Losing Lori

There are a million things about you that I will always find unique. Like the way you hated Chinese but you ate it anyway because the spices were good, or the way you'd always use one hand to twist your hair up with the chopsticks afterwards. But more so than things having to do with food, it was things having to do with you as a person.

Your parents named you Lori with an "i" for reasons unknown to me, but that just made me love you even more because my nickname, Oli, ends with that same letter too. You'd call me that all the time, except when you were irritated or PMSing. Then it was always "Oliver, get me this. Oliver, do that for me. Oliver, Oliver, Oliver."

I was never too fond of my name. You knew that. But you didn't spite me on it, surprisingly. That shocked me a lot, mostly because you took everything you knew bothered me and used it to your advantage, but not my name. I think maybe it's because you liked it.

Lori makes you unique. It makes you special. You're not "Lory" or "Lorrey" or even "Lauren" or "Laura". Your parents must have known you were going to be something else, so they named you something that people would remember, know, and love.

Or at least it's that way for me. I bet you knew how head over heels I was for you. You must have, 'cause you used it to your advantage. You used it, you used me, and you used us as a shitty excuse as to why you were still hanging around here. You wanted glitz and glam, fame. You got it, too.

I don't really need a television to tell me that. I just sort of figured.