Archive of Our Own ^beta

Dear Tommy,

I've been debating how I should start this letter for a couple of days, and even before that I wondered if I should even reach out to you at all, let alone how. Texting seemed so informal, so impersonal for what I have to say, and I can't imagine calling you just for you to decline the call. Leaving my heart on your voicemail just doesn't sound like something I could survive, but I guess if I've survived all of this so far, that couldn't be so bad. I decided to write you a letter, and I hope to god you get it, and that you read it, but if you get this, and it hurts too much to open the envelope, I'd get that too.

The last time we saw each other, you walked out of my apartment and I've thought about that night ever since; every time I'm alone or allow myself a quiet moment, my thoughts go to you that night. You looked so good, dressed up for our date, trying to finally make it to a movie together, and I thought "wow, I must be the luckiest son of a bitch that my boyfriend is somehow boyfriend sweet enough to give me the space to explore and so hot when he explores with me." I've been trying to figure out just what went wrong, though, how we went from flirting and joking to you leaving my life so easily, like nothing between us mattered that much. I know I made a mistake when I asked you to move in with me — I've been to your house, I love it there, I just got so swept up in the idea of sharing a space with you and coming home to you every night that the where of it all slipped my mind — and I know it's probably definitely too soon.

I got lost in the dream, I think.

Being with you felt like a dream I didn't want to wake up from.

Every day we spent apart, I wanted to be close to you, coming home to you, or to a place where you'd been. After a rough shift, all I could think was "I wish Tommy was here" and I know that I could call you and you'd come over in a heartbeat, but that's simply not the same as knowing the man I lean on and care about is going to be there when I need him to catch me, and will hold me against him until I can get my feet underneath me again. I saw a future with you, and I still do, even now with all these weeks between us, with the space I didn't want. I can still see myself coming home to you, kicking my shoes into the tray by the door because you're weird about outside shoes being worn inside our hour. I can still see little babies stomping down the hall, laughing, learning what love is, what the world is, our kids, Tommy. I can still see our kids growing up in a home we built together, loved in a way that we weren't as children, giving them the life that we should have had, breaking the cycle of abuse and neglect that followed us from conception, and hell, maybe even before that, generations back. Our kids, Tommy, yours and mine. That's what I want, a long, full life with you.

You think you can't possibly be my first and my last, but I need you to hear me when I say this, but you'll always be the first man I loved, and if you'll let me, let us, you'll be my last. You're not just a new shiny toy or whatever you think, this isn't my first serious relationship, and I know what I want. Because before you, I have always been able to tell when a man is attractive. I didn't realize it at the time, I thought it was a normal straight dude thing, but I categorized men into hot and not since puberty, and checked out their asses. I realized what that feeling is because of you, but it's always been a part of me.

You're the first guy who has taken me to bed, and given me his jacket when I'm cold, and kissed me on the forehead when I'm being irrational, and someone who has taken care of me when I needed you. You're the first who has sparked a wide-eyed look on the future, but you're not the first that I've had romantic feelings for. Now, with context, I know that these aren't just normal friendships, but rather crushes that developed.

The first was a kid from high school, Jordan. He played hockey and had a dimple at the end of his nose, always laughed like a dying hyena, and it was the best sound I'd ever heard. We got into trouble for all of junior year and half of senior before his parents pulled him out of school, afraid that I was a bad influence on their son. The scar on the inside of my elbow was from the car accident we got into right before they sent him to a private school. Losing him was like losing a limb back then.

After high school, and with that fresh loss of Jordan in my mind, I set out on the road in Maddie's Jeep, and along the way met Diego. You probably would've liked Diego, since he was definitely your type. He was a ranch hand that I met while I worked at a horse ranch in New Mexico for a while. He was beautiful, strong from all the physical labor that he did daily, but still gentle with his strength, like a kid who grew up bigger than the rest of his friends and always was told to take it easy and pull back when he wanted to just haul off with all his power. He never wore a shirt, either, all of his perfect brown skin always on display. I was so jealous of that, you know, because I'll just burn and freckle, but under the sun's rays, he'd turn into some Puerto Rican demi-god, golden brown and glistening. If I'd known how to write poetry back then, I'd probably have written him sonnets to rival Shakespeare.

