Happy Trails. (Wait! Don't Leave.)

We met in the summer of 2002. I was walking the dogs past his window when he leaned out at me and introduced himself.

"Hey there you crazy diva bitch. I'm Frank."

Caught offguard by his friendliness (?) at first I smiled and waved. Kept walking. On the way back, Frank was still there. Sitting in his window smoking a joint.

"I want you to come over for dinner tonight. I'm cooking," he said.

"Really?"

"Really."

"Um... Okay?"

"What's your name?"

"Rebecca."

"Let's be friends," he said.

It was the first time since preschool anyone ever said that to me. Frank was a breath of fresh air during a time I desperately needed it. My fiancee had just moved out. Our friends had sided with him in the breakup and I was alone.

Frank would be the first friend I met through nobody but myself and the happenstance that he had just moved in next door.

"Yes! Okay. Let's be friends."

That night I brought a bottle of wine to dinner and Frank cooked Steak. He didn't have a bottle opener in the house and I was a vegetarian so we ended up jumping in his car and picking up food (and a bottle-opening device) to bring home. We ate all the food and smoked all the pot and drank all the wine and laughed and told secrets and became friends.

For the years that followed we were as close as two people could be. When my lease was up the following year, Frank and I got an apartment together. We traveled together and ate together and made mistakes together and told each other "I love you" before we went to bed. He protected me from the bad guys and made me feel beautiful, loved, important during a time I wrestled with whether or not I would ever be any of those things to any person. He took me on dates. Brought me flowers every week. Filled my gas tank and washed my car on the weekends. He was the man in my life for many years, my partner and the person I went to when I needed to be bailed out. Helped. Cared for. He never judged me. It was unconditional, his love. Like family.

Frank was there when I peed on my first pregnancy test. He was the first person to show up at my bedside the day Archer was born. He's been there every day of my life since we first met almost eight years ago. Driving south to sit behind me at a funeral. Accompanying me to family functions. Holidays. Watching my dogs when I spent the night away. Reading every draft of every manuscript I've ever written.

Last night Frank came over with a stack of photographs -- a yearbook of our troublemaking and debauchery as best friends and we laughed and cried and fuck! Those were the days...

I've known Frank was moving for weeks, now, but it didn't hit me until this past weekend. And boy, did it hit me. Hard. Since then I've tried not to think about it but it was impossible not to last night, leaning against Frank's beat-up Honda Passport, the same car we went shopping for a bottle opener all those years ago, holding hands, crying in each other's hair, saying goodbye.

Last night we said goodbye.

I know that his leaving Los Angeles is a good thing. It's time for him to make a change. Still, it's going to be hard living, here, without him. It's going to be hard on Archer and me and all of us.

But so blessed have I been to have had such a co-pilot on so many you-wouldn't-believe-it-if-I-told-you adventures. To have experienced a great chunk of my life by Frank's side. As his neighbor. His roommate. His dance partner. And best friend.

Frank, my darling. My heart runneth over with love for you. Distance can't divide, no matter how far the drive between us. The miles of hallway that separate our rooms, shennnigans will find a way and bring us together forever and ever amen. 

Good luck on your journey. Happy trails...

P.S. Fuck you for making me cry right now. Annoying.

GGC