The day Hanna’s name flashed across my phone and I learned that Benson had passed away, I immediately took to Instagram to relive some of our memories. The second post on his feed features a pair of black and white photos with the two of us on the F train, one full and wide and one zoomed in tight, sitting side by side with the caption “b and d out”. Our tapered pants revealing equal amounts of ankle. Our hair, both long bobs parted in the middle, drawing matching paths through 4 years in New York. This picture from 2019 marks the last summer we lived there together, in the city he made feel alive.

Before Benson moved to New York in 2014, we were studying abroad in Italy. Three beds pressed side by side in a tiny loft apartment above Trastevere where he would fall asleep mid-sentence of our nightly pillow talk sessions. Where he once woke us up at 4AM and lead us sprinting to the Vatican so we could be the first ones there when the sun rose. Where we would walk 20 minutes to the Jewish ghetto on almost every Saturday to eat our favorite burgers, only to find it closed for Sabbath. Where he spent hours trying to flip his hair part. Where our voices traaaveled.

Benson spent the whole trip breaking in a new pair of selvedge denim jeans, fading every memory into whiskers, honeycombs, and holes patched with gold. The miles we wandered in search of design gems, architectural icons and hidden boutiques he read about online. The time we learned how to make tiramisu and the endless number of times we debated our Top-5 favorite rappers. The time we snowboarded through a literal blizzard in the Italian Alps, when the ground and sky came together in a flat plane of white. The time our train broke down on the way from Milan back to Como and we asked a taxi driver to take the rest of our group first before returning to pick the two of us up. We ordered beers in plastic cups from the roadside bar and sat side by side on the curb talking for hours. I thought I was the funniest person in the world the way he cackled at everything I said, until I realized he was just drunk off his first sip. That was just how it felt to be around him: nothing could be funnier than that moment.

We couldn’t stop laughing in Lisbon, where I was too slow to save him from slapping his flip flop into a giant pile of ish. We couldn’t stop laughing in Paris, where he got sick and I tried to heal him with grilled cheese and a bowl of soup but forgot he hated tomatoes. And after he deferred his 5th year at USC to stay in NY working at BIG, we laughed all night long in his shotgun-style Bushwick apartment, where the only bed he could offer me was a folded up cardboard box. Side by side we laughed so hard our throats went hoarse.

Benson brought me into that city I grew up by but never loved. He introduced me to the speakeasy behind a phone booth, where the voice on the other side of the line asks for a password. He introduced me to the office that would become my first job. He introduced me to every friend he made and every date spot he found. His open arms made even New York City feel warm and welcoming.

I’ll always remember bursting into 32E knowing he’d be on the other side of the door. Our elaborate texts to make sure we were on the same subway car despite boarding 4 stops apart. The basketball and burrito nights we spent in silence because of his downstairs neighbor with the broom. The comically small bowl of mashed potatoes he brought to our pot themed Christmas potluck. The summer we saw Frank Ocean and the girl next to us sobbed through the entire refrain of Self Control. Celebratory cheesesteaks and Frostees in a Wendy’s parking lot. Pokémon Go through Harvard yard. MoMA PS1 Summer Warm Ups. K-town get down karaoke nights. Daygum. Tight white jeans. G Spots. W.E.B du BOYZ. Shrimp cocktail. Grind or nah. Tørst. Angel’s Share. Fish Cheeks. Prosciutto hands. 7 Rings. I, I, I know you gotta leave, leave, leave-

Benson you were my brother. We always argued over who was the Red Ranger, but I loved being your sidekick.