We lived in the same neighborhood for a brief period; he was my first real friend moving to Illinois. I turned him into a computer geek, though I don't quite remember how… More than likely, it was through introducing him to BBSes and warez, scamming AOL, and whatever else.

There were several occasions where we'd ride bikes to each other's place with 30+ floppy disks, filled with whatever cool game or app we managed to download that week. (This was done on 28.8k modems, mind you.)

Like I'd said earlier, Sara came along and Nick pretty much stopped hanging out with us at school, spending more time with her and her friends instead. Understandable. We didn't really talk much towards the end (unless my memory has gone blank), but we'd always say hi to each other. No animosity. Just a natural drifting away.

We began talking again through ICQ my freshman year of college, though that died down towards the end of the year. And we somehow got in touch again through AIM (through a mutual friend, Raj, who AD might've been talking to more).

Anyway, I finally met up with him in person two or three years ago when he told me he was moving out of some house and I offered to help him. He was supposed to meet up with me and Andrew last summer, but he ended up having to watch his little son longer than he expected. Neither of us made any solid plans afterwards.

AD called me several times on Thursday, which I didn't get a chance to answer until later that night. He'd asked me if I'd heard any news about Nick. I said I hadn't, but I knew what he was getting at at that moment.

Nick died a few days ago, apparently from a car accident (though I don't know for sure). I tried looking through The State Journal-Register to see if there was any news of him. Aside from the obituary on December 28, nothing.

I feel weird about it. No real sadness yet, though I was starting to tear up while I talked to my mom about it. He's the second person I could consider being close to to have died during the years in which I could understand the difference between life and death.

More than anything, I feel guilty for being stupid, for not being more aggresive in seeing him. I think he knew that it was an ackward thing for me, if not for him too, since it was almost like starting over again.

I meant to see him for sure when I go back to Springfield in two weeks. This is the worst way to learn a lesson about swallowing up fears of social ackwardness. It's a bad reason to not see someone.

Nick IMed me on Christmas day and I didn't reply then. He was online and idle for a good four days when I heard the news, which explains a lot. It was strange seeing him online today; I wanted to send a message. Maybe it would've somehow gotten to him?

Someone got into his apartment, because he's not online anymore. Last sign of his life gone. Weird how that works.

There's no real point to this, except to just say that I'm sorry? And that I hope his family can get through this. And that I hope his son Connor – if he was in the car – is doing fine, and that Nick's passing was peaceful.

He was a good guy.