Something too personal for strangers.
We did everything right. You and me. We loved each other from the beginning. It was a beautiful day and I came over to see what could become of our friendship. We made sandwiches and as you came up to me, you put your arms around my waist and squeezed. You marveled at my proportions and before I could think- we were intertwined.
It was the kind of passionate moment you read about, or you watch carefully orchestrated, but never the type you’d think you’d have yourself, up against the wall and then hoisted over one’s shoulder into the bedroom. I remember looking at you, instantly loving you, as you brushed your shoulders off along to the lyrics. We lay in a happy daze afterwards, joking about getting all the awkwardness over with before the date had even started. Then we went to the beach.
We bought lottery tickets and fake tattoos. We swam, I trying my best to look sexy and impressive, the undertow winning; I almost drowned. We made it back to your bed, where you joked about me dying on our first date, calling my mom, apologizing for her loss and then seducing her. We laughed, oh god, how we laughed.
That night over dinner we both remarked about how we weren’t looking for a relationship, but if we had been, it would have been us. We played break up, it was wonderful, we spilled chopsticks and food, pretending we had destroyed one another. And then once we were done with our make-believe we listened to music in the parking lot and reveled in fresh nostalgia for the reality we had just invented. I told you if I ever got over you I’d come back to visit. You told me that you staged fireworks on my way home so that I’d forgive you.
Time got in between us, so did distance and then the other lovers. You couldn’t keep them away, how could you? You were perfection. You were so beautiful, sky-filled eyes like the heavens, and an intellect as vast as the cosmos. I could’ve never kept you to myself, why would I want to? It would be like kidnapping a Monet and bearing it to a solitary room to be admired in the dark.
We exchanged secret looks. We found a hidden cove and explored it stealthily, your hand at the nape of my neck. I never thought twice when we collapsed into the sand. You knew how to create a fantasy with your candor. Your touch alone could make a girl feel lovely. Everything you felt and did had a sense of urgency, as though you always wanted it so badly, whether it was laughter or love. I recall when you came by one time and we barely made it up the stairs.
I remember one encounter in the desert, both of us were being chased by respective accidents, and we were both looking for escape. We slept platonically side by side in a tent, and when we awoke we found out that our “others” had discovered each other. We laughed all morning. Finally, as I made to leave you pulled me behind a truck, and took me into your arms and whispered: “I’ve had only two good relationships in my life and they both started like this.” I knew you meant with leniency and understanding, with collective coyness and unabashed seduction. Then we kissed, and it was a true kiss, the kind that grabs at the edge of your face and existence. It was an “I’ll come back for you kiss.” I just didn’t know when.
I kept you alive in my mind even as we went our separate ways. You were the one I did right, the one I never tried to own, or to expect things from, just a beautiful boy who put me together when I had become a mere soft pile of pieces. I thought of you as the one I might run into ten years down the road, on some tropical island, or rather knowing you, a desolate country in need of aid. You would be helping the locals, I would be covering a story and we would spot each other in the distance, embrace, have a magical night together, which would culminate in the sudden realization that we had been destined for one another all this time.
I thought we were temporarily delayed soul mates. You were the one I could say: well there’s always him, he could reappear one day and no matter how long it took I would still feel the same because we never ruined ourselves for each other. Until last night, which resulted in today when I got the call that you wouldn’t always be there. That I wouldn’t ever run into you again- be it at the beach, the desert, or a decade into future. I couldn’t count on you for advice, or crass wit. You would never be my soul mate because your soul had already escaped and mine is still trapped here.
The world is a lonelier place without you. It is barren, less truthful, and more selfish. You were undeniably good, embodying the kind of morality authors hope to capture in their work. You are the prince in every fairy tale and now you go back to your source, mere atoms split as you would have said and I await your instructions. You who were more solid than most have become a memory and I who had always hoped for our reunion have become the reality.
In the end, I’m so glad I wrote you that letter and that you responded. I’m glad I never paused to think about what was right, and what was acceptable. I’m glad we succumbed to our passions and to our friendship and to our happiness. I’m glad that we always stayed true- it is the type of true I have yet to feel with anyone else. They said that real love makes the one you love feel free. You were the epitome of love and freedom and now I am the meaning of sorrow. Be well my friend and companion. Find those answers we spoke of when we pondered the stars that night and send me news of your conquests as you bring perfection to the next realm, the one that lives beyond our textures, the one that exists where dreams go to be reborn.
