December 19, 2008, nearly an entire year since he died. I suppose I should start from the beginning, my name is Lillian Torres. I had known Susan my entire life. Sure, his parents were…strange, especially to stick him with that horrid name (male or female). He had been my best friend for as long as I could remember, or at least to me. Maybe I was just an accessory to him. Nothing more. But he was the world to me.

If you knew only the surface, he wouldn’t seem nearly the sort to have any friends… But I miss how he would laugh and occasionally run his fingers through my hair, treating me a little like the Joker treats Harley, but with less violence. Sometimes, he would stroke my hand tenderly, but I sometimes wonder whether he ever really cared. I know that he had a certain amount of affinity for Dee Dee, Dexter’s older sister, but she saw him as a nuisance and a know-it-all.

Dexter…a sweet kid, not quite as troublesome as Susan would have you believe, but he could be a little annoying with that strange accent that seemed to come from nowhere. His parents…. strange people. I never knew their names; I don’t think they had any, really. They were completely oblivious to our private disputes, and they never could understand us, always saying something about “kids these days”, and all.

As I was saying, the Susan I had known was caring, but misunderstood, all that hatred bottled up inside of him, and one day, he snapped. He changed his name, and cut the gorgeous hair I had come to love. In short, he became Mandark, short for “Monarch of Darkness”, and his own worst enemy.

I realized that he was no longer my childhood friend, but he was still the one I loved. I wanted to help him, I tried many times to sidle up to him and embrace his new self, but he always managed to do something to chase me away, whether he knew it or not. There was the occasional day where he would let me get close to him, and he still treated me like Harley Quinn when he wasn’t busy ranting.

I know he could be annoying with that nerve grating voice of his sometimes, but I’ll still miss that pattern his entire life had, and I suppose even his wild laugh…”ha ha-ha, ha ha-ha ha-ha!”. It echoed in my head night after night, keeping me awake, making me feel quite responsible for not keeping a closer watch on him, and not giving him what his parents couldn’t seem to have ever given him: real care. They loved him very much, but they never respected what he wanted, and squandered his education, always concerned about “the man”. They tried to raise him the way that was typical of beatniks and hippies…but he never understood, just like his parents never understood him. Oh, God, where is the justice in that? Is there justice left in this world at all?

His death was the single worst thing I ever experienced.