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I know we haven't spoken in awhile, and maybe this is strange, but I thought I should let you know anyway: that I'm sitting on my parents' patio, writing this, and thinking about the summer we were seventeen.
It's a clear evening tonight, cool and wet. There's a woodpecker in the chokecherry tree, and bats beginning to come out from under the rafters, flashing black across the sky. Saturn is rising over the mountain to the south—I know it's Saturn because I watched it rise last night, with the help of a dusty old telescope I found in my brother's closet.
My mom is here. She's reading a book called The Third Witness and wants me to say hello. She's lit all the citronella candles, and the smell of their oily smoke is reminding me of the seventeen-year-old you.
I didn't really like being seventeen, to be honest. I know I probably seemed happy, but it was hard for me. Everything was too close, too important; I was hiding too much, and I've always been too sensitive. Daily life rubbed me raw. I look back on high school and feel nostalgic, but I know my nostalgia is more for the freedom from responsibility than anything else.
Even then I knew I was a loud, obnoxious teenager. I said the stupidest shit, and laughed at everything in an attempt to stay socially relevant. I listened to rap I didn't understand and wore my baseball caps crooked and walked with a swagger in hopes of distracting from the way I giggled like a girl. I tried hard to be honest, like my father taught me to be—but my fear of hurting other people's feelings got in the way of honesty most of the time. I was mostly just a doormat.
A stupid, irritating, closeted doormat.
I don't know why you liked me, because you were simply perfect. Or at least in my eyes you were. Icy, maybe. Awkward, sometimes. Overly-defensive, almost always. I know now that you were working very hard to find yourself—but even in those days, even when you were still searching, you were undeniably you. Ambitious, quick-witted, decisive, headstrong. Do you know how many girls you charmed with that tough, obstinate attitude of yours? Well. I'm sure you probably know by now.
That summer, you worked at the body shop downtown and I scooped ice cream at the creamery at the top of the mountain. We were both still driving our first cars: me a barely-functional Mustang in hunter green, and you the black Saab hatchback your parents had bought you for your birthday. How many hours did we spend in those cars together? Driving back and forth to the mall; driving up and down to the creamery; driving to the bowling alley, and the taco place, and the school; driving in circles around the lake when we had nothing better to do; driving nowhere, late at night, down all the roads we had never had reason to travel down before, through the empty fields that carpeted the valley and the thick patches of forest that spilled down from the sides of the mountains.
I remember the night we drove to the supermarket. We bought popsicles, energy drinks, and the last of the day's prepackaged sushi—half-off but still good. You parked the car in the furthest corner of the parking lot, where there were discarded shopping carts fallen over the curb and half of the lampposts had dead lightbulbs. You gave me your ginger, I gave you my wasabi, you opened the windows and we sat there eating and listening to the crickets singing in the fields that stretched out in front of us.
I was stupid, for thinking you just wanted to talk about work and the weather.
"I have something to tell you," you said.
Of course you did. But all of a sudden, I didn't care about what you had to say. Because your words had struck a chord in me, a chord that had been thrumming in the back of my head for... how many years? Two? Three? Four? Ten?
It was on the tip of my tongue. I could almost feel my mouth moving.
I have something to tell you too.
I had been thinking about it all summer. In every moment of silence between us the words tickled at the back of my throat, a secret that was growing too big—too essential—for my body to contain.
Just a week earlier I had almost said it. I had driven down to the shop where you worked and parked across the street. I was going to take you out for lunch. We were going to sit at our table at the back of the diner and you were going to order a tuna sandwich and fresh-squeezed lemonade and a piece of strawberry-rhubarb pie for dessert. We were going to talk about school and cars and Sunggyu's new girlfriend. I was going to walk you back to the garage but stop you before you went inside. We were going to stand there in the empty parking lot, shielding our eyes from the sun, and I was going to tell you I loved you.
None of that happened, obviously. I didn't even get out of my car. I sat there and beat my head against the steering wheel for twenty minutes and then drove away, because as much as my feelings were eating me alive I didn't want to fuck things up between us—as if things weren't already fucked up just by virtue of my loving you. I fantasized about marrying you, for fuck's sake. Tuxedos and wedding rings and white cakes and all. And there I was, sitting in my ugly old Mustang, worrying about fucking things up.
I couldn't say it that night in the parking lot either. I sat there and watched you as you folded your popsicle wrapper into a neat square, tightening the creases between your fingernails.
You cleared your throat; I held my breath.
"We're moving back to Korea," you finally said. "In September."
Then you looked down into your lap and pursed your lips, and told me you were sorry.
I would describe what your words felt like, but I think you already know. The world tipping over, and my body tumbling off. The pavement turning to sand, and the darkness swallowing me up. A massive dam collapsing, and the floodwaters washing me away, my lungs filling with icy water.
I don't really remember what I said next. I just grasped at words, the first words I could find, desperate to fill my mouth with something other than silence. I think I asked you why. And honestly? I don't remember what you said in response. I don't remember if you told me then or later that it was because of your grandparents, very sick and completely broke and in dire need of their family.
I don't remember, because I didn't care. It was so stupid of me, but in that moment, and for years after, I could think only of myself, and all the opportunities I had passed up because I assumed more would always take their place. All the times we had laid in the sun by the pool, silent. All the times we had waited at too-long stoplights, silent. All the times we had sat by a campfire under the stars, watching moths flutter into the flames, silent.
My eyesight went dark at the edges, and I was rocked by vertigo, like I was staring straight up at something too big to comprehend.
