As an update, Ethan called me tonight. We talked for two hours- he might have been a little drunk, but not anywhere near the way he was the last time we talked.

Mainly, it was remembering our friend Steve. All these random little memories that we kept babbling about, because I think we both feel like we don't want to forget them. We don't want to forget his personality. His voice. His mannerisms. The way he wore this brown Sean John jacket and smelled of Black and Mild cigars. So many memories. And they're such good memories, for the most part- but at the same time, it hurts to remember them. He's the only one I know who fully gets that though, because he was closer to Steve than I was, and we knew him in the same context as all being students at the University of Delaware.

We talked about the grieving process as well, and just how you can feel okay and not think about it, but then bam, something hits. I was telling him about how I can't get myself to delete Steve's number on my phone, and he was telling me about how he still calls him up from time to time to listen to the voicemail. And we both feel like it's still surreal, like it's not totally real, because we weren't there with Steve when he died. The realness of it all is probably going to come when we go to Steve's memorial in August.

We also talked about the guilt we feel- he feels like it might have been his fault because getting stoned and drunk with Steve so much might have "encouraged him", and I feel guilt that I didn't third degree Steve about whether or not he was having problems. I feel like I might have just taken Steve at face value that things were going great for him, because I was in denial and wanted to believe that things were okay with him. (I have this e-friend who thinks that I had this idealized view of Steve, and I think he's right.) So then I told Ethan that I knew Steve a year longer and he was always like that, always trying to take the edge off. And he told me to remember that Steve was good at covering up his problems and looking like he had things together, and Steve might have been in denial about his own problems. And we both said to each other that we pretty much can't beat ourselves up about this. Which is true. All we could be was a friend. We couldn't save the guy. It's hard to accept that, but it's the truth- Steve had managed to survive a lot. He just used up too many chances and made too many bad decisions before it was finally his time to go. There is nothing I could have done, or Ethan could have done.

We did talk about some day, getting the whole gang back together and just hang out; have something like our college rager days. I hope we do it. In the meantime, I tried to make it as clear as possible to Ethan that he can call me up whenever he's feeling bad, and I hope he does. Ethan's told me he's been drinking heavily (shocker) so I hope I can do what I can to help him work through that by listening to him, if he wants to be listened to.

The biggest thing that I got out of being a friend to Steve for 6 years is that you've got to be willing to take the good and the bad with people...I was a fair-weather friend who stuck mainly to fair-weather friends until I really went through an incredible amount of crap when I was 21-22, and Steve helped me get through it. Steve stuck by people thick through thin, and he didn't judge. I want to try and hew to that as much as I can in my relationships and friendships going forward. That's probably the best way I can honor Steve- being as good of a friend to people as I possibly can be.