Page 35 of Resistance Training

But don’t take advantage of my guilt. Don’t try to make me feel worse than I already do about what happened. I don’t even know that what I feel is guilt, to be honest. I feel so bad about what happened and I wish things had happened differently, but neither of us had all the information.

I feel like this is the most mature email I will ever send anyone, so I really hope it gets a response.

If not, I’ll probably just go back to being how I was before.

Whatever that was. Or who knows, maybe I’ll go down a totally different path.

But this is how I feel now. This is what I want. So there is no confusion.

Even though we’re going to different schools in different states next month. Even though we have hurt each other. Even though I made you read Twilight and you read it even though you hated it.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: I guess I’m an email stalker now?

Sept 15, 2017, 10:46 p.m.

Okay, now I am genuinely, actually mad at you.

I can’t believe I haven’t heard from you at all.

Are you even reading these emails? I don’t think you are.

I believe…I have to believe that if you read these emails you would at least respond in some way.

Maybe you’re just deleting them. If you are, it’s because you’re still hurt.

I get it. But I’m not giving up until you tell me to.

I move into my dorm room next week, so I’ll be busy. I’m going to limit my emails to you. I’m not giving up and if you reply, then I will, of course, respond. But I’m going to get on with my life now. I wish I could get on with it knowing that you’re out there somewhere, not hating me.

You should have started classes at Princeton by now.

I tried calling the registrar, and you’ll be pleased to know that it got me nowhere.

I wasn’t able to find out anything online.

I still can’t find you on social media. You’re just gone.

And yet Mrs. Chen says she’s heard from your mom and that you’re all fine.

It’s weird. But I believe everything Mrs. Chen says, so… I’m glad you’re fine, I guess.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: ABC

Oct 7, 2017, 11:13 a.m.

So, I’m a college student. Are you? I have decided to continue Asshole Book Club.

I’m reading that book you told me about.

S. by JJ Abrams and Doug Dorst. I had always planned to read it this summer when I could really enjoy it.

But I thought I’d be able to talk to you about it while I read it.

And then I didn’t want to read it while I knew I couldn’t talk to you about it.

But now I just want to read it in the brief moments when I’m not studying or doing homework or being this amazing new college student version of myself that you’re totally missing out on.

Not that it feels like reading so much as scanning the pages.

Oh my God, I despise you, Bradley Mitchell.

I don’t know why this is the thing that makes me feel your absence more than anything else.

More than when I walked to school by myself.

More than you icing me out. More than finally watching the last season of Lost and not being able to vent about it with you.

There is literally no one else I can talk to about how much I love this book.

I love that it smells like an old library book even though it’s new.

I wish we had a book we had written notes in.

I love the entire physical experience of reading the handwritten notes in the margins and unfolding the letters and finding the postcards and everything that’s tucked between the pages! The mystery and the puzzle of it.

I love the collaborative detective work between Jen and Eric in the notes.

It’s like an archeological dig. I’m obsessed. I stayed in last night, stayed up way too late with this book.

I know I have to say something I hate about it. The gimmick does overshadow the narrative, but I also don’t really care?

And I absolutely hate that it will always remind me of you.

Wait, that’s not right.

I hate that it will always remind me of how I hurt you.

And how you won’t forgive me for it.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: Turtles

Dec 10, 2017, 3:27 a.m.

I finally got a chance to read the new John Green book.

I stayed up all night.

I don’t even care if I ever hear from you again, I just need you to read this book.

I say this as the only person you know, probably, who would ever encourage you to read a novel about two teenage girls.

Or, idk, maybe you’ve started a whole new book club at Princeton with some skinny rich girl named Suzan with a Z, who has straight blonde hair and wears plaid skirts and headbands.

If so, I hate her even more than I hate you.

But I still want you to read this book.

It’s just a beautifully written portrayal of anxiety and OCD and the patience needed in order to have a lasting friendship and how people struggle to connect with each other.

There’s a mystery element that I just know you would say is underdeveloped and I also know you’d complain about how neatly things were wrapped up in the end.

But the mystery gave it a structure. It’s really just about the characters.

Maybe I loved the missing person piece of it because of, you know, you being missing.

So since you aren’t missing yourself, you might not be quite so intrigued by this.

I also read Where’d You Go, Bernadette, but I knew you wouldn’t read that one even if I really wanted you to now. You would have a year ago, though.

That makes me sad.

But anyway.

Hi.

I wonder if you’ll be going home for the holidays.

I wonder where home is for you.

Now I’m getting mad at you again.

Read Turtles All the Way Down by John Green, you asshole.

I like UW well enough, but I still hate not talking to you and I hate you for not talking to me but I also miss you.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: In the Woods

Mar 25, 2018, 8:17 p.m.

In the Woods by Tana French. Have you read it?

I just tore through it. It’s another missing person book.

Missing child. Unsolved mystery. I should probably stop reading these, it’s kind of depressing.

But I guess it’s comforting to me, knowing there are others who have to deal with unresolved stories.

Asshole commentary: I did figure things out before it was revealed. The ending was somewhat unsatisfying. But so is life, apparently!

I loved the way it was written. Those Irish authors, they really have a way with words.

I genuinely think you’d like this one. I don’t think it would blow your mind or anything, I just think you’d enjoy reading it.

Or not.

I just don’t know who else to recommend it to.

Hope you’re well.

God, I hate writing that.

I do hope this email finds you well, though, and it’s kind of hilarious to me that I’m writing that at the end of the email.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: Welp…

May 17, 2018, 10:37 p.m.

Okay. It’s been a year. I’m done.

I hope you’re alive.

I hope you’re happy.

I am so, so mad at you.

Still.

It’s a muted kind of anger, but it lingers.

I’m keeping you alive in my heart by being mad at you.

I wish we could be friends.

Or at least friendly.

Or at the very least I wish we could be two people who read the same books and email each other about them once in a while.

But I kind of hate you for hating me like this.

If you don’t even hate me and you’re just being a dick, then I hate you even more.

Regardless of what’s going on with you, the way you just blew me off…it’s not okay.

I don’t deserve that.

But if it’s what you need, then okay.

Fuck you, but okay.

But I also want to say this just once, because we never said it to each other: I loved you.

It makes me sad to be saying it in the past tense.

So, fuck it, I’ll say it in the present tense, because I think if you really love someone then the love never really ends even though the relationship does.

I love you.

I love you as a friend.

I always thought you were great.

I never cared what anyone else thought about you.

I could have loved you in all the ways a person can love another person, I think. I wish you’d tried harder to love me. And I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive you for not giving me a chance to make things up to you. I hope I forgive you. I hope you forgive me.

I still have hope, but I’m letting you go.

I’m going to make a real effort to stop thinking about you now.

I just wanted you to know.

Goodbye, Brad.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Mar 10, 2025, 9:17 p.m.

Hey.

I’m coming over.