Juno
Do you remember the day we met? I never confessed to you how sweaty my hands were, which is why I couldn’t shake yours at the time. And with the indifferent glare you shot upon me so never could I have known the cracks between. You always seemed so noble; you always surprised me when you tapped me on the shoulder.
The first few shoulder taps I casted as a fluke, until three more soon followed. Always innocuous conversations, note exchanges, study sessions — suddenly I found myself guarding your seat at the library. The one time I didn’t I felt so guilty about it, and that was the first time I saw the cracks in your eyes widen a bit.
Sometimes I wonder if it would’ve been different if you met me earlier. Though we carried our traditions into highschool, you never got to know my kindergarten inclinations — the wide smiling while holding a fistful of worms. Some of the kids would call me a monster, others would laugh along while I terrorized the playground. And there it was, I was in it, everything brightened. But the funeral came.
Some days, silently scribbling beside you, so I dreamt that maybe I could revert back. The solemnness hovering over our table I felt uncomfortably responsible for, and only pressed an anxiety further why you’d ever want to be around me.
Looking out from the second story window while the student body files away whether bus, car or bike lined trains so, at least I could tell, you felt the same in that moment: everything was happening here. Everything felt like it should continue. There was nowhere else to belong.
It was this moment too I felt a partial responsibility for. With each turn of grade so I’d start wondering what I could do to avoid the cliff my brother confessed one Thanksgiving dinner day.
“After highschool, well, obviously everything changes. But it isn’t a siren-calling delight as many would have you believe. Of course if you go to the same college as me you’ll may find yourself enamored with a new beginning. But don’t be deceived: the changes happen right around you. Right around you, in front of you. You’ll look at your roommate, your classmate, and you won’t see their eyes anymore. The best way I could describe it would be a painting slowly fading. After graduation, everything keeps fading, and all of the peripheries and props too. One day you wake up and realize everything is wrapped up in barrenness.”
I never could share this exchange with you, whether out of a respect in keeping strict lines in relationships, or that it felt like disclosing a secret no one in the midst of highschool ought to be subject to. But when I looked at you staring down on the later semester practice exams I realized it was already starting for me. Your silhouette felt gently sketched against the evening sun.
At first I figured I may as well not fight it. It helped my sanity while being with you, honestly: reminding myself that graduation will come and everything dissolves then. That in the meantime I’d see if I could mimic your stoic stride across the hall. Of course this isn’t meant to last forever. Of course. But it kept bothering me.
The first time I suggested we go home together so your portrait color came back a bit. It surprised me, and maybe I didn’t have to descend the cliff into barrenness. There was an alternative ending. Maybe it could be.
I got to learn all of your favorite singles while I’d drive us to and from school; I saw a side of you I never thought I’d be privy to — especially how messy your hair can get in the morning, though at times I wonder if you purposefully did that as some sort of message. I never figured it out, honestly.
First it was the commute under the guise of saving gas, then it was sharing lunch under the guise of trying new foods, then it was terrifying because the barrenness crawled behind me, and your smile kept fading, your friends all became unintelligible, and the exam days sleep deprivations acted as acceleration. Roaming around the halls I could hear the laughter and chiding about but you looked so dissolved into a history leering. I was being buried alive in delusions I couldn’t begin to convey.
On our final library day, before final exams, it registered at the tail end: this was it. But I didn’t realize it, and we didn’t talk about anything that could happen afterward, and I realized we were already swallowed into the oncoming barren reality. The cracks in your eyes seemed endless and filled.
When we parted ways, wishing each other good luck, right then I could’ve extended the conversation. That maybe we could go to the same college, then go to the same job, and go to the same neighborhood, the same movie theater, bowling alley, aquarium, beach, zoo, districts, travel agencies — I could continue to find comfort in your stoic lingering around every hall maybe waiting. Waiting for me.
I didn’t say anything, as you well know. And now we’re parting for separate colleges, and we had a distant nod toward each other in the aftermath of the academic cap toss ceremony.
I resigned myself to the situation: of course everything comes to an end. But just because it ends doesn’t mean it didn’t mean anything. This letter stands in testament to that.
I won’t forget our carefree days. I won’t forget you. I’m not sure where I belong now, honestly, but maybe we’ll both find something.
I wish you the best of luck in your new reality.
Thanks for the math help,
Oli