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Dear Sebastian,
It feels like it’s only been a few days since our last chat. How is Paris? It has to be more interesting than Ohio in January.
I can’t help but think of the two of us, sitting before the fire with hot chocolate in our respective mugs. You were using the mug with the coffee pun, you know. The one that said “words can’t espresso how much you bean to me.” Do you remember how much your eyes rolled when I gave it to you? I thought they’d roll straight to the back of your skull. But you used it. I hope you’re still using it. I like to think that you’re using it right now, as you read this email from Paris.
You were such a snob about the hot chocolate, just because I made it using a microwave and box mix. I swear all of Ohio could hear you griping. “This is from a box.” “In Paris, I wouldn’t be caught dead drinking powdered mix for hot chocolate.” “In Paris, we melt down artisanal chocolate gifted to us from the gods in stone pots over wood fires to capture the exact mixture of smoke and flavor.”
But you drank it all, mini-marshmallows and whipped cream and all. Hot chocolate from a box, and somehow you managed to get it all down. Your mouth tasted sweet for the rest of the evening. Like chocolate and whipped cream. When I drink hot chocolate now, I think of that day before the fire. I make hot chocolate the same way, now… from a box, with a handful of mini-marshmallows and a dollop of whipped cream from a can.
Next time you’re here, I’m getting rainbow sprinkles—you’ll probably say something about how it’s too Pride for you, but we could all do with some pride in our lives. Not all of us can be Parisian, drinking Courvoisier in coffee and sneaking into gay nightclubs. Some of us are stuck here in Ohio.
Ohio is horribly boring. I wish you were here, with me. It’d be better.
Love,
Blaine
Dear Sebastian,
The Hulu ads have been on engagement rings for the past two weeks. Maybe it’s something to do with Valentine’s day coming up. The more I watch the ads, the more I’m envious; these are people putting everything on the line to be with the one they love.
This isn’t a backhanded attempt at a hint! Valentine’s day just makes me think of you. It seems like it’s been years since I saw you. (Also, we’re too young.)
What would we do for Valentine’s day, if you were here?
Would you pick me up? Late in the afternoon, after choir rehearsal ended. You’d come to my house with a dozen roses.
“Roses?” I’d say.
“Your ass is perfect, you don’t need any chocolates to help.”
“And here I thought you were dating me for my charming personality.” I’d take the roses regardless. There was a vase somewhere in the house, and you’d lean on the kitchen counter as I arranged the bouquet accordingly.
“And your ass.”
What could I add to that? We’d eat dinner in my kitchen; nothing fancy, just some pasta cooked up on the stove while I waited for you. You’d eat it without complaint—well, with a few complaints, but that’s why it’s pasta and not an attempt at French food.
“In Paris, nobody would use sauce out of a can,” you’d drawl. Or perhaps, “In Paris, you can buy fresh pasta instead of dried box pasta.”
In Paris, we’d go out to eat, our hands so close that you’d twist your fingers in mine when we were halfway out the door. Hand-in-hand, down cobblestone paths until we were at a café so small as to be partially hidden in the nooks and eves of the alleyway. You’d stop in every shadowy corner to stick your hands down my back pockets, and I’d let you. We’ll be almost late to our reservation, flushed and still giddy, and the waiters would roll their eyes at us until your Parisian French charmed them the way it’d charmed me.
After dinner, you’d press your palm against mine. We’d walk along the seine, surrounded by so many other couples it’d seem like we were just a ripple in a river. Your fingers would wrap around each of mine, our palms would press close, and our thighs would brush as each step we took was in tandem.
In Paris, we’d stay out until the city lit up—a thousand stars from windows and store lights. The sky would be dark and inscrutable, but we would have Paris. We would have Paris lying before us, waiting.
You would kiss me under the arch of Champs Elysees, the warmth of your chest spreading through our coats. Would you hear my heart pounding at the touch of your lips against mine? Would my fingers be cold as they clutched at your arms, as your hand cupped the back of my neck?
