7/5/04
Dear Jason,
I'm writing this from the place where I fell completely in love with you. I remember telling you once that I'd never been to the beach, so, during Winter Break, you came up to my door with a picnic basket tucked under your arm and a crooked smile dripping with excitement. "I'm taking you somewhere new," you said. And we ate cold pizza on the beach and swam in nothing but our bare skin and you kissed me and that was the first time in my life that things actually made sense.
There are a few people sitting in the sand, wading in the shallows. I wonder how far they've swam, if they've chased after the horizon until they couldn't feel their lungs, if they've drowned in the vastness of the sea around them. It's strange, because the horizon seems concrete until you're running in circles around the world pursuing it. That's how I feel about you, Jason. I see traces of you everywhere—shards of your being—caught in Nadia's hair, hanging off of Matt's clothes, spiraling up Ivy's skirt, struck through my chest, but when I try to pull you free from them (her hair, his clothes, her skirt, my chest), it only spreads you more, thicker and deeper.
My mother told me it wasn't my fault, Nadia told me to pull myself together, Matt wouldn't stop apologizing to me, and Ivy hasn't spoken a word to me. It's been a few months since you fucked her life up. Ignore that. Is it wrong to be mad at you her? She suffered the worst loss out of us all. But why should that discredit the pain that everyone else feels? Nadia lost a brother, Matt lost a friend, and I lost the love of my life. We all lose sleep over you, not just the girl who couldn't keep her legs closed.
I have to stop writing because there isn't much paper left. Before I cut this off, I just want to tell you that I haven't stopped loving you. It's your fault that I'm out, your fault that I am comfortable in my own skin, your fault that I will always remember the kisses we shared during the ones I expect in the future, and I can't thank you enough.
You made up the best parts of me, and that's all I could ask for.
Forever your Mercutio,
Peter