Next, there was Connor. You might recognize the name, because I've told you about the friend I donated sperm for so he and his wife could conceive a child. That's the same Connor. We met in Peru where I was bartending, and I was immediately drawn to him. He's different from the rest, smaller, less masculine, but I think that's why I liked him. He was unashamed of himself, and he let me be myself without shame too. We could talk about anything, and everything. We connected easily, and it was as if he'd always been there. So, when he and his friends were heading here to Los Angeles, I packed up my life into the Jeep again, and I followed.

Obviously next you can guess came Eddie, because strong, tough pretty boys have always been my weakness. When we met, I was so irritated by him, by his presence, by the fact that he wasn't being treated like a probie even though he was fresh out of the academy just like I had been, by the fact that everyone thought he was attractive. Once I realized that he was also cool as hell and I wanted to be around him, I let myself get close and he's become my best friend. Before that, everything he did got underneath my skin and made me upset that he was around. I know now that what I felt for him when we met wasn't just jealousy, but confused attraction looking for an outlet.

When I started this, I thought my list would end here, but there's someone else. I don't suppose you've ever met Albert Han, have you? Chimney's younger half brother? He lived with me for a while at loft, and became one of my closest friends. He's funny, and sweet, and he complements my crazy in a way that no one else ever has, getting me and never thinking that I'm too much. He became a firefighter, and I was so proud of him, then when he decided that he wanted something more, something different, I was even prouder to watch him follow that dream. It hurt to watch him go, of course, but I'm glad he's out there, doing what he wants, discovering himself outside of who his father or his brother wanted him to be. He still visits, and he even sat at my bedside after the lightening strike when no one else could so I wouldn't be alone. He always just made me feel seen and I'd let him stay with me again in a heartbeat, no matter the situation.

The very last guy on the list, he's something else entirely. You might know him, actually. My height, built like a barn, cleft in his chin, prettiest eyes in the world, somehow tells worse dad jokes than Eddie does who has an actual child, likes when I call him Daddy, broke up with me when I wanted to take the next step in our relationship. Does that sound like anyone you know? Because I can think of someone close to both of us who fits that particular description.

I'm sorry, that was snotty.

It still hurts that you'd rather break my hear for an if when we could've had the world together, especially when you could have talked to me about whatever was going on. You told me that you thought that I wouldn't mean to but someday I'd break your heart, and I know that you're just trying to save yourself the pain of that, but you're also cheating yourself out of so much good in the world by guarding your heart like this. You won't ever get to wake up beside the person you love and see the lines of aging starting to settle, every day spent with them adding to the laugh lines and the crows feet because you were laughing so hard together at an inside joke. You won't get to hear them singing as they clean the kitchen, off-key, and making up their own lyrics. You won't get to pick out bedding together and have a play fight in the store about what color to get, solved only by pressing them into the wall of pillows and kissing them quiet. You deserve the good things in a relationship, Tommy, in life. Even if you don't think that I'm worth that pain, I hope that you'll let the next guy in and let yourself have the sleepy mornings in, the grocery store runs, rocking your kid to sleep, potty training your adopted puppy, all of the good domesticity that you're denying yourself.

I wanted to address some other things you said, not just the night we broke up but when we went out for our six-month anniversary. I looked into my sexuality after you kissed me, even dove into the research to try to understand it, especially after we started dating and I had a boyfriend, but I didn't think a label really mattered at the time until you said "Kinsey 6" and explained that that meant you were gay. It felt almost arbitrary to me, putting a label on something that felt monumentus to me, but I suppose it's human nature to want a label, to need the language for what we're feeling. I'm bisexual, I like women and men, and probably everyone else in and outside of the gender binary, and I think that my number on Kinsey's scale moves. Most days, I'm settled pretty solidly at a 3, but I fluctuate between a 2 and a 4. When I'm around you, I'm nearly a 5, where all I can see is you.