The lights of the city would be so bright, like stars before my closed eyelids. I would keep them closed. You would have to guide me home by touch, so we could stay hand-in-hand for just a little longer.
Valentine’s Day in Paris. It’d be a dream come true.
I wish I could be there, in Paris, with you.
Love,
Blaine
Dear Sebastian,
It’s spring now. Mom’s been spending more and more time in the garden. She leaves the curtains in my room open, but I can’t see her, even if I sit up as straight as I can. The angle from my bed isn’t quite right. But I can smell things growing when she leaves the window open, and I can hear the wind rustling new leaves.
Spring is nice—nicer than winter, at least. Everything was a little muffled, in winter. But in spring, as everything starts growing, the world seems to come alive.
I know, you’re not one for sappy romantic stuff, but spring makes me think of flowers, and that makes me think of you.
I looked up pictures of Paris in the springtime. We could sit under blossoming trees, our legs sprawled out and our ankles crossed over each other’s, coffee from the café on the corner in hand. The birds would build their nests in the branches above us, their birdsong our background music. It would be like a scene from a movie.
Picture it. We’d sit on the grass with a picnic basket before us—fresh bread from the bakery and cheese from the store. There’d be a half-dozen pain au chocolat, because you’ve never been able to resist getting at least a few when you go to the bakery. We’d eat and laugh and talk until the sun went down and the air grew crisp and cold.
“Cold?”
You’d wrap an arm around my shoulders. Your hand would slide down my arm, curling around my bicep to trail its way to my waist.
“Don’t you dare.”
“It’s a great ass,” you’d say.
We’d sit there, your cheek against my temple, our arms around each other’s backs. We had filled our stomachs with fresh bread and sharp cheese and now we filled our hands with the warmth of each other’s presence. I would lean against you, so solid, so real.
What would you do, if you were in Ohio?
You’d visit me, I think. You’d come in and push back the curtains, throw open the windows. You wouldn’t bring flowers, not when there were so many just outside. You’d haul me to the windows, an arm around my waist.
“I can walk by myself.”
“Can you?”
We would stand until our knees ached from the strain, and then you would lie next to me, the two of us sprawled over the covers, our fingers touching.
“Tell me a story of Paris.”
“What do you want to hear about?”
But you’d tell me a story. You’d tell me about being a child and getting lost in the Latin Quarter for the first time. You would describe the stores and the streets and the people and it would be like I was there, with you, and not here, in Ohio. You would finish the story and then tell me the next one, and the next one, until it was time for dinner.
You rolled off the bed and hauled me to my feet. You kept a hand around my waist the entire walk from my room to the dining table. We stopped at every photo on the wall, and you prodded until you got half of each embarrassing story behind the pictures.
You sat where Cooper used to sit, when he still lived at home. My parents loved you.
You’re nothing like Cooper. You don’t mock me at every opportunity. Big brother privileges, he says. But with you at the dinner table, it’ll be a bit like he’s back. Mom will stop fussing so much. Dad will have stuff to talk about again. It’ll be nice, eating in peace, with you at the dinner table with us.
And then Dad would ask: “So, Sebastian. How are your classes going?”
And Mom would look over at me, one of those familiar looks. A stifling silence will creep over the table.
You’ll shrug. “They’re alright, Mr. Anderson. They’d be more exciting if Blaine were in them.”
If I said something like that, then Mom’s lips would press tight and Dad would frown. But somehow, when you say it, Mom and Dad both relax.
Somehow, even when the words are the same, when they come from you they’re different.
You make everything different.
My therapist tells me not to dwell on the past. To recognize it for what it is and move on. But I can’t help but wonder how much would have changed if you had been around in November. What if I had gotten to know you, earlier?
I wish I could have a fraction of your irreverent attitude. You always seem so wholly in the present, it makes it easier for me to forget the past and move on. When I’m around you, it seems so much easier to be a different Blaine.
