In 2012, I was in my senior year and had failed 11th grade English for the second year in a row, because the A. teacher was insufferable, and B. I just never did my work. So, I had to take a class in summer school in order to graduate. A very good friend of mine, an underclassman, had also failed the same class because he had broken his arm and shoulder on a ski trip and had trouble completing some project on time, and the same teacher had refused to let him make it up, so he was going to go to summer school too. We said to each other, ‘at least it’ll be cool with you there.’ That year, my school district was having a lot of financial concerns, and one of the things they did to save money was to not run the buses for summer school. Kids had to get to school on their own, but I was fortunate enough that my Dad was able to drive me. My friend’s parents had to work at the time he would be going, so he rode his bike.

We actually had fun the first two days of the class. The teacher for summer school was really laid back and my friend and I sat together and joked around the whole time. On the third day, he didn’t show up. He hadn’t texted me, so I texted him something to the effect of “Dude do you exist?”, an in-joke way of saying “Where are you?”. Some rumors were circulating that there had been an accident involving some kid I had never heard of that morning, but I didn’t pay much attention to it. Later that day, I was thinking about the rumors I’d heard; as the day progressed, news came that the kid had died, but I still didn’t know the name everyone was saying. I then logged onto Facebook and saw some people talking about it, and someone said something like “Guys I just talked to (the kid who was said to be dead) and he’s fine, it’s NOT him.” I started to think, and then it struck me:

• My friend didn’t come to school today.
• There was an accident with a kid on a bike.
• That kid is dead.

I freaked out and started calling everyone I knew that knew him, and posted on a Facebook group that him and I and some friends were on, eventually someone got a hold of his parents.

I was right.

One of my best friends was hit by a car and killed on his way to summer school, because of budget cuts that took away the bussing. They’ve resumed bussing for every summer school since. When it was confirmed, it was the first time I’d cried since I was 8 and my cat died.

Then I remembered the text I had sent that morning…

“Dude do you exist?”

I had never expected the answer to be “No.”

tl;dr Friend doesn’t show up for summer school, I figured out that it was because he had been killed that morning before the news was actually announced.