Which leads me to my next point.

I want to apologize to you, for letting that girl interrupt our anniversary to take that stupid picture with her friends, because I realize now just how awkward and wild that was, and that I should've pointed her towards a waiter, and that we weren't just friends that she could interrupt. I was so wrapped up in being with you that it didn't occur to me at the time that she was even trying to hit on me, because I get such tunnel vision around you, where all that matters is you, and me, and the path I thought was in front of us. It was stupid, no matter what, and I'm sorry.

Similarly, I'm sorry if I made you feel awkward after I told you about my relationship with Abby. We had two extremely different experiences with her, and I'm still protective of her no matter what hurt she caused me, because it was Abby who first slowed me down, made me realize that I could even be in a relationship with someone, that I didn't just have to chase girls on dating apps to hook up with inside of a stolen fire engine. She made it worthwhile to try, and showed me the better side of life. I meant it when I said my relationship was transformative, because no one ever made me want to settle down until her. You, and her, you changed my life for the better.

It seems so strange that you and I could have crossed paths so many times but it wasn't until the cruise ship disaster that we got to meet. I don't think you would've liked me back then, if we'd met when I was a probie, or when I was dating Abby. I wasn't Evan yet — or I wasn't your Evan yet, specifically. Or anyone's. Not even my own. I was a spectre floating through life, trying to anchor myself to someone, or something. Nothing felt right, or real, and I was just… floating on.

Until I met you, and you kissed me, and asked me if I was free, and for the first time in my entire life, it felt like I was. I understood myself, and my life, through this brand new lens, like getting glasses or — I don't know if I ever told you this, but I have a pretty bad speech impediment. I was in speech therapy from the time I was four years old to high school to correct it, and every week, I'd sit and read these flash cards, and practice my sounds, and I was supposed to hate it. I had a pretty cool therapist, her name was Ms. Muffy, I'm not even kidding you, and she would play games with my therapy group and we got to pick out toys and treats at the end of each session. Anyway, there was a moment when I realized that I could get through an entire session without trying, and my impediment was managed for the most part. The next new person I met would never know that I'd had a speech impediment unless I'd told them, and that was something unbelievably freeing to me. I wonder if you've ever had that moment. When you finally felt free, what was the catalyst?

You've always seemed so cool and level-headed, comfortable in your own skin since we met, and from what little you've told me, I know that hasn't always been the case. You've come a long way from a soldier living under Don't Ask Don't Tell and the firefighter constantly terrorized into submission by his captain who somehow managed to have every -ism and -phobia a bigot can have. I wonder what helped you step into the light and warmth to become the man you are now.

I'd write them a million sonnets for helping you feel safe in who you are, especially in a world where we're not allowed to be queer and look like us. I adore every part of you, Tommy, the good and the bad, the light and the dark, even the pieces of you that I haven't met yet, the ones that you keep hidden away out of shame or to protect them. You're a good man, loving and funny, and you've made me happier than anyone else ever has by far.

Does that change anything about our current situation? No, but you deserve to know the impact you have on the people around you. You keep yourself isolated, just yourself in your house, away from your friends and coworkers, so no one can hurt you, so no one can disappoint you, or you can't disappoint them, whatever the case. I imagine that that must be incredibly lonely, tucked away up high in a tower no one can climb. You need a posse, Tommy. You need your crew to be there for you, so you can see people smile when they see you walk into the room, and hear someone say, "this made me think of you!" I hope you find that someday. I hope one day you have a whole trivia team waiting to cheer you on when you're awarded a medal of service to the city, and I hope that day comes soon.

I think the last thing I want to leave you with before I send this, and I hope you'll forgive me for being a coward about this, because I've been trying not to the entire letter, but —

I love you.

I never told you that before we broke up, but I did. I still do. Even now with the hurt in my heart so deep that I feel it when I breathe, and it aches in my back, radiating through the rest of my body. I love you. When I wake up alone, and go to bed alone, I love you, and when I start to text you but remember that I can't just tell you the stupid shit Eddie's doing now, I love you. You're a phantom limb, Tommy. I'll learn to live now that you're gone, but sometimes your absense will hurt like hell until I can train my brain that you're not coming back. I love you even then, and I hope this isn't goodbye forever.

