"I’m above all that cheap selfie teen girl shenanigan self" Writerman said with a sneer. "I don’t have to post a picture to get people to like me and talk to me! Those girls are so weird, caught up in some creepy game of Instagram striptease to get attention. It’s like, read a book or something, ditzes!"

Writerman paused to check his mail, a look of worry on his face. “I thought my latest work was well-done, and yet only 1 like, 2 comments, and 3 eprops?! I should have made that last paragraph a dream sequence in the third person!” The woman he was trying to impress smirked and made a pithy comment about needy creative types. It would have done him a lot of good, if he wasn’t already halfway to the computer lab.

She always had this shy smile, as if she thought she would be told to stop, as if at any moment her lips would have to quickly cover her teeth and hide her emotions once more. It always touched me, seeing that smile in photos, that earnestness, that soul leaking past her lips. I remember seeing her wear her Giants jersey in a video she posted, such a fan, wanting to be a part of it all, making up in heart what she lacked in polish.

One Internet, passed. One jpeg, one html, gone. No, I never met her, no, I never hugged her or heard her talk about the weather or tried to finish up my story so we could order lunch. And yet she contained so much, between the tears and the bad boys and the drugs and the fears. There she was with her cats and her feathers and her hoops and her books, fearing she wasn’t enough yet always so eager to try again.

I once wrote her a love letter for a contest she held. She said make the letter as cheesy as possible. I sat down and thought about her, and the words flowed so easily. She was just that easy to like, if you knew her. It’s still one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever written. I sometimes struggle with expressing the full depths of my emotion. I look back at that letter as a small life turning point, that it’s ok to be cheesy and emotional and sentimental if it fits.

I should feel better; I have no regrets about our friendship except that I wish it were deeper and that I could have done more for her. We should all be so lucky, on the day a friend passes. Yet I still mourn for that Internet, for the way it grew and matured as I watched until suddenly it was no more.

The closest I ever came to meeting the Internet was 3000 miles away from where she should be, in a club in Vermont. She was walking around the dance floor on the outside, wanting to join in, yet staying on the fringes. I too was a stranger, on the edges, there to make some friends happy yet feeling out of place. My heart went out to her. I wanted to say something, I wanted to go over to her and smile and tell her she looked nice, that she reminded me of my friend Jamie, and do for her all the lovely things I would have done for my friend, had it been her. Instead I just stared at her, willing her to look my way, not wanting to interrupt her, but wishing that I could interact with her without adding to the shyness and weakness she already possessed. And now I’m left still staring, knowing I can never interact with her, and that I saved what I could from the wreckage of one of my favorite Internets.