More editing.

DREW
I met Drew last year when I was sitting in front of the local coffee shop, having a sub-par day. He had a weird staring problem. He kept smiling. As he started to walk by with some friends he said,
“Hey, I like your head band,” and as I turned around to say thank you he stopped and said, “and your eyes.”
We began to email one another and stumbled into a two weeklong conversation about home. I wanted to know how he kept so stable while beings so nomadic.
I feel like this might have actually been a reaction spawned from Ben Danger (for those of you who haven’t read the essay, I have a friend who’s middle name is literally danger, this isn’t the Ben from Florida.). Drew and I met the same week I received news of Ben’s suicide; I was so dumbfounded. How could this character, Drew, grace my life and be flourishing in the same lifestyle that eventually kill Ben? Where was the difference? Where was the line between failure and success? Between life and death.
Eventually one day, ironically, Drew replied to one of my e-mails with,
“You should write me a letter.”
It’s strange the parallels that life presents us with, the breakdown and the buildup. There I was, on the tail end of an intense five-year letter correspondence that ended in eminent disaster, and out of nowhere, appears the second round of life to fill that deep void.
Letters have always been important to me, more so in recent years than anything else. I’ve found that many of the people who are most important to me are the most honest in writing. Ben Danger weaved himself into my life that way. You can look back on letters and see things that you didn’t see before. Writing a letter is giving a part of your self away to another person, sending it off for them to hold, keep, and revisit. Letters are two lives intertwining and resonating.
Drew appealing to that side of me is key. I needed that jolt of optimism, compassion, and love after such a dismal finale from Ben.