I'm not expecting a reply, but if you want to, even to tell me to leave you alone, I've included a stamp so you don't have to worry about postage. Do what you need to. I'll understand either way. I just wanted to say my piece, and give you my side. It's okay if you don't want it, but it's important to me that you had the opportunity to hear it all.

I hope you're doing well, that you're taking care of yourself, that you're eating well and getting enough sleep, not just falling asleep on the couch and then dragging yourself to bed a few hours after. Please look after yourself, okay?

Love,

Evan

Dear Evan,

I can't even remember the last time I got a letter, especially a six page handwritten letter; I think my Nonna was still alive and I was deployed. I almost didn't open it, convinced for a solid minute that it might be booby-trapped to explode with glitter or something, but I figured you wouldn't actually do something like that to me. I didn't know what to expect from your letter, but I'm glad you wrote me. It was good to hear from you.

I thought about reaching out to you since I walked out of your apartment, even got most of the way there, but I would stop myself every time because I'm the one that ended things, and I have no right to check up on you the way that I've wanted to. Sometimes, I go to text you and stop myself halfway, and just delete the message, because you won't want to hear from me, or I think you won't. I didn't realize how much I wanted you to make the first step, to reach out first, so I could hear from you until I opened your letter. Even your words on a page feel like a bandage on my heart after leaving that night, staunching the bleeding however momentarily.

I want to be as eloquent and ordered as you were, but every time I think about you, all my thoughts turn to chants of "I love you, I'm sorry, I love you, please forgive me, I love you." How can I tell you everything in my heart when I don't even know what that is? How can I put down in words what you mean to me if no words feel adequate?

From the day we met, I think you've had a rosier view of me than exists in reality. You seem to believe I am a hero of some sort, a decent man who deserves someone like you, someone you'd build a life with. I'm not good, or somehow brave because I am a gay man who survived. I survived out of cowardice and selfishness. I didn't know how to stand up for myself so I let people hurt me and hurt everyone around me. I still do it, not speaking up when Gerrard made those comments at the ceremony, even cowing when my dad gets angry on phone calls when I've sworn to myself that I'll go no contact with him. I'm a coward, Evan. I've always been a coward.

You're the best thing I've ever gotten to hold, and I never deserved you. The fact that I got six months with you was a miracle to begin with, and I was just grateful for that, but I realized that night that I was doing you the worst disservice by letting myself live in a fantasy where we could last. Eventually you would see what everyone else has always seen, and you would find someone better suited to you, and I would be left with my heart shredded apart. At least this way, you'll be able to move on with the smallest scar, if one is left by my absence at all.

That's what I had thought would happen. No one ever really notices when I'm gone from their lives, not enough to write me a letter, Evan. I didn't realize that what I felt for you could possibly be reciprocated. If you feel even a fraction of what I feel, then —

I never told you about the first man that I ever dated, did I? I alluded to him, I suppose, told you about "my first" but that was more the sexual aspects. We never talked about Keith and the way he treated our relationship, and I should've told you. I met Keith about a year after I was discharged from the military, before I'd managed to convince myself that coming out wouldn't be the worst thing to happen. You wouldn't have liked him, I'm not sure I even liked him. Unfortunately, I loved him, so it didn't matter if I liked him.

We met at a bar, a bar that queer men went to that wasn't a gay bar, for undercover gays like myself at the time, and he bought me a drink, thanked me for my service, and charmed me with how much he didn't ask about me and my life. Looking back, he was really squirrelly, small and jittery, always moving from one thing to another, but at the time, he wasn't anything like my superiors in the army or my dad, so I didn't care. He was something else, and I let him buy me a drink, and another, and when he took me back to his apartment, I was simply too drunk to give a shit if he took off my pants and rode me. In the morning, I lay on the far side of the bed from him, and I barely remembered him, but he made me coffee and asked me to go out again. This went on for over a year, just drunken fucking that I barely remembered and waking up on the other side of the bed so he couldn't touch me in my sleep. I moved into his apartment, and I barely knew him, but the sex was better than convincing myself I could satisfy myself with a woman, and he was halfway decent to look at.

