March 4, 1996
I drop my bookbag on the floor as soon as I walk through the door of my bedroom. It's been a long week, and it's only Wednesday. The local alternative station blares Stone Temple Pilots when I flip on my stereo. Perfect. Since neither of my parents are home, I open the window, spark up a joint, take a hit, and pull your letter out from between the tattered pages of the novel on my nightstand. For the hundredth time, I scan the note, lingering on the lines that make me wonder about you. If the folded square of paper hadn't been so nondescript, so innocuous and forthright, I probably wouldn't have read it, and that might have been the biggest mistake of my life.
There's something different about you. Something more.
You're right.
You wrote that I'm different from the slackers I hang out with. I guess I am. I'm not any better or worse than my friends are. I just…care more than they do. I like to think I fool people in our smaller suburb of Seattle, but I probably don't. I care about getting good grades and getting into a good college. I care about what my parents think of me.
You wrote that you asked our mutual friend Alice Brandon about me. I wonder why I've never met you if you're close to her. She and I have known each other for ages.
You wrote that I'm a world apart from my friends. That I'm different. That there's more to me than I let on. You say I'm special. Me? I'm nothing special. And like you said, I probably don't measure up to your version of me.
But yeah, for the most part, you're right. I do want to blend. I do want people to make assumptions about me. I want to be invisible. I'm tired of being pulled in a million different directions, trying to please people I don't even care about. I wonder if you feel the same way. I wonder if you try not to care but end up failing miserably, like me.
So if I had to name whatever it is about you that leaves me so intrigued, I guess I'd call it something like similitude.
I like that. The idea that you're like me.
You dropped your phone number at the bottom of the page, almost like an afterthought. I'd never use it. As curious as I am, I don't have that level of confidence. And it seems…ordinary. Just calling you up for a chat after reading this fucking outpouring of words you wrote just for me.
As much as I want to figure this out, I don't know how. Because I'm starting to build up a perfect version of you in my head, too. I'm almost afraid you won't measure up. It seems like such a shallow thing to worry about, but this has become important to me. This letter. Your words.
In my head, you're perfect.
But I've been wrong before.
March 6, 1996
I'm done. With this day that started out shitty from the moment I woke up. With Tanya Denali. In my bedroom after school, I knock back a shot of vodka—this shit's disgusting, but whatever works—and slouch down in the beanbag chair on my floor.
Tanya, my semi-girlfriend (we never really labeled whatever it is we have), takes the joint from between my lips and hits it. She hands it back to me and goes to put her new CD in my stereo before she sits on my bed. I want to get up and snap that CD in half, because Courtney Love's voice grates on my fucking nerves. But I don't have the energy.
After dating Tanya for a couple of months, I'm just not happy with her anymore. Yeah, she's hot. Yeah, she's smart and cool. And yeah, she does things to me and lets me do things to her. But we're just not good for each other. When it's good, it's good. But when it's bad, it's really bad.
Tanya grabs the paperback from my bedside table and leafs through it. Before I can stop her, your letter falls out. In a flash, she's got it unfolded and is scanning it, her eyes growing wider and wider by the second. "The fuck is this?"
For a second, I wonder if maybe her finding your letter means I won't have to break up with her. Maybe she'll do it for me. But God, that's so selfish of me. I feel like a major asshole even thinking it. "It's nothing. I—" I grab for the page, but she snatches it out of my reach.
"No, no, no," she says, a wry smile twisting her lips. She seems more amused than angry. "What is this?"
We've made fun of the preppy girls and their silly notes before, but deep down, I always felt bad about it. Now, though, I'm not going to let her. I won't fucking let her mock you.
"You're oblivious to my existence? Is this bitch serious?" She cackles and goes on repeating some of my favorite parts. Your words sound all wrong in her mouth. I have to shut her up, or she'll ruin them for me. So I do what what I don't remotely feel like doing and pull her down to the floor with me.
"Forget it." I kiss her hard, and we fumble around on my floor. I shove my hand inside her jeans, hoping that'll do the trick.
It does. She doesn't utter another word besides the curse I catch with my lips when she's finished. She reaches for my zipper, but I turn away. It feels wrong when I still have your words in my head.
"Nah," I tell her. "I'm good."
She looks confused at first, but then she grins and straightens her clothes before going for the bottle of vodka again.
She's satisfied.
I'm satisfied. She'll forget about the letter.
I'm vaguely aware through an addled state sponsored by Drugs and Alcohol of the fact that Tanya's on the phone. Faint warning bells go off in the back of my mind as I lie back on my beanbag chair in a daze, limbs sprawled in various directions. I lift my head to follow the sound of her voice with my eyes, and when I find her, the bells turn into shrieking alarms.
Fuck. Fucking hell.
She's sitting on the floor with her back against my bed, hunched over the phone receiver with your letter unfolded on the floor beside her. "He's my boyfriend," she says in a low voice.
Her boyfriend?
"You didn't know. And really, I can't blame you for looking. But if I ever see anything like this again, I'll kick your ass."
"The fuck, Tanya?" I try to shout, but it comes out more like a mumble.
Her head whips around as she bangs the receiver back on its base. "Nothing!" she says. "I was just talking to…" She's never been good on the spot. She knows she's caught.
I might throw up. Whether it's from the disgust I feel toward her or courtesy of the various substances in my bloodstream, I've no idea. Maybe it's a mix of both. All I know is that I want her gone.
I clamber unsteadily to my knees and then my feet until I'm standing over her. "Get out," I growl, pointing at the door. Part of me feels bad over the way she looks up at me. She seems…scared. And she's somehow found the decency to look remorseful.
"Baby—"
"I can't right now," I slur, the fight going out of me as a wave of nausea hits hard. This seals the deal for me. I might not be so angry if I hadn't already planned to end things. But right now, if she stays, I'll say or do something I'll regret. I stumble to the radio and turn it up to drown out her argument. "Just go, Tanya."
"What did I—"
"Do you really want me to answer that right now?" The blurriness at the edge of my vision clears only to be replaced by rage.
She bites her lip and looks down at the floor before she approaches me, tries to hug me goodbye. I let her do it, but my arms hang limply at my sides as I glare at her. I almost start to feel bad for being mean, but when she walks away, she takes care to step on the piece of paper I've been so careful not to crumple.
It's the last straw.
When she's gone, I turn the music down again and pick up the paper. There's a small tear at the side and a new, deep wrinkle right down the middle. I smooth it out, fold it up, and stick it under my mattress. I'll find a better, safer hiding place later. For now, I need sleep. If I weren't so fucked up, I'd lie here and torment myself over what Tanya just did to you. Maybe I'd even call you up and try to make things right. But I have no business doing anything like that in my current state. So I give in to the pull of the chemicals in my system and slip into sleep.
A/N: Thanks to my dear RachelFish for the hand-holding. Remember that if you *must* review as a guest, I cannot reply to your questions. FFn doesn't let me.