It’s better when I am around you, Sebastian. I wish that you were here.
Love,
Blaine
Dear Sebastian,
Dad’s been talking about Dalton, the all-boys boarding school in Westerville. He thinks it’d be better for me. I don’t know if I agree. I want things to just go back to the way they were.
If you were here, he wouldn’t be talking about Dalton. Or if I were in Paris, with you. He’d let me go to school with you, and in Paris we could walk to classes together, and nobody would look at us differently. We could get coffee with our ankles touching without fear. We could walk down the streets holding hands and it wouldn’t matter, not the way it does here.
I wouldn’t mind Dalton if you were with me. Then it wouldn’t matter that I was repeating ninth grade; everybody would be distracted with you. You’d join the lacrosse team and make first string despite being new. You’d audition for the Warblers with me and we’d make a dozen friends. And even if they had an issue with us being gay, they wouldn’t say anything.
Dalton has a no-bullying policy. It’s absolutely enforced. I don’t know how it’s enforced. Dad said a lot of words like “zero-tolerance” and “a healthy constructive environment” and “studying without worry,” but what does that even mean?
I’d probably move into the dorms. Could you see yourself sneaking in to prep school dorms? We could lay on the extra-long twin bed together, our shoulders pressed against each other, talking until the sunrise. I never thought that I’d go to a prep school like Dalton. The uniform alone is an exorbitant cost.
But Dad worries. Or, well, Mom worries. They both worry.
I don’t know how to make them stop worrying. If Cooper were here, then maybe he’d be able to take their mind off things. You know, he’d be Cooper, with his Cooper problems, and then Mom and Dad would forget about me. Like, not completely, but enough to let me go back to St. Ivers. There’s no hope of being a sophomore, but I can make new friends. I can make friends with the new freshmen. They wouldn’t know me either. It’s be like starting fresh.
Dalton would be starting fresh.
This would be easier if I were in Paris, with you. I don’t speak French, but I wouldn’t need to. You’d translate everything for me. You’d help me catch up on everything that I’ve missed in these past months. And after school we’d walk along the seine and eat crepes and our hands would be damp with sweat but would hold them together anyways.
Wouldn’t it be better like that?
Love,
Blaine
Dear Sebastian,
School’s out. The neighborhood’s loud in the late mornings and afternoons in the way it gets during holidays. Now that everybody’s on summer break, I can hear chatter at all times of the day. Last night, one of our neighbors had a party; we left our windows open to try to catch a breeze, and I could hear the thumping of a bass line the entire time.
Mom keeps asking me to go outside. She says I should text my friends and ask them if they want to hang out. I don’t. I haven’t seen them in months, and they haven’t visited. I wouldn’t visit me, if I were them.
They’re going to be sophomores next year, and me? I’ll be a freshman again. I’ll have to make new friends. I’ll have to reaudition for the school choir. I’ll be back on the freshman roles for the school play.
Maybe it’s worth going to Dalton, after all, if it’ll let me pretend that I’m not doing it all over again.
Mom’s taken to sticking her head in every afternoon. It’s like clockwork. An hour after lunch, she comes and knocks twice on my door before cracking it open. “It’s such a nice day out,” Mom says. “At least go out for a walk.”
I could. I could go out for a walk. But it seems so banal, walking by myself. I still have to take it easy, so it’s not even like I’m going for a jog or something. It’s just shuffling around the block. I’ve had enough shuffling around the block.
If you were here, would we be outside now?
Maybe you’d come over, hauling me out of bed. “God, Anderson,” you’d say, but you’d be laughing the entire time. “What are you, a sloth?”
I’d inch my way to the edge of the bed, just to get back at you for that comment. You’d catch my hand as it crawled its way across the sheets, one stripe at a time. You’ll catch my palm in the cage of your fingers, and when I look up, your eyes will be on my face the entire time.
