Page 34 of Resistance Training

THE EMAILS

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: WTAF Bradley?!

Jun 18, 2017, 10:15 a.m.

Okay. You have clearly gotten a new phone number.

Baller move.

And you deleted your Facebook account? Or maybe you blocked me, I don’t know.

But I can’t find you online, and it’s making me anxious.

I tried to give you space to process your feelings (which is a weird sentence to write and I probably would never say it out loud, but it’s the kind of crap people say on TV all the time). And now we’ve graduated.

And yeah, as you probably know, I went to prom with Brad Turner. I didn’t have fun. I didn’t make out with him. At all. I just wanted you to know that. He wasn’t nice about it, but whatever.

It’s not like I liked him or anything, it just seemed like a good idea to follow through with the prom date since you were so mad at me anyway.

Okay, that’s not exactly it.

I was scared of what would happen if I told him I had changed my mind.

And Aubrey thought it would be a bad idea to back out. Path of least resistance, blah blah. So I didn’t.

If it bothered you that I still went with him even though I knew how upset it made you, I’m sorry.

I’m very sorry.

I don’t know how to write it so it comes through in an email, but I am really, truly, forever sorry.

In my defense, I am not the only teenage girl who did something dumb because she thought it was a good idea to say yes to the popular guy. It’s not an excuse for hurting you by saying yes to Other Brad. Although I really didn’t know how badly he had treated you over the years.

This isn’t an excuse, or maybe it is, but…it’s hard being a girl.

There’s obviously stuff you didn’t want to tell me and there is also stuff that I don’t talk to you about.

Girl stuff. I don’t expect you to understand it or to want to.

And I don’t blame you for not understanding.

But some part of me knew that for the rest of my life I’d be asked about my prom experience and I decided I should actually have a prom experience.

It didn’t occur to me when Other Brad asked that you would want to go since you had seemed very vehemently against it up until that point.

I don’t know what I’m trying to say here, other than you are my best friend, but you’re also a guy.

An extremely stubborn and kind of moody guy.

And I didn’t feel like I could talk to you about everything.

Especially prom and other guys. Not that there were other guys.

I mean, there were guys I made out with before I moved here, but only ever in closets at parties or spin the bottle or when we were drinking or whatever.

Ugh.

I’m rambling.

Well. Happy graduation! Friends forever!

I can’t believe you’re icing me out, Bradley. That’s such a thirteen-year-old girl move.

Please write back. Please. Just so I know you’re okay.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: Gone Boy

Jun 27, 2017, 4:35 p.m.

Hi.

I went to our spot at the beach today.

I was doing some magical thinking and thought maybe I’d find you there.

Spoiler alert: I didn’t. It was so weird, being there by myself.

It used to be a place where I knew I could feel good and calm and not think about anything outside of the tide beating against the shore and the breeze and whatever book I was reading and you.

Today it was the loneliest place on earth.

Where are you?

Where did you go?

I don’t understand how you can just disappear like this.

Your parents too?

Gone.

You’re just gone.

My family went to Orcas Island for a week, and when we get back your house has a For Sale sign and a Sold sign in front of it and it’s empty. None of your neighbors know where you guys moved to, they just know that you’re all fine.

What the hell, Brad? How can you just disappear like that? Did our friendship mean nothing to you? Does me doing one thing that you didn’t like negate every other thing? Really? Is that how relationships work? Is that how you work?

I’m so confused and so hurt and just shocked.

And okay, I’m just going to say the thing that people never say out loud.

You’re acting like I broke your heart. Even though you never told me it was mine to break.

I’m not saying I didn’t have some idea that you were into me.

But also, I’m seventeen, so what do I really even know?

I don’t understand guys yet. Maybe I never will.

But I thought I understood you. I thought we had a silent agreement that we would never ruin our friendship.

I thought it was more important to both of us to always hang out with each other. Like, always always.

