The backstory

I would do anything for Sunny, to be honest. You know when you’re growing up, and your best friend gets to do something and you whine that you should be able to as well, and your parents respond with “if Sunny jumped off a bridge, would you?” Well, my answer would be no, I wouldn’t, unless Sunny asked me to. If she asked, I would be right behind her, and I wouldn’t even ask her why. I know that probably sounds reckless, but I know that Sunny would never ask me to do anything that she didn’t need me to do – and Sunny has also been there for me, unconditionally, through some really rocky times.

We grew up in a small suburb outside of Chicago. I was the youngest of three to a single Mother who worked all the time and went to school in the time she wasn’t working. I used to be really resentful of this fact, but as I grew older I realized that my Mother wasn’t perfect and was just trying to do what she needed to do to ensure the ends met and try to better things for all of us – but that’s another story. I spent a lot of time split between Sunny’s house and spending time with my Uncle and my cousin Stephanie at his pizza shop.

Stephanie was my runner up best friend, and probably the only reason she didn’t out rank Sunny was because she was a year older, so we were in different classes at school. Sunny was my weekday best friend. Stephanie was my weekend best friend, and I spent every weekend and pretty much every holiday break I had either in the pizza shop or in the apartment my Uncle owned and lived in above the pizza shop. I grew up there. My Uncle treated me as his own, and even though I griped about being put to work or being punished for dropping an f bomb in front of him, I secretly loved it. I do think it’s true that all kids want discipline, and at my own home my Mom could barely pause long enough to plop the McDonalds bag in front of us for dinner, let alone do things like check my homework or enforce curfew, so being there gave me the discipline I so desperately craved.

I grew up at Slice of Life, and as soon as I was old enough, I was legally put to work making pizzas and then delivering them, until I was 18 and graduated from high school. Of course, when you’re 18, you not only know everything, but you also know that your home town is smothering you and you just need to get away. Stephanie had decided the same thing the year before, and had left to go to a small college in Pittsburgh. I opted for Ohio State, six hours away from home, four hours away from Stephanie. Sunny chose to stay in Chicago, near Noah.

Things were going great, and I was living up the college life – studying hard, partying harder. In fact, I was just heading out to a party to celebrate finishing my finals and moving on to becoming a sophomore when I got the text from Stephanie. “On a greyhound headed ur way. B there in n hr. Mom says we have 2 head home, won’t tell me y. Pack & pick me up @the station, plz.”

I was worried, but not insanely so. My Aunt had a tendency to over-react, and while I loved her, she had a ton of issues.

“What do you think is going on?” I asked Steph as we pulled onto the freeway that would take us out of Ohio and on our way home.”

“Don’t know. Maybe Mom’s going to rehab again.”

I snorted. “Probably, but do we really need to go home for that?”

She was quiet for a moment. “You think Dad’s alright? I tried to call him, he didn’t answer.”

It was then when I first felt the fear creep in and settle in my stomach – like I had swallowed a cold, hard stone. I tried to ignore it. I wasn’t sure why I felt it, but it was there.

“I’m sure he’s fine. Your Mom probably told him not to talk to us, you know how she is. She probably knows he’ll tell us the news and it’ll be something stupid and we won’t come home right away.”

Stephanie nodded, and though I wanted to believe my own words, I stepped on the gas a little to speed up the journey that would take us home.

I drove all night, neither one of us talking much, and despite my urging her too, Stephanie didn’t sleep. When I pulled into my Aunt’s driveway and saw my Mother’s car sitting next to the garage, I couldn’t help but take in a sharp breath. It was five in the morning. My Mother was never out at five in the morning unless she was leaving for work. My Aunt announcing she was going to rehab again wouldn’t have warranted my Mother missing work. Something was seriously wrong.

I can’t remember much about that night. I don’t remember who said what or how they said it. I remember that they didn’t even let us into the house first, instead stopping us in the enclosed porch. My Mother sat on a couch to the left with me, my Aunt and my cousin on the right side.