I’ll reach up with one hand, trace the edges of your cheekbones with the tips of my finger. Your skin is rough from days out in the sun. Even when lacrosse season ends, you spend so much time outdoors, and it shows in your face.
You lean over me, one hand cupping my cheek. The other remains on my palm, our hands like a clasp connecting us together. I can’t help but turn into your touch.
You don’t say anything, not for a long time. I’m silent in response. The two of us just stare into each other’s eyes. Your eyes tell entire stories.
I wonder what stories mine are telling.
I never get to ask you. You bend down and kiss me when I try. Your mouth is warm and soft and everything is perfect: you, your hand in mine, your kisses.
We kiss a thousand times. You wrap your arms around me. Pull me until I’m sitting upright. Hold me tight and never let go until I ask. Everything is easy, when I’m with you.
We wouldn’t have to leave the house. We could stay, indoors, until the sun set, until summer ended. We could stay until your hands and my hands blurred together from where they’d been clasped. We could stay until—
Your curfew comes, and when you leave, I walk you out.
“My place, next time?” You breathe into the corner of my mouth.
“Yeah,” I say.
Everything is easier, when I’m with you. When I close my eyes, I can almost feel your hand clasping mine, our arms swinging as we walk in tandem. When I close my eyes, I think that I can do anything.
Tomorrow, I think I’ll go outside.
Come with me?
Love,
Blaine
Dear Sebastian,
Dad just told me. It’s been finalized. I’m attending Dalton in the fall. I guess an all-boys school won’t have Sadie Hawkins dances.
Remember the Sadie Hawkins dance?
You looked good, in a button-up and green tie. You had a boutonniere for me, and it matched with yours. You held my hand the entire distance to the school gym, and once we were there, you didn’t leave my side.
The music was so loud, and our hearts reverberated with the bass as it thumped across the dance floor. You looked at me as we entered, and your mouth curled up in that faint smirk. Your hand was warm as you tugged me to the dance floor, where we danced all night, hips shimmying and bobbing in the crowd. When they played Katy Perry you laughed as I sang along to all the lyrics. Your fingers squeezed mine so tightly when they played Taylor Swift. And when they played I’m Yours, I could feel your breath in my hair as you sang along.
We had to take a break; there were bowls of Lay’s chips—even sour cream and onion—but I couldn’t help but watch the way your nose crinkled as you scowled at them. The punch was spiked—a little, you said.
“Good thing we ate dinner beforehand,” you said.
“You’re such a snob,” I replied around a handful of sea salt and vinegar chips.
But I couldn’t help my smile.
We stayed until the very end. And when we were waiting for my Mom to pick us up, we sat in the parking lot and stared up at the sky. We traced out the constellations with our joined hands: the big dipper and the little dipper; Cassiopeia and Andromeda; Sygnus and Aquila. One after another, connecting the stars together the way we were joined.
You held my hand the entire ride home, and when we reached your house you kissed me for the first time—
But you weren’t there.
The boy I took to the Sadie Hawkins dance didn’t look anything like you. Justin was just as short as me; we were in choir together. Our hands were clammy the entire time we were at the dance, so we didn’t hold hands. We lingered by the buffet table until Dan from the football team shoved Justin into it and he pitched into the chips and spilled punch on his shirt. Dripping and angry, he left early, calling his dad to pick him up. I was going to leave with him, but he told me to stay.
“One of us should get to have fun.”
I stayed a little longer. I found some other friends: Jackie and Sam and Ashley and Charlie and Robin and a bunch of folks from choir. We danced a bit, elbows jostling each other in our circle. But I kept thinking of Justin, and finally I slipped away and called my mother to pick me up.
I sat outside to wait, under one of the lights in the parking lot. I wish it was flickering. Maybe if it was flickering I would have anticipated what happened.
