Letter to P,

I’m writing because I believe that is unfair to both of us that you left for Hungry and I never got to tell you how much you mean to me. Now before I continue or you stop reading, I want you to pause, and take a breath. I want you to know that everything will be okay and that whatever happens I will be okay.

You have no obligation to me.

We’ve known each other for over four years now—that’s a long time. When I first met you, I didn’t want anything to do with you. The only reason I asked you to the Sadie Hawkins Dance was because W had already been asked and my mom forced me to ask you. She thought you were a nice young boy and we went to the same church so that was all that was needed. Never would I have imagined how special you would become to me. Our relationship has been very raw. You have seen parts of me that no one else has seen. You’ve seen smiles break through onto my face and seen me burst into spontaneous laughter. You recognize my sarcasm and you battle my wit with yours. You’ve seen me do silly dances in front of strangers and make the strangest faces that are meant just for you to see in a room full of crowded people. You saw my intelligence and my sincerity. You saw my strength.

You also saw me at my darkest. You’ve seen me consumed by fear and crying out in both physical and emotional pain. You’ve seen me sick and weak, so much so that I’m just a shell of my former self. You’ve seen me attempt to give up on myself, reduce myself to a ghost-like existence. You’ve also seen me fight for myself. You saw things in me that I couldn’t see. You push me to be better constantly even in some of the most difficult and challenging situations I’ve ever faced in my life. You challenge me to be the best person that you know me to be. You have so much faith in me and you have given up on me nor have you let me give up on myself—even when I’ve desperately wanted to.

I trust you wholeheartedly because of this. Trust is a big deal for me. You’ve witness and experienced parts of me that no one knows. That you pulled out of me and they are reserved just for you. They are not to be shared with my friends and my family it is a side of me that only you have the privilege of knowing fully. This makes me feel an incredible closeness with you. Almost a year ago, when I first told you about the transplant is when I fully let you into my heart. That has meant something to me. I chose you. I chose you to be the person that gets to know my deep and intimate thoughts. I chose you to be the person that I run to for comfort when I’m scared and hurting. I chose you because you have held me while I’ve cried and have always managed to make me smile. You listened to me and you cared enough to know when something was wrong.

I chose you because whenever I’m with you I feel safe. All of the craziness of the world fades and I know that whatever happens I’ll get through it because I have you. For me, choosing you was easy. It was a logical choice. It was the right choice. It was normal, natural for me to open up to you—to tell you things I hadn’t told anyone else. It was freeing. But I felt like we shared something strong, something real.

Maybe it was unfair for me to place that upon you. I’m sorry for not telling you. I’m sorry for the unnecessary hurt I’ve caused you and for taking your normal life and turning it into a hurricane. I’m sorry that you had to deal with problems that no one are age should ever have to deal with and the heavy emotions that come alongside that. I know it wasn’t your responsibility. I am not your responsibility. My well-being is not yours to worry about—again you have no obligation to me. This all must have been hard on you and that was unfair of me. When I look back on how you’ve handled everything, you somehow did. Perhaps this is a facade, but I don’t believe that to be the case. I can’t thank you enough for that.

I couldn’t have gone to anyone else. I needed you and God put you in my life and you’ve been here. You help remind me who I am and you’ve never stopped loved me, even when I didn’t love myself very much. I knew I could always call you and I could come to you with anything because we had survived so much. That’s all I ever wanted. I never wanted for you to fix me or try to make me better. I never wanted you to be perfect or have the right thing to say. All I ever wanted from you was for you to be present with me. You were, you have been, and you continued to be. No one had ever treated me the way that you had. No one had ever cared so deeply for me and that made me feel even closer to you than before. I found myself having a hard time describing our relationship to other people. I couldn’t find the right word to accurately portray the feeling that I felt when we were together. People would roll their eyes and tell me I was too stuck in my head—but how did they know what we had?

They weren’t in the hall when I first told you about the transplant. They weren’t in the car with us at midnight after prom. They weren’t there the night I told you I didn’t want to live anymore. No one witness our interaction an hour after my graduation party ended. No one heard our quick banter followed by meaningful and deep conversation. How would they know? They weren’t in these private moments—dozens of moments that only you and I know.

I knew in my heart that you cared deeply for me. That you loved me in some strange way, and for awhile that was enough. But then I didn’t just want to be enough. I deserve better than that. I tried to stop caring for you, but the farther away I got from you the more you latched on to me. It hurt me a lot. It hurt me to know that you were in a relationship with Q but you acted like nothing had changed. You acted like you weren't in a relationship at all. I didn’t know why you wouldn’t want me, yet whenever we were alone we shared these intense intimate emotional moments. Surely you had to feel something. Despite all of this, I wanted you in my life, so I stayed quiet and I stayed confused.

I let myself get hurt over and over again.

You are so incredibly special to me. I’ve grown to love you and parts of me always will. You are fiercely loyal. You are the most intelligent person that I know. You care deeply for the people that you love. You are multi-talented. You are becoming a true man of God and now you are leaving for Hungry. I wanted to let you know how I feel, how I’ll always feel when I think of you because I believe that it is unfair to you if I allowed you to leave with so much left unsaid.

I don’t want this to be goodbye but if you do, I understand. I don’t know what you want and I don’t know how you feel. I don’t know what the future holds for us but I feel that our story isn’t over. I feel tied to you.

This is what I do know. I want you to have an amazing time in Hungry. I know it will be hard for you, even if you are too stubborn and proud to admit it. That’s okay—you don’t have to have it all together all the time and you don’t have to have everything all figured out. I’m here for you always. Know that you can always come home, even though I know you are trying to run from home and that home is also the people you love not just the city your house is planted in. You’ll always have your family, they love you dearly. You’ll always have me. It’s okay to make mistakes and to be scared. You don’t need to have all the answers. Know that God is in control and that the Lord that made the cosmos and the billions of stars, down to the smallest of particles that you study is watching over you and that He loves you. I wish you nothing but the best and happiness.