The Air Near My Fingers

   I know I'm supposed to maintain some sense of chronological order, but I'm hopelessly nonlinear. I'm still making my way through these notebooks, and I've been planning to give you guys a better idea of Johnny (who you guys were introduced to in my list of favorite moments.) He was a wonderful part of my life.
   He treated me with respect and kindness. My feelings for him never went deeper than a blissful infatuation and were never really explored, but we had a meaningful relationship and I hold him dear to me.
   Our interactions were very complex; I have a habit of falling into complicated exchanges and mind games. That's true of my relationship with Kid A also, but Johnny and I had a more open affection for each other, while Kid A laced his love with malice and cynicism. Johnny and I had our nights of disagreements and tension; that's inevitable in any relationship between two people, particularly in high school when insecurities and hormones are at such an all-time high, but we always found ourselves beyond them before the sun painted the next day's colors on the horizon.
   Before leaving for college, I wrote him a letter. Actually I wrote him seven, but the first six were drafts and he only got the last one. It went like this:

thank you for being a presence in my life these past years. you have provided immeasurable inspiration with your intelligence and your grace. you have propelled me to become a better person. your take on logic and emotions has shaped my thought process and actions in ways that would take hours to explain. i'm so grateful for that. i'm so grateful for so many things.

i apologize for everything, particularly being fucking crazy most of the time.

you are the best person i have ever known. i wouldn't say it if i didn't mean it. you are brilliant and clever and beautiful. you can always bring laughter. i appreciate so much the laughter you have brought me.

i'm weirdly content with the way we have so drastically drifted apart. it's comforting to know that if i ever should cross your  mind it will be the way i was at sixteen - graceless, guilty, altruistic, indecisive, overwhelmingly emotional and full of ideals. the only adjectives still applicable are graceless and guilty. of so many things.

i want you to know i learned to separate feelings from reaction and to stop apologizing. then i want you to forget that, and remember me how i used to be. i feel like updating you on my current self is somehow a betrayal to the gorgeous, clumsy youth i was so eager to immerse you in.

i have so much respect and admiration for you and i hope that wonderful things happen to you.

thank you for years of support and lessons and, most of all, honesty. i'll never forget it.

-linnea

   I gave it to him the day before he left for school. I handed the letter over in the late afternoon, as he lingered in the doorway to my parent's house making trivial conversion until I, smiling, sent him on his way. Laughing, he walked away with the envelope in one hand, skateboard in the other, to the parking lot across the street where Kid A was waiting. I disappeared inside my house to fold and pack clothing, where I pictured him shove it in his pocket haphazardly and forget it. I found out later he instead went off alone, searching until he reached a quiet place in the shade, and then opened it. 

   He called that night to react. Being the obsessive, anal person I am, naturally I transcribed our entire conversation. It makes remembering things so much more vivid and accurate. I know, I know, I'm weird to the point where it's borderline creepy, but I'll be damned if my stories lack detail!


   "I don't know who you think I am, but you said some really nice things!" he declared, to my laughter. "I think you gave me too much credit," he added, softly.

   "You just made an incredibly positive impact on my life," I explained. "I don't think it's possible to give you too much credit for that."
  "I'm flattered, but I think you overestimate me and underestimate yourself."

   I smiled. "Thank you, but you really did make my life beautiful. Even when things were awkward and occasionally terrible, it was really important and it caused a lot of growth. I really did love you in so many ways." 

   I kept myself in the past tense. He and I had stopped saying "I love you" the summer before when it started to complicate things too much. I remember spending my senior year jumping back and forth between knowing I loved him and being completely unsure if I did or not. Why are these things so hard to sort out? He's such a pleasant, supportive force in my life who still manages to surprise me. But male-female relationships get tangled when you admit love; somehow saying it raises questions that are awkward when unanswered, but nearly impossible to ignore once put forth. It's so much simpler to just silently understand that love exists without expressing it.

   "Yeah," he said, characteristically keeping his responses contained and concise. How sweetly opposite of me, with my rambling, adjective-ridden dialogue! "We had some good times."

   "Sorry I used to be so out of my fucking head."

   "Only that one time," he said audibly smirking.

   "Ohh, I don't even want to know what time you mean!" I laughed. Taking a more sincere tone, I continued. "Maybe if we're ever sixteen again we'll fix everything we screwed up this time... though maybe I said that last time."

   "Maybe I'll see you tonight," he responded, his syllables pulsating with possibility.