Remember When #featured #AllStars

Chapter 33

NECESSARY ROUGHNESS

On Cooper's last night, Rymer had us all over at his house for a going away party, but we knew it was pretty much a final gathering for the rest of us, too.

Rymer's was wholly the best location for the best possible sendoff for our friend. Walking out onto the deck made everything horribly real for the very first time, however. I realized we were actually going to have to start saying goodbye.

I spent a lot of time exchanging addresses with everyone, with promises to write whenever we could and call whenever we were going to be back in town. We knew it was the last official get-together, the last chance we'd all have to be assembled in the same room, the same town, at the same time. Such a previously casual occurrence, one which we'd taken for granted for the past four years. A pall hung over our evening, even though we all pretended to be having a great time. At least I knew I was pretending, anyway.

After a while, Coop announced he had an early morning and had to cut the evening short. Becca seemed sad, but I knew she wasn't devastated. After all, her campus at Rutgers-Camden was only about a two hours' drive from Coop's university in Baltimore. She'd only have to wait a few weeks, once they were both settled in, to see him again.

Unlike the rest of us.

After he'd said his goodbyes to everyone, I walked with him out the front door, trying to carve out a private moment. I'd pretty much said my peace with everyone else, but Cooper actually walking out the door kind of made things official. I wasn't ready to do it, to start the process of watching my friends leave me, one by one. And even worse, the chain of departures had to start with Cooper!

He'd been my rock for the better part of our school year, but that was nothing new.

I had a string of flashbacks from over the years starring Coop, realizing he'd been there in some way or another for practically my entire life. Cooper, who shared his Fruit Roll-Ups with me the day in first grade I fell off the slide at recess. Who talked his parents into buying me a new paintable ceramic Smurf kit when I was eight, because he'd overheard me crying to Lisa that I had just broken the one my father had given me for my birthday. Who came running out with Bactine the time when I was ten, and had wiped out on my bike in front of his house. Who suffered detention for an entire week when we were thirteen, after he'd punched Kevin Sullivan out right there in the gym for making a snide comment about my mother leaving.

And now it was his turn to leave me. Who was going to be the one to heal my heart once he was gone?

It seemed he was always my Superman, rushing in to patch me up whenever I'd gotten hurt. Now, he was the one causing my pain, and I knew there wasn't a Band-Aid in the entire world big enough to treat that wound.

"Jesus, Coop. I guess this is really it."

He met my eyes, the years of shared memories passing between us. "Shit," he said, "I'm really going to miss you."

I didn't have anything big enough to say to him. Nothing to sum up how important he was to me, how my life wouldn't have been the same without him.

"Keep in touch, okay? Don't just say yes and then not do it."

He wrapped his arms around me for a hug. "I will, I will. I promise." He pulled back, smiled and added, "You are totally gonna own New York."

It was so completely like him to recognize that while I was devastated about him leaving, the feeling was all wrapped up with fears about my own future as well.

I spent the ride home in complete silence, and to Trip's credit, he didn't try to get me to talk about it. By the time we'd pulled up in front of my house, I was drained.