I know now that I didn't deserve you.
I don't know what we talked about: it's all a haze now. You drove me home in silence. You probably thought I was quiet because I was trying to stop myself from crying. I wasn't—I was trying to stop myself from blurting everything out, from saying something stupid, from fucking things up.
Because the closer we got to my house, the bigger and more restless the thing inside me grew. At every corner it asked me: now? And every time I told it, not yet. By the time we pulled up in front of my driveway, my entire body was buzzing. My very bones were vibrating.
You turned to me, and looked me in the eye.
"We'll see each other," you said—but you weren't smiling.
It would have been so easy to just reach out and pull you into an embrace and say it. The words were so simple. It was so simple.
I love you. I love you. I'm so in love with you. And I can't let you leave before letting you know.
Simple.
"Yeah," I said. "We will."
I didn't look back at you as I walked up to my house. Inside, I locked the door behind me, went upstairs to my room, sat down in the middle of the floor, and cried.
I had fucked up. I had fucked everything up. We were ruined. And it hurt, Howon. It hurt like I thought you would never, ever know.
I went to your house the day before you left. I had woken up early to be there. The fields of heather on the way were still swirling with morning mist. I hadn't even bothered showering. What the hell did it matter anymore.
In your empty living room, you pulled me into a stiff embrace. We said some stupid stuff. I asked you what was happening to all the furniture. You stumbled over another promise that we'd see each other again.
It went too fast.
"I have to go," you said. "I need to bring some junk to the dump."
Some junk. Your brother's bed. Your father's record collection. The dozen purple-and-gold taekwondo trophies you had displayed in a neat line above your desk.
"Yeah," I said, "okay."
You smiled a little bit—one of your crooked Howon smiles, the ones that made me weak in the knees despite their insincerity.
"I'll see you again," you said.
"Of course," I said, even as I knew you wouldn't—even as I knew I was going to make sure you wouldn't.
I shook your hand, and looked into your eyes, and you clapped me on the shoulder.
"Okay," you said. "Bye, then. I'll call."
"Okay." I smiled. "Bye."
And then you turned and left.
I sat on the couch and watched you through the picture window as you walked down to the car, your gait lumbering and self-conscious, keys swinging in your hand. I knew it would be the last image I would have of you, and I gave myself a headache trying to imprint it into my memory. The way you walked. Your hair in the breeze. The shape of your shoulders in your white tee.
Through the open windows I listened to the sound of the engine turning, and then the tires on the gravel, crunching and cracking as you made your way down the long and serpentine driveway. And even as the back of the car grew smaller with distance, I waited with baited breath for the red flash of the break-lights—for you to stop, and jump out, and run back to the house to see me again. For what, I don't even know. Something. Anything.
But in the end, it didn't happen. You turned onto the road, slipped behind the trees, and disappeared.
Your father was in the kitchen, going through the cabinets and throwing away half-eaten boxes of cereal and crackers and pasta. He was right there, and your brother was downstairs, but honestly, I didn't care anymore—I cried anyway. I put my head in my hands and sobbed. Did your dad ever tell you? I must have looked like an idiot, sitting on the couch in your empty living room and crying so hard I almost threw up.
Because all I could think about were the countless nights we had spent in that room, watching old reruns of The X-Files together. That show scared the shit out of me, but you have no idea how much I looked forward to it just because it gave me an excuse to touch you.
I thought of all the times I had crawled into your arms and never told you how much I loved being there. I thought of all the free ice cream I had brought you, and all the dumb excuses I had used to explain my gifts away. I thought of all the pointless notes I had left under your windshield wipers, stupid shit written on cutesy stationery I stole from my sister—as if the flowers and kittens and barely-English sonnets printed in the margins could tell you all the things I couldn't say with words.
Oh, Howon. I don't know why I'm saying all this now. I can't tell you how many times I've tried in the past—how many letters, emails, messages I've written you and never sent. All I know is that I'm almost thirty and very alone. My fiancée left me this spring. I'm not sure she was ever with me, honestly. Her name was Amanda. I think I loved her, but I sit at my desk staring at the ring that was supposed to be hers and all I can think of is you.
Should I say it now? Should I admit it to myself? That you were beautiful—so fucking beautiful, though I was too young to understand or appreciate the half of it; you were beautiful and I was in love with you and as much as I like to think I've gotten over you, I'm not sure I have.
For a long time I told myself that it was my burden: that you hadn't signed up for this, and didn't deserve to be put in an awkward position. But I didn't sign up for this either, you know. I didn't say that first hello because I wanted to eventually fall in love with you. How could I have known? I was ten.
I was ten, and then I was seventeen, but now I'm twenty-nine. I'm twenty-nine, and I'm not a doormat anymore, Howon.
I feel like I've reached a tipping point—like what I have to lose is finally smaller and less important than what I have to gain. I know it's stupid to hope. What can I say? I'm stupid, and when I think about you I feel like I'm seventeen again. I don't even know what I'm hoping for anymore: for something to open up, I guess, or for something to close. Something. Anything—anything other than this balance of everything and nothing that I've always simply accepted as all I'd ever have.
You don't owe me anything, so please don't feel obligated to help me. This is on me to fix, because this is my fuck-up. My endless fuck-up, going in circles around the lake.
I'm sorry for ruining everything, then and now. I'm sorry. I love you. I just needed you to know.
You don't owe me anything. But please write, Howon—please write, if you can.