My Uncle had gone to a hotel room the night before and committed suicide. He was gone.

At the time, we didn’t know the why – and to be honest, the why is something I still struggle with. I hadn’t known things were bad. I hadn’t known he was sad, or struggling. I didn’t know that he had started drinking again, and that it had begun to affect his business to the point where he risked losing it. I don’t know why he didn’t tell anyone, or ask for help. Part of me thinks that he was too ashamed, part of me thinks that maybe after everything Steph’s Mom had put her through with her own drinking, he didn’t want to do that to Steph as well. But, I can’t imagine why he would have felt that leaving us would be the best thing for everyone. I still feel guilty about leaving to go to school, I still worry that he felt abandoned, and maybe if I had stayed… I don’t know. All I know for sure is that whatever was going on, he felt so alone and desperate that death was the only way out for him.

I never planned to take over the shop, even though in his will, my Uncle left it to both Stephanie and I. At first the plan was to stay the summer and try to find a buyer, and return to school in the fall. But the end of summer came and the only offers we had were for pieces of the shop – people wanting to buy our ovens or our customer list, so while Steph packed up to go back to Pittsburgh, I deferred and stayed behind, planning on returning the next semester. Then came the reality that I wasn’t going to be able to sell the shop as a whole, and the shop was in serious financial trouble stemming from my Uncle mismanaging funds while he was drinking. I had the choice. I could sell the shop off piece by piece and be done with it, or I could quit school and use my college fund to bail the shop out.

I knew I would catch a lot of crap when I decided to stay and take over the shop. My Mother lectured me on how important it was to finish college, and my Aunt worried that I was doing this because I felt obligated to my Uncle. I expected it from them. What I didn’t expect was the backlash that came from Stephanie.

I had assumed she’d be grateful, willing to be a silent partner. After all, she had grown up here too, it was her Dad’s heart and soul, and she could still go to school and chase her dreams while I did the grunt work. My plan was to get the shop thriving again, and then hire a manager and go do my own thing. I realized it would be hard work, but there was always time for college and stuff, how many 19 year olds could say that they owned their own business?

Stephanie, however, did not feel the same way. She didn’t want me to keep it, she wanted me to sell, and she thought I was being irresponsible and trying to hold on to her Dad’s memory, which was “Childish. You need to grow up and move on. He’s gone.” I wasn’t able to afford to buy her out and build up the business, and so this caused us to get into the biggest blow out of our lives. We had fought before, of course, but never in such a vicious manner. No holds barred, no blow too low, we went at it. And when we were done, and no resolution had been reached, with Steph’s threat of hiring a lawyer ringing in my ears, I called Sunny, bawling.

I let it all out. The guilt, how Steph had told me that it was her father, not mine, and that I had no right to take over like this, and how much it hurt to realize that legally I wasn’t his daughter, but I loved him like a father and I just wanted to do what I thought he would want. How everyone accused me of doing it to try to hold on to him, and if I was, so what? It was all I had left. I finally even broke about how God damned angry I was that he had left without giving any of us a reason – and how because I didn’t have a reason, I never knew how I should feel. Do I feel guilty? Angry? Hurt? Happy that maybe he’s finally found some peace?

Sunny didn’t say a word. She stayed on the phone with me until she reached my apartment, and then stayed up all night while I ranted, screamed, cried, and even laughed. She stayed with me until I finally passed out in pure emotional exhaustion. The next morning when I woke up, there was a note on my pillow that simply said:
Called Steph. Hope you like your new partner ;-)

Stephanie and I never really repaired our relationship. We do see each other from time to time, and I would still call her a friend, but she’s not the best friend that she was. I still hope that one day we’ll be able to repair what we had, but as time goes on, I’m not sure we will. There’s just so much there, and at first it was too raw to work on, and now it seems like it’s been so long that I don’t even know where to start.

I would, however, do anything for Sunny, because when I really needed her, she was not only there for me emotionally, but put her own savings on the line to help me rebuild a business simply because she knew how much it meant to me.