Best Friend

Best friend

It was raining the day Mark Turner died. On a dark, rainy summer night, he foolishly got in the passenger side of a 1998 midnight blue Eclipse. His 19 year old cousin Sam, was the driver, and Sam had a little too much to drink that night. At about three in the morning, they were leaving a party that one of Sam's friends threw. They were rushing home, because they already had missed curfew by two hours. Not aware of his surroundings, Sam carelessly got on the wrong side of the road. A speeding pickup was heading right their way. By the time they saw the truck, it was too late. Sam swerved his car to the right. Although they missed hitting the truck by a few inches, the sleet on the road from the rain caused them to go over the rail of a bridge. They were over a 100 feet in the air. Sam died instantly from the

impact of the paved concrete below, but their still was a little hope for Mark. Obviously not enough, because he was pronounced dead at approximately 5:38 that morning.

Mark and I grew up in one of those small towns were everybody knew everybody. He lived just two houses down from me. Everything we did, we did together. He knew and understood me like no one else did. He was always there for me through thick and thin. He was the only person who I can say was my best friend. Whenever we got into a fight, I could never be mad at him for more than a day. . We were a team, like Batman and Robin, or Starsky and Hutch, we were blood brothers for life. He was always looking for an adventure, and somehow he always managed to drag me along for the ride. He wasn't hesitant to try anything. He lived to have fun and never hold back.

That summer was the first we spent apart. I decided to spend half the summer

with them to my grandmother's house. In the fall, we were both supposed to attend school at the University of North Carolina. Two weeks before I was due back, I got a call from his mother at about six in the morning. She was hysterically telling me about the car accident involving Mark and Sam. I kept asking her if they were alright, even though I knew in my heart that they weren't. Finally she just came

out with it, and told me he died that morning. Right after I heard that my heart just stopped. I felt my body collapse before me. I was blinded by all the tears in my eyes. I tried to gather all of my thoughts in my head, but I was too confused. I just sat there and cried until I had no tears left. I returned home right away to see him for the last time at his funeral. This is when I was first realized he was really gone. No more going to pranks, no more double dates, no more wild times at football practice. He really was no longer here.

I didn't eat for days, and I cried myself to sleep at night. The