Then, one day, he said he was done with me, said that I didn't do it for him anymore, that he'd found someone better, someone who didn't need to get drunk to fuck him, and he kicked me out. I packed my stuff — I had barely two duffles' worth of stuff after a year of living together — and I found myself homeless, and heartbroken, and confused. The man that I loved had simply decided he didn't want me anymore, without fighting for me or for us. Thankfully, I was a firefighter by then and had made pretty good friends with Sal, who let me stay with him and his wife while I sorted out my housing situation, but I couldn't explain to them what had happened.

"My roommate went crazy and kicked me out," was all I could say.

I didn't tell them that I was in love with him, or what I thought was love at the time, or that I had been blindsided by this. Two years and I'd lost everything just like that, and I couldn't even tell a soul about it.

Which is how I fell into a relationship with Abby Clark, because she was pretty, and sweet, and she didn't remind me at all of Keith. She laughed like a Christmas bell, and she brushed whispers of touches along my arm, and she was serious about her job as I was about mine. She had great hair, and she asked me questions about me.

I didn't know how much I'd missed that until I met Abby, so I convinced myself I could forget men entirely, both men like Keith and men like my best friend from high school who I had a puppy crush on since junior high, because Abby Clark was strong and independent and she didn't need me. But she did want me.

I'm sorry I called you a himbo — I really do not think that you're a himbo, at all. The fact that she got into a relationship quickly after we broke up hurt, even though I'd been deceiving her the entire relationship, and playing at a life that wasn't made for me. It makes me think that I'm really as replaceable as my dad, my drill sergeant, Gerrard always told me I was.

You could just find another Tommy Kinard clone anywhere and slot him right into my place and no one would know the difference.

At least, that's what it felt like, until I met you.

I kept most of me hidden away from you, didn't share the parts of me already damaged, already ruined, because I didn't want you to leave, to see them and hate me. I can't believe I didn't even tell you I was gay until our six month anniversary, but I suppose I assumed you knew that. There's a lot of things I didn't tell you. There's a lot of things I haven't said out loud.

I want to show you these pieces, Evan, and let you decide if I'm worth the effort still. I'd understand if you didn't, but I know you should have the choice this time.

My mom died when I was young, about six years old, when she committed suicide. I was at school, and my dad was at work late, so when I got dropped off at home by the school bus, I found her by myself. We didn't have a phone back then, my dad couldn't stand having it ring constantly, so I walked to my neighbor's place a mile down the road and they called the police and emergency services for me. He was an older farmer, Mr. Jones, and he let me pet his dog and cooked me dinner — meatloaf and green beans from his garden — and when I didn't cry, he asked if I was too afraid to. When I told him my dad didn't like it if I cried, he told me that he wouldn't tell a soul, and that sometimes, he cried for his mama, too.

He was a war veteran, too. He'd gone to Korea, saw combat on the front lines, and got injured three times, cycled through a MASH unit before they finally let him go home. He had a purple heart, but what he displayed proudly wasn't the medal, but the picture of his unit, what was left of them, at the last MASH the day before they got to go home finally, all bandaged and grinning, their discharge papers clutched in hand.

He didn't have any family, an orphan when he was drafted, but he came home and met a girl, had a couple kids, bought a piece of land, and they grew their family into something wild and strong. He wasn't my grandfather by blood, but he raised me better than my father ever did.

My Nonna, who was my mom's mother, was the first person I ever came out to. Mr. Jones was the second, and he hugged me tight, told me that as long as I was happy, he didn't mind. I'm almost as old as he was when I met him now, which doesn't seem real. He died a couple years ago now, he was 89 at the time, but I'd have introduced you to him in a heartbeat. He would have loved you. I never introduced him to Abby, which should've been a sign to myself that I was ashamed of what I was doing, but I had blinders on.

