I was 15. Or 16. I was drunk on wine the whole summer, at night time people hovered like moths around fires spread along a patch of beach. Waves splashed fluorescent. All those kids so foreign, scared shitless of saying the wrong things. I remember meeting you but faintly, thought nothing of it the first few days.
Somehow, we managed to talk for about 4 or 5 hours everyday over the next years. You were in Georgetown, little rich boy, and I knew those hallways like the palm of my hand from all your stories. My voice on speakerphone, everysingleday flooding your bunk bed in a military boarding school in Washington. I grew madly in love with you, with our chemistry right from the start.
Desperation. I saw you only when you came back home, when they'd let you, and even then I had to drive 3 hours to see you, to your town. Frustration when you left me at the bus station after the weekend, week if we were lucky. And still we acted like we were just friends. Cutting around the tension, never letting on to the teenage sweat we were both thinking about. We knew. We were just waiting to see who gave in first. It was easier when you were away. When we saw each other, eyes betrayed words. Everyone knew except my overprotective cousin, everyone knew we belonged to each other but nobody spoke about it. Not even us, the good golden boy and the outsider girl. Fuck off, assholes.
I dont remember all the details in our story. It panned out for so long and I just know you were always there in the back, more so, right down at the core, in the basics. You were basic, fundamental, necessary. Even as I fell in love with someone else, you were still my starting point, the point of comparison to everything else. For years I thought you were the one I'd end up marrying. We talked about it jokingly. I don't know what happened. I idealized you so much and kept seeing myslef move down a more fucked up path and when we met, after 4 or 5 years, I was too dazzled by my fantasy to see you as you were. You wouldve hated me anyway. Up close, I was everything you didnt know you didn't want, and you, you were too good for me. Also, too narrow. Everyone thought you were a fucking catch. And even then, from that position, unscathed by your small town society you called me up and asked my permission to go out with someone else. We were too far away, at 16 it seems impossible to embark with someone you can't see. Even now it seems unfeasible. I remember hanging on to that question like a medal, like if I'd said no you wouldnt have done it. Maybe you wouldn't have. Guess well never know. But I like to think you would've listened to me, because two years later we ran away from our friends at our graduation trip and laid on the golf course watching the sun go up, not touching, your girlfriend drunk and passed out at some hotel.
You went off abroad after graduation. We talked, I photoshopped a stupid Adam Sandler poster and sent it to you and I know you got it. You'd slowly grown mad at me over the years though, because I didn't give in first. You didn't either, your eyes would light up eveytime you saw me and I could see them wishing for escape but you were always tied to distance, to family, to fear or to your ex. Me too. It was so weird, so hard, after a while I could only talk to you in an accusatory tone. You were my best friend. The basics, the core. The first person in the whole world who saw me.
I remember that day when we broke the bubble. It had been anticipated for so fucking long I was already thinking it wouldnt work from the beginning. I get scared. I tend to run. I showed you my first tattoo and you exagerated your disgust. But you still kissed me. And as always, when someone thinks I'm worth something I lose respect for them. I am nothing, I am shit, Im a fake, how can they believe me? The first kiss sealed the end for me. So damn stupid. I was already too far along my path. Why'd it take you so long?
I ignored it, I acted weird. I ran away.
After that you were really pissed off at me. We stopped talking for a while. And then in the end, everything was subtle accusations. Who fucked up on nothing? Who messed up our non existent relationship? Which one of us fucked up our perfect future? Castles in the snow. Guess we'll never know. I think it was me. I think it was my fault that we stopped talking, that I was so distracted getting smashed into a pulp by all the wrong people. It was completely my fault.
That's why I can't believe it when my dad calls me up and tells me you're dead. I haven't talked to you in two years, I've grown accostumed to translating our absemce into moving on. Weve moved on, youve grown up, the tie is finally severed. If you are not here with me, you are obviously off somewhere living your life to the fullest. That's why I don't fully understand it yet, a month later. That's why I still dont think you're dead. That's why Im still in shock, even after walking your wake and looking at all those people from my past crowded up in there flashing their goodbyes around. I never met your parents. I dont want to meet them now. I see them standing strong from a distance. What am I going to say to them? They will never know how much you truly meant to me, and it doesn't count if I can't make them understand. I don't see the point.
I feel bad talking about you with other people. You're not there to make sure people are telling the truth. You can't make sure anymore. I'd rather everyone shut the fuck up, and respect the fact that you can't talk back anymore. That's why I just say a hurried hello to the girls who used to be my friends back in the day, go sit in a corner. That's why I feel bad appropiating myself of our memories. Why is it that when someone dies, everyone is in a hurry trying to remember the things they went through with the dead? It's so disrespectful, it's trying to answer where you were not called. But nobody can prove that anymore, can they? Its like not being invited to the party but still showing up and swiping a piece of cake. Its so morbid. Still the same small fucking town you loved so much.
I still feel like talking about you is like building something on the air your lungs arent using up anymore. Youre gone. Anything we could say about you is a joke compared to what you really were. These memories trying to construct or depict someone you werent, it seems low. Words will never be enough. They will never measure up. So why try? Its pathetic and unfair. You are dead and I want to leave you alone. Its the least you deserve.
That's why when your roommate from Georgetown tells me he's so glad I'm there I don't understand. People look at me like I deserve to be there, and I don't. People look at me, give me their sentiments like they understand why I'm there when even I don't understand. Didn't I let you go a long time ago? I don't know if I can't feel anything or if I'm numb from all the feeling. This is the first thing I can't undo. I never told you how much you meant to me, regardless of how much time passed. You saw me. You discovered me. Because you saw me, I realized I was a real person. Thank you. I'm so sorry.
That's why I walk out of your funeral. I can't believe all these people, all these fucking people, even families from my town that came out here just to show face. I don't want to show face. I want to be buried in my pain, alone, how can I be public with something so private? I feel stupid crying in public, just like all these people who are trying to prove that they knew you closely. I don't need to prove myslef to anyone. I dont let myself cry because that would mean Id be on their level. My solitude in this is the only real thing. The cacophonic gasps for air, the balls of fists, the silent tears and the face twitches that are trying to keep the dam of hopelessness from bursting out. Me, alone, in any room, you gone. That is the only real way to remember you. By myself. You and I knew. If I believed in an afterlife, Im sure youd know what I was doing. That's why I walk out and avoid everyone I know, thats why I go out and smoke a fucking joint with my real friends.
I sent a message to your ex that hated me the day after you died. It said I hoped she was okay, and that I sent her all my love. She wrote back: I remembered you all day yesterday. I wish the same for you.
You and I were private. We were between you and me.
I cant say we ever figured out what it was but it was.
That's why I trust you. I can't betray our intimacy.
I wish we'd kept in touch. I wished it while you were still alive.
Im so sorry J. Im so fucking sorry.
And to this day I keep thinking that you're too tall for that box they supposedly put you in. That thing was too small for your body and you probably weren't even in there. I haven't seen you in two years and I can keep on pretending its just cause were not close anymore. It was your birthday yesterday Johnny. Happy birthday, wherever you are. Click forever.
