Prologue:
Dear Conrad,
I'm sitting in a small café in Paris, watching the rain fall outside the window.
It's a gloomy day here, and for some reason, it reminds me of the beach after a light rainstorm — the sound, the smell, the feel. It's the first time in months I've truly felt homesick for Cousins, but it's certainly not the first time you've crossed my mind since arriving here.
Do you remember the day it rained so hard at the beach and the boys ran inside to escape the storm to play video games, but you stayed with me under that little umbrella? We spent hours building sandcastles and hunting for shells, like we had all the time in the world. I told you that you could go inside with the boys, but you didn't. You stayed by my side, and sometimes we talked and laughed, other times we just played in the sand in comfortable silence. I think about that day often, how at the time I didn't realize it, but it was one of the happiest afternoons of my life, just being there with you. I find myself wishing I could return to that beach, to that age, to a time when things were simpler, and we could talk the way we used to.
My therapist told me I should write you this letter as if I was sitting on that beach next to you, that it'd be good for me to get things out, that a goodbye letter could offer me some kind of closure or something, even though I'm not planning on sending this to you. I really hope she's right, Conrad, because I'm struggling. I really thought that I'd have some grand epiphany in Paris, or at the very least gain some clarity, but my mind feels as foggy and heavy as the weather outside. And my heart? It has a hole in it in the shape of you that I fear will never go away. I broke things off with Benito because of it. I really thought that if I found someone who was the opposite of you in every way, it would be enough for me to slowly start forgetting you, to erase you from my heart, but now I see how naive that was. Because there's no forgetting you, Conrad Fisher. That's not how first loves work. That's not how life works. If there's anything I've learned from my time in Paris, it's that you can't outrun the past. You have to face it, unpack it bit by bit, until the day comes where it's not so heavy to carry around anymore. I'm really hoping this letter is the start of that for me.
If I was sitting on the beach with you right now, I'm not sure where I would begin but I would tell you how sorry I am and that I'm not proud of the way I acted that summer. That I hold a lot of regrets over the way things ended between us and I wouldn't blame you if you hated me now. Maybe that would make this letter easier knowing that you do. The truth is I don't really know how to do this or where to go from here, Conrad. I don't know how to say goodbye to the boy who has had my heart since I was ten years old without feeling like I'm losing a piece of myself with it. What I do know is I have to try. I have to let you go now, or I never will. I'll stay stuck like this forever, waiting on a letter with your name on it that'll never come, waiting for the day we cross paths again, waiting and wishing my entire life away. I always believed we'd find our way back to each other, that no matter what we'd always be connected, but I think this might be it. And this is the part where I can never finish the letter because I always start to cry.
You will always have a piece of my heart, Conrad Fisher, the piece where summer lives, the piece where the little girl inside of me likes to imagine a life where things could've been different, but for now she'll remember you as that happy boy who spent an entire afternoon with me on that beach, not complaining about the rain once. The one with sun kissed skin, kind eyes, and a laugh as warm as the sun. The boy who taught me how to dance and how to swim. The boy who taught me what love really is. I think I'll miss you forever, Conrad Fisher, and it's all my fault. I know that and I'm so sorry. The only thing that's getting me through this is picturing you on a beach in California, where it's always sunny, smiling without a care in the world. I really hope you're happy, Conrad, wherever you are or whoever you're with. I really do. Maybe one day I can learn to be happy again too. I just need to figure out what that looks like.
I'm not good with goodbyes and I think part of me is still in denial that I'm doing this, so I'll say it in a way that only you would understand. I'll use a line you used to say to me all of the time growing up, stolen from one of the best classic movies ever written. Do you remember it? I do. I remember everything when it comes to you.
"Here's looking at you, kid"
Belly
I find myself at the Seine for the rest of the afternoon.
I sit alone with the letter under my umbrella on a bench for a long time. I watch the boats glide by on the river, children splashing in the puddles, tourists tossing crumbs at the birds, until eventually the day starts to slip into night. Then I finally find the strength to do what I had come here to do. I let go of the letter, forcing myself to walk away, releasing him for good.
Bye Bye Birdie.
The little girl inside of me whispers as the birds fly over the Seine.
Bye Bye Conrad.