I’m also not saying that I didn’t think about it. About things being different between us. More.

There were moments when you looked me straight in the eyes.

When you stood so close to me, asking me about a book, so intense.

You have gorgeous eyes. I hope you know that.

I’ve stared at your hands. There’s been moments when I’ve imagined those hands on my body.

Exploring me. I’ve seen you look at my boobs.

I’ve thought about you touching them. I didn’t really let myself think about it before, but now I can’t stop thinking about it.

I’ve stared at your mouth. You have a beautiful mouth, Bradley. I am 1000% sure no one else has said that to you. Yet. But you do. You look like you’d be a good kisser. And there were moments when I imagined you kissing me. Now I think about it all the time.

And fuck it, I might as well tell you this now: I had a sex dream about you.

Back in February. We didn’t actually have sex in the dream.

Neither of us was naked or anything. There was just this…

I don’t know…intention? The way you looked at me.

And I felt something. I was so attracted to you.

In the dream. I woke up feeling all hot and bothered, as they say in the books.

That was the day I kept my headphones on and refused to talk to you when we walked to school.

That was why. You assumed it was my time of the month, but it was so much more than a monthly thing.

It was the only time that’s ever happened to me, and it freaked me out.

I’ve never wanted anyone like that. Not someone I actually know, I mean.

And you were planning to go to Princeton, so we only had a few more months together and I didn’t want to ruin them.

Right now I’m really wishing I’d ruined things by grabbing you, just once, when you were grumbling about how you thought Pride & Prejudice is overrated and people should be talking more about Persuasion.

I mean, if there was ever a moment when a guy should be kissed it’s when he’s ranting about how underrated his favorite Jane Austen book is.

And I wish you’d kissed me that time I came back from family vacation. Or when I’d fallen asleep on your shoulder. Or those times we were watching literally anything in your basement and your parents weren’t home. I would have kissed you back. I would have liked it.

I’m not saying that to be mean. I just want you to know.

Or maybe I am saying it to be mean because I want you to feel as tortured about it as I do.

Maybe I’m only telling you this because I have a terrible feeling I’ll never get to say this to your face. Maybe one day I’ll forgive both of us for not trying harder.

I miss you.

I miss you.

I miss you.

You better miss me too.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: Blech

Jul 7, 2017, 5:17 p.m.

I am so sick of summer and I am so mad at you for getting me started on binge-watching Lost and then abandoning me partway through Season 3.

I have so many thoughts and no one else I know IRL has watched this show and I refuse to go online to discuss this with strangers.

I have been missing you every day, but I have never felt lonelier in my life until now because I can’t talk to anyone else about what a bunch of assholes these people are!

Like, I wouldn’t want to be friends with or date any of them!

Write me back. Please. Don’t be an asshole. Don’t make me go on Reddit.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: Hi

Jul 30, 2017, 10:35 a.m.

Okay, so you’re being an asshole.

It’s been over a month and I can’t believe I haven’t heard from you.

I just can’t believe you would ghost me, Bradley.

I’m going to keep writing to you because I do believe you’re still reading these emails and that maybe one day I’ll say the thing that you need to hear in order to even consider the possibility that we can talk about maybe being friends again.

If friends is what you want to be, that is.

I am saying to you now—and please believe me when I say that I have never said this to anyone else before and never thought I would—if you want me as more than a friend…if you want me in all the ways that a boy wants a girl, then I want you to understand that I want that with you too.

I am open to this.

I am open to talking about where we went wrong and how to get better at being each other’s best friend and how to feel safe enough to love each other and fall in love and do awesome things to each other’s bodies.

And if we aren’t good at doing those things at first, then we will allow each other to get better at it until we are experts at making each other feel good in all the ways people can make each other feel good.

I want that.

I didn’t know I wanted it until it was too late, apparently, but I want it and I want it with you.

If you want this with me and you’re reading this, please, please, please write me back.

Just say hey.

I will take it from there.