I haven't talked about him since I died.

I want to tell you all about him, about the way he taught me to fish, and the way he taught me to cook, and he always had a bed for me, even if I wasn't grateful for it yet. He was kind. He was a good man.

He was nothing like my father.

My father is cruel, and mean, isolating, mocking. He never praises you, never says a kind word unless it's a backhanded compliment. It was always "you did that pretty well for a slob" or "you almost can't see where you scraped the side of the truck on the bushes." I went to war to get away from him, and thought that might make him proud of me, fighting for our country, but he just thought I was using it to avoid helping out around the house. I became a pilot and he said that I had always had my head in the clouds, so it was fitting. When I got injured as a firefighter, taking shrapnel in the side, he did visit me in the hospital, coming just for one hour before he said that I was being a sissy and I shouldn't be in the hospital still, and then he left because he had an appointment downtown.

I've never come out to him, but I think he knows anyway.

I wish I'd told you all of this before. I wish we'd talked more. I wished I'd shared. I was so afraid of my dad being right, that I could just be replaced, or that I wasn't anything special, or no one could really care about me if they saw me for me, that I didn't want to put myself out there for you to judge as a whole. I gave you the piecemeal idea of myself. I gave you nothing real, nothing solid to hold onto. I ruined us long before I walked out that night.

Which… I guess leads me to that night.

I've been playing it out in my head, too, over and over. I get sick of it, almost, from how much I've been over it, but I fucked up somewhere, and until I figured it out, I couldn't move on.

You called me brave. You were talking about marriage, and how we have the right thanks to brave people who came before, and I wasn't brave. I've never been brave. I hid in the closet, and I hid behind Abby's engagement ring, and I still haven't told my dad. I'm a coward, and I don't know how you could love a coward like me.

I love you, Evan. I do, I love you, too. I won't deny you that, because you deserve to know that you are loved, you are so loved. I am so proud of you for examining yourself, for seeing yourself in this new light and running with it. I am so glad to have been a part of that journey, even the smallest part of it. I was so honored to hold you, and guide you through that discovery, delighted to touch you and make love to you and hear you call me Daddy just as you're about to finish. I loved watching you try and guess my coffee order until you got it right, and I loved taking care of you because you were so distracted you forgot to do it yourself. I loved listening to you read from Substacks about whatever interested you recently, from bees to truck engines to the origins of Muy Thai. I enjoyed dating you like I've never enjoyed dating anyone before, just being around you. You are so much more than anyone has ever let you believe, and I wish I could fix that in your own eyes.

I love you.

God, I love you.

When you asked if I was breaking up with you, my brain malfunctioned, and some part of me thought that if you'd suggested it, that's clearly what you wanted, so I should just say yes. So I agreed. I shouldn't have. I should have said no, that I needed some time, we needed some time. We should slow down. We should talk some more. We should try to get to know each other better. But then you'd have to see this mess inside my chest, and I wasn't sure what I should do with that.

Instead, I said yes. I said yes, and I called you Buck.

To put that further distance between us, to solidify that we weren't us anymore.

I'm so sorry that I called you Buck.

You're Evan to me, and always have been. You're my Evan, wrapped up in my arms, falling asleep on my chest, dancing at the club, sitting together at dinner, watching Jee-Yun, you're my Evan.

I miss you. I haven't been taking care of myself, honestly. I haven't been cooking good meals, and I haven't been sleeping in bed, and I haven't been showering regularly. I haven't even shaved in a week. You'd probably love that. I remember the four days we had off once, and I didn't shave the entire four days and you lost your mind when I went down on you, howling in bliss about beard burn. I miss having a reason not to shave, not just for the sex but because it meant something to someone else outside of myself.

I'll never forgive myself for the hurt that I caused you, but if you're willing to give me a second chance, I'm going to spend the rest of my life working to make it up to you. Meet me at our cafe, Sunday morning after you get this if you can, 9 AM.

I'm not sure what I'm ready for yet, either, but I know I want it to be with you.

Love,

Tommy