Entering high school is generally considered to be pretty damn intimidating. Particularly if you’re unlucky enough to be going to a different school than your friend base. Like most fears though, this can quickly be remedied into a laughable matter when an older friend says something along the lines of, 

“Just find my friend Travis.”

“How am I suppose to know who he is.”

“You’ll know. Pretty boy, big floppy man-titties.” The word “man-titties” being accented by flapping motions near ones pectoral muscles. And so it was that I entered high school, and began my hunt for this “Travis” person. 

It took me about three weeks of searching before I gave up and, as frequently happens when you stop looking for something, met Travis through a friend that had no relation to the people who first told me to hunt him down. I can still remember it, Travis standing on one of the round pedestals in the common room, looking down at me and grinning because apparently someone had told him to keep an eye out for me. Being a senior and having a different lunch than me, I didn’t see Travis a whole lot at school. On days in which we shared a lunch he frequently brought me a tidbit of something he had made during culinary arts, and we talked about school and how my family was nuts or how his mom was doing (rest in peace, Momma Bear, I miss you). 

As luck would have it, Travis lived in easy walking distance of the friend who had first flapped “man-titties” at me. I spent long hours pestering him on the weekends, him and his mother, who took me in the first time I called Travis an asshole in front of her. He was this protective wall, the older brother I had never had, laughing along with my stupid high school drama and standing between me and anything that threatened to make me sad. I remember the first time he had an altercation with my dad. I was terrified, and Travis just smiled at me and wrapped me in his grandfather’s leather jacket. It was a mirthless smile, but showed that he was trying his best to be comforting. And then he graduated. We kept hanging out, making fun of each other, laughing at relationship decisions. He actually, in a near-altercation with my first boyfriend, offered Michael his knife, the cocky bastard. 

Eventually though, Travis decided to grow up. He got married to a lovely woman, joined the air force and, lamentably, moved to Italy. I’ve never seen him beam like he does in his wedding pictures, except maybe in the one with his son. If genes are any indicator, the boys will be a handful, and its no less than Travis deserves. 

So this is for you, Achan-sama, you said I could. Thanks for looking after me during my bad times. For the letters when I was in the hospital and holding me through my nightmarish sleep. Thanks for the laughter, for the music, for running like hell after dropping a fire-cracker in the porta-john. Thanks for introducing me too Mama Bear, even though I didn’t know her as well or as long as I would have liked. Thanks for serving our country, and complaining about bad beer. I love you, Achan-sama, come home safe and soon.