Dan found me. He had some friends with him. He had a wooden bat, probably from the storeroom where the baseball team kept their equipment.
My mother met me at the hospital. I don’t know who called the ambulance. Justin didn’t even send a card.
They say it gets easier. They say it gets better. They say that telling the story will make it better, like words can fix a broken knee and cracked ribs and a broken shoulder.
It doesn’t.
But maybe it helps a little. And tomorrow, if I tell you the story again, maybe it’ll help a little more. And if I keep telling you the story, over and over…
You listen to me, Sebastian. I’m grateful for that.
Love,
Blaine
Dear Sebastian,
School’s started. I auditioned and got into the Warblers. That’s Dalton’s acapella show choir. I wasn’t impressed with my audition, but I guess it had to be good enough. As a Warbler, I get to hang out in the senior commons, which is a lot nicer than the freshman commons, even though I think they’re supposed to all be the same.
I was hanging with some of the other boys when Nick—another freshman—asked if I had a girlfriend.
And for a horrible moment, I was back on the asphalt outside St. Ivers' gym.
“I’m gay,” I said.
“Oh,” Nick said. “Got a cute boyfriend then?”
I thought of you. I thought of drinking hot chocolate before a fire and picnics in Paris. I thought of the way we walked with our fingers linked through cobblestone paths. I thought of sharing a plate of pasta in Breadstix.
But that never happened. None of it ever happened.
I was in the hospital for physical therapy. Dad had dropped me off for my appointment, as long and exhausting as it was. I had been checked out for at least a week, but I had in-patient physical therapy twice a week. Mom usually brought me; she’d sit out in the waiting room while I struggled to walk and move my arm the way I used to. But this day, Mom had to run to the bank, so Dad dropped me off and Mom was supposed to pick me up after the session ended. I was waiting on one of the hard plastic seats when I saw you.
Or well, I saw a picture of you.
You were smiling, in your polo shirt and khakis. The green of your shirt brought out the green of your eyes. It was a feature on your father, and there was a photo of you with your parents—a posed family portrait.
But I remember the caption. Alexander Smythe (46) poses with his wife, Isabella (42), and his son, Sebastian (14).
You don’t know who I am. You’ve never met me, and you probably never will, since you live in Paris with your mother. I remember the article, you see. I must have read it a dozen times while I waited for my mother to make it to the hospital through rush-hour traffic. I can’t tell you now a single thing about your father, but I can remember everything it said about you.
You were born in Ohio but moved with your family to Paris when you were ten. You were gay and out. You were a top student. You spoke French fluently. You sang and danced in your school’s music and theatre program. In your pictures with your parents, your smile curled in the corner into a self-assured smirk.
You would never have gotten caught in a parking lot after a Sadie Hawkins dance. Even if you had, you would never have gotten your knee and shoulder shattered. I don’t know what you would have done to escape unscathed, but you would have. Maybe you would have talked them down. Maybe you would have fought back. I don’t know, but you would have changed things.
If you had been there, with me, then maybe none of this would have happened.
If you had been there, with me, then maybe you would have held my hand in the ambulance.
If you had been there, with me…
I don’t wish that you had been there—not if they could have taken the bat to your knee. I wish that I wasn’t there.
Picture it: I was in Paris, with you.
But that isn’t true is it?
I’ve never been to Paris. I’ve never met you. I was caught by homophobic classmates who took a bat to my knee and ribs after taking a boy to a Sadie Hawkins dance. That’s true.
This is another truth:
This will be my last letter to you.
I told Nick, “no.” But I wanted to say yes. I wanted to keep pretending. I wanted to keep dreaming. It was a beautiful dream, and I’m glad I got to share it with you.
I don’t think I would have gotten through these months without you. Without Paris. You kept me safe until now. You kept me protected. Like a baby bird—a baby Warbler—in its nest. And now I’m ready to fly.
I think that it’ll be better, now.
Thank you, Sebastian.
Love,
Blaine