I nod, throat tight.
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll try.”
She smiles. “I know you will.”
I walk out of her office into the colorless corridor, feet moving faster than my brain.
And for the first time in a long time, I know exactly what I need to do.
———
The hardest part is my hand.
I haven’t written more than a grocery list since high school, and after two pages my left wrist is cramping like I ran a marathon on just that muscle.
The pen keeps slipping, leaving veins of blue across the table, my palm, the front of my shirt. If they ever do a DNA test, they’ll find out I bled this shit out.
The kitchen table is a demolition site, shredded notebook pages, the dregs of three different mugs, one Pop-Tart chewed halfway and then abandoned for being too much effort.
Every draft ends up balled and banked off the trash can, but most rim out and end up on the floor.
I keep starting the letter the same way. “Dear Darius,” which sounds like the beginning of a funeral speech, but I can’t make myself say “hey man” and not mean it.
The first try was three sentences and the word “fuck” used as a verb, noun, and an adjective. That one went straight to the garbage.
The second started with an apology, and by paragraph two, it was just a list of all the ways I’m broken.
Third attempt was more honest, but halfway down the page, my brain short-circuited and I drew a little hockey stick instead of writing “I’m sorry.”
I stare at the blank fourth page for fifteen minutes, thinking about how Maya would tell me to just say it, just go for broke, like when you’re down two goals and the coach says, “What do you have to lose?”
So I just start writing, not caring about the penmanship, or if it makes sense, or if I end up confessing to every sin I’ve ever committed.
I write about the gym, the runs, the first night I realized I liked the sound of his laugh, even when it was at my expense.
I write about the time he showed up at my apartment with a bag of tacos and ate them in perfect silence, like just being there was enough to fix anything.
I write about the way he played in net, how every movement was a fuck-you to entropy, how he never looked scared, not even when the puck was a blur and the air stank of sweat and adrenaline and maybe a little bit of blood.
I write about the book, the Borges, how it still sits on my nightstand untouched, because if I finish it, that’s the end of the story.
I write about the first time he touched me, the way my whole body lit up like a house with every window thrown open.
About the night on Alki Beach, the sand in my shoes, the way the city looked from across the water, and the way I kissed him first, even though I knew I’d fuck it up.
I write about Vincent, because I have to, about how it felt good to be seen, even for the wrong reasons.
How the more I let myself be used, the less real I felt. How I wanted to matter, but not like that, never like that.
I write four pages, front and back. By the end, the lines all slant down and the ink is faded because I cried at some point and smudged everything with the heel of my hand.
It looks like the letter of a madman, but at least it’s mine.
I sign it with my number, #72, and then just “Ash,” because if he doesn’t know by now, he never will.
I fold it in quarters, wipe my nose, and realize it’s 2:07 AM. The city is silent, except for the sound of a distant train and the constant, low-grade pulse of my own heartbeat in my skull.
I drive to his apartment, every red light a referendum on my courage. My hands are shaking so hard the letter flutters on the dashboard like it wants to escape.
