Its funny when you really love someone. How even though they are so unique and different all you can say about them is the obvious stuff. How you don’t even really know anything about their life. You don’t know who they were before they met you, you don’t know their stories. And when you die someone will ask you something. They will say, “Lilly, what was the best thing about Landen?” And I wont know what to say. Because there isn’t one best thing about him. So when someone does ask me I know exaclty what I’ll say.

I don’t know why I love you. I don’t know the best thing about you. But I don’t have to. Its not important why I loved you. It’s just important that I did. And I may not know every word you ever said, every thought that ever crossed your mind. I may not know each story you had to tell, and I may not know each emotion you felt. So maybe there isn’t much I can say about you. I just know that you are amazing and even though you may no longer be here I will always love you. You are my Landen and I am your Lily.





We met in an odd way. I was visiting my Grandparents in Texas. It was a hot day and I was with my little brother at the park in their neighborhood. He was playing war with toy soliders in the sand and I sat on the swings, dragging my feet across the sand to make it perfectly smooth. I wasn’t really thinking much, I was just closing my eyes and letting the hot texas sun warm my lids. Then I heard a big group of people approaching. I opened my eyes, pissed off at whoever had ruined my peace, and I saw you. You weren’t like any boy I had ever seen. I lived in a little bubble in Newport Beach and I was used to the tan, blonde boys who played water polo and were on the Honor Roll. They all had chiseled six packs and were all tall and thin. They were all the same. They bored me.

The first thing I noticed about you were your eyes. They were bright blue and outlined in a dark navy blue. Around your pupils was a mossy green color that blended into the eletric blue. I had to pull my own boring brown eyes away.

The next two things I noticed simultaneously. One: you were head of the pack. You stood slightly infront of the other four boys and they were hanging on your every word. Two: All of you were dressed in dark colors. Your hair was dark, your face was dark, your shirt was dark, and your pants were dark. The only thing that wasn’t dark about you was your dazzling eyes and your eletric blue converse. I found it funny how much prettier your eyes were than your shoes. Like the company had tried to mimmick your eyes. But they were both the brightest blues I had ever seen.

I looked down at my sand mound and smoothed it back over. I drew a heart with my bare toe and then smoothed it over again. I glanced up as you and your buddies jumped up on to the play equipment.

You were wearing a shirt from what I assumed to be a band that I had never heard of. Where I came from we didn’t listen to bands like blink-182 or Metallica. All we listened to was music about frat parties and waking up like P. Diddy. Not exaclty music that pushed the borders of creativity.

I could smell alcohol and weed on your clothes but for the oddest reason I didn’t think it was you. Maybe just the people around you.

You guys made your way over to the swing set laughing about something that had been on South Park the previous night. I stood up and tapped my brother. “Noah, we have to go. Gramdma’s serving dinner in an hour. We should go help out,” I told him. He stood up and gathered his toy soliders. We began to walk away from the swing set. “Hey!” Someone called. I turned around.

“Yeah?”

“Wanna smoke a bomb?” One of the guy’s friends called at me. He had an ugly long face and zitty nose.

“No,” I said, “I don’t.”

“Come on, sugar,” He said, starting to stand up.

“Marcus, lay off, man,” the guy with the eyes said. Marcus rolled his eyes at him but sat back down on the swings. The boy with the amazing eyes looked at me, apology in his eyes. I nodded my head, as if to say thanks and walked away. I didn't know that I would be seeing those eyes again.