parents shot down taking Nicki, because she’s “too young” for their lyrics, as if she’s not watching HBO when they go to bed. Please.
When we started talking again, I had told Gus about the concert. Then last week, he knew I still didn’t have anyone to go with and that I felt like it was replacing you to ask anyone, so he offered to buy the ticket from me, you know, so that way wouldn’t be “replacing you,” technically. But that didn’t feel right either, and I said he could just come with, mind you, I felt guilty as soon I did. It seemed like a betrayal to you, and if that’s how it seems to you too, I am so, so sorry.
You can take it as a consolation that I spent the first half of the concert either on the verge of crying or full-out crying. Doing most things without you feels wrong and this was the pinnacle of that. When they started playing “Late Night Confessions,” I thought of you and I singing that in the car, playing air guitar, and the guilt and the pain of missing you hit me like it was the first time I was feeling it, and I broke down. I would’ve been embarrassed if it weren’t for the other dozen people around me who were crying, too, including Gus. Maybe they’re missing their best friend, like we are. Or they were really high and becoming one with the music. From the number of times I smelled pot, both are equally likely.
Towards the end of the concert, they played your favorite song, and Gus and I decided we were going to scream it for you. We held our phones in the air as lighters, and yelled it so loud, the person in front of us looked like he wanted to deck us. He didn’t, thank God. He was so stacked, he would’ve pummeled us, but it would’ve been worth it.
I hope you can forgive me for this. For all of it.
One last thing: I love you, H. I know I didn’t say enough before, but I didn’t think I had to. Now, I want you to make sure you know it, even if this is the only way.
– D
_____
To: Hugh Fox <hughiedeweyandyouie28@charter.net>
From: Dane Frankie <frankied764@hotmail.com>
Date: January 19, 2023 6:06 PM
Subject: Goodbye
Hey, H,
I had dinner with your parents yesterday. It’s our monthly thing, our way of checking up on each other, but maybe you know that already. Maybe you know everything we do, and you’ve been watching us this whole time. Is it weird to say that I’d like that? You would probably say yes, that I am basically wanting you to be a creeper, and that would be fair. But, really, what it comes down to is that I’d like to believe that you’re not fully gone, that some part of you survived that wreck and has stayed with us. That would seem too good to be true, but if things can be more horrible than we can think, we should get the opposite too.
Speaking of too good to be true, your dad made his s’mores pie for dessert. It was a tribute to you, I’m sure, but it may also have been to soften the blow that they’re shutting down your email. They’re going with someone new for the internet, and I guess since your email is through their current Internet place, once they cancel their plan, your email will go with it, too. Heads up, hopefully you didn’t have anything nasty in your inbox, because your parents have been checking your account to make sure there’s nothing they need to deal with. That’s how they knew I’d care if it disappeared. They saw all the messages.
I have to admit, I got a bit embarrassed, turned a little red, knowing they’ve could’ve read what I’ve been sending you; but, I also have to admit that more than anything I was trying to figure out a way I could convince them to keep it running, and working out if I could afford to swing the bill myself.
But then I realized I was being ridiculous, getting desperate over an email account that no one is doing anything more than skimming, and I told them I understood. It wasn’t a lie, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not devastated and that this doesn’t hurt so fucking much.
It comes back to what I said before: I’d like to believe you’re not fully gone, and if I can email you, I can pretend that you’re sitting on your phone, scrolling through TIkTok, and when you see my message come in, you click it and read it, and that instead of throwing words into the abyss, I’m delivering them to my friend, who can laugh at them, or get pissed at them, whatever he wants, as long as it’s a reaction, a sign of life.
Reading this back, it sounds kind of stupid, but that stupidity has kept me going these past 20 months and gave me a connection to you at a time when I wanted to cling to anything I could find of you. That want is still there, and I don’t think it will ever leave.
That’s what happens when you’ve been the best friend someone could ask for. When you’re a person who can make people laugh with dirty jokes, and high-brow comedy back-to-back. Bake the best chocolate chip cookies while simultaneously cursing out the Giants. Call people out on their shit, but never make them hate you. Take care of people in a way that they will never forget.
I can’t believe this is goodbye, but here it is nonetheless, another thing we can’t change
as I think of one that never will: you are always going to be my best friend, Hugh, and I’m lucky to have known you.
Keep an ear out for me, on the great chance I’ll want to talk to you. I sneak a Coors for you and raise it in your honor, and in the hope that one day we can shotgun one together again.
Love you,
- D
——-
From: Mail Delivery System
To: Dane Frankie <frankied764@hotmail.com>
Date: January 19, 2023 6:08 PM
Subject: Mail delivery failed: returning message to sender
The message that you sent could not be delivered to its recipients. The following address failed in a permanent error:
hughiedeweyandyouie28@charter.net
This email address does not exist.
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