"..Just the thought of the fragility of life is what makes it so terrifying at times. One always feels a sense of security in one's own mind, but every time one is hurt, either physically or in the mind, the blow leaves gaping physiological wounds. The pain deflates this unreal sense of safety, the bubble every mind has around it that assures us we are safe and as long as we are thinking we are alive. That was Descartes view wasn't it? That 'I think therefore I am'. Which honestly is only true because we assume it to be. Any second life can be taken, a blow can be made in the mind that it can't recover from and that sense of safety recedes far inside ourselves where it lays forgotten. And all we are left with is fear in the face of an ever faltering reality."

My hands shook as I hold the journal in my hands. Ironic. That these should be the last entry in my best friend's journal before the accident. Shawn was always fragile, Shawn was always hurt, he was always doubting reality to some degree, it was all written here before me on his piece of journal paper.

And I suppose that meant that his final verdict was that thought was what kept him safe. As long as he was thinking he was sure that he was alive - enduring. And what if Shawnie wasn't thinking anymore?

I put my face in my hands and let the tears pour unchecked down my face. Topanga was crying and holding my hand until she pulled me into a hug. I rubbed her back and she let me sob into her shoulder. We sat together in that hospital waiting room for hours, trying not to think of Shawn's last written words, probably scrawled down in a café just hours before. We sat murmuring things to each other that he was really going to be alright. He had to be. Our minds couldn't suffer the blow of losing Shawn. Our best friend. Oh Shawn.

As soon as we made it to New York City Shawn had sold his car. And in his usual fashion, he made a devastating and self-destructive decision when Angela's absence finally got to him on that emotional level I knew it would. But this time we all thought we'd (and he'd) gotten off easy. He hadn't spiraled out of control and he hadn't picked up drinking. He'd only bought a bike; a motorcycle, after selling his car. He said that it was a smart vehicle to get for such a city. But I know him, and this was his was of being risky, of obtaining that reckless abandon that made him forget the things he wanted to for a while.

He wanted to do something dangerous, because that's what he did when he was upset. And he missed Angela like crazy. But none of us could persuade him to get rid of the bike. It truly was his escape from the world. He loved that thing. He would take it for a ride at least every couple of days - leaving the city to just explore. But he always came home, and other than owning the damn thing he was still Shawn. So eventually we realized that it was a part of who he was, his buffer. He even took me out on it a couple of times and it was thrilling, fun, terrifying, but free. I saw why he liked it, and stopped downright hating the thing. Finally we all just accepted it, like when he'd gone away - he needed this, and he needed our support; so we gave it to him.

The longer he had it, the more we became accustomed to it. And the less dangerous it seemed. Until today. Today I was waiting on a street corner for my best friend, and I saw his motorcycle weave between cars as it came down the street. He was one block away, I could see him smiling at me through his helmet, just as he went under a traffic light one measly block away. And then BAM! It hit him.

A pickup truck, cutting through a red light. Plowed into my best friend at full speed, right in front of my own eyes. His bike skidded going directly sideways with the truck slamming Shawn's body into the small green Honda across the way. When I think about it now in the waiting room I can see his head smash into the windshield of the other car, and watch the remembered whiplash in my memory. But I don't know if that actually happened or my mind made it up later when I heard the EMT tell me about head trauma. At the time I was more concerned with his body; which crumpled into the car like a doll. It was awful, there was glass and blood everywhere, and I started screaming his name. The man in the truck had his face pressed in an airbag, but I didn't notice at the time. And the little woman in the green car came out shaking, she tried saying something to me, but it was all too much of a blur.

I don't remember if I called 911 or if someone else did. All I remember is running to Shawn, and seeing his closed eyes under that helmet, and seeing all that blood. His leg was bent in a strange way beneath him, and his arms were a bloody mess of jagged glass and his tattered leather jacket. But that wasn't the worst bit.

The worst bit, according to the men in the ambulance, was that he wouldn't wake up. The worst bit, was the head injury I didn't see, that Shawn may or may not have felt through his thick helmet that he always wore because we always made him.

I don't remember when or how Topanga had gotten here, but I knew that I needed someone to hold onto at that moment as I felt more fear than I ever had before. And so we waited for hours, to find out if Shawn, my best friend, my best man, and the only person other than my wife that I had in the whole world forever beside me; was still alive.

The man in the ambulance had given me his book, which had been in his jacket at the time. Shawn's journal that he was always scribbling something in. And usually I never read, unless he asked for my opinion. But I just had to read it now. And it's ironic that this should be his last entry. Because I doubt he knows better than me that the fragility of life is what makes it so terrifying. Especially when it's not your life you are terrified for…