Letters With Boys

Memphis and Gray, Week 17 - January

Gray,

Can you please tell me what the hell is going on?

I’m sorry that I had to cancel dinner, okay? The band was still a mess, and we needed those few extra hours to practice before people started showing up. You didn’t seem to mind at the time. 

So what did happen, if not that? One minute I’m up there playing Smells Like Teen Spirit, and the next you’re just gone?

And then ignoring my texts and calls, other than one response confirming that you were alive?

I asked Bridget and Tally if they know what happened, but they have no idea. Granted, Tally is a little distracted by the whole maybe-getting-back-together-with-Kai thing, and Bridget spent three hours talking to Taylor on the patio, but still.

Bridget’s decided to come out of the closet officially, by the way. Apparently Taylor gave her some really good advice, and she’s telling her parents this weekend. So hopefully all the secrets will be behind us in a few weeks.

Please tell me what’s going on. You’re the last person I ever would have expected to ghost me like this.

Mem

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

Memphis,

I’m sorry for “ghosting” you. You’re right that it’s not my style. The truth is, I composed about two hundred different text messages, and even a good twenty letters, which I then threw in the trash. My silence was much nicer than any of those words I composed, believe me.

So I guess I’m just going to come out and ask it. 

What were you doing the first weekend of November?

Gray

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

Gray,

I have no idea what I was doing the first weekend of November. Seeing you, probably, considering we started dating way back in September.

Can you at least tell me what I’m on trial for?

Mem

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

Memphis,

Why don’t I start by telling you what I was doing that weekend?

It was the weekend after Tally’s birthday party, also known as the first time we kissed. I was already pretty crazy about you, and that week, you had brought up this theory of Bridget’s that you use s*x to write away your past traumas.

(Which, by the way, is exactly why I’ve been trying to be so careful about s*x. And I really don’t appreciate that you treat that like a crime.)

Anyway, hearing that you did that made my heart really hurt, because thinking about you sleeping with other people is really hard for me, Mem, as I would hope the reverse is for you. So I asked you, as politely as I could, whether we could stop seeing other people.

And you told me you wanted to think about it.

And then, according to your loquacious ex-boyfriend Matt, you f****d him.

As a reminder, this was the first weekend of November, and we had, in your own words, started dating “way back in September.”

So, tell me that isn’t true, and we can get back to the way we were.

Gray

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

Gray,

I don’t think you’re being fair here.

We hadn’t had any conversations about exclusivity until then. I was in a really bad place, and figuring stuff out. The thing with Matt meant nothing. I was scared and confused by my feelings for you, and by what you were asking of me, and he just happened to ask me if I wanted to catch a show in town, and I got wasted and things happened.

I never cheated on you, Gray. I would never do that. As soon as we agreed to be exclusive, that was that.

Why are you acting this way? Is it because I didn’t tell you? Was I supposed to make you a list of everyone I slept with from the first minute we started talking?

Mem

P.S.: Please stop calling me “Memphis.” You’re scaring me.

/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / /

Memphis,

Since the courier service is done for the day, I’m dropping this letter in your mailbox myself. I hope you’ll see it before Monday so that you’re not disappointed when you don’t see a letter from me Monday, or ever again.

I can’t even express to you how much your last letter hurt me. I can’t express how much it stings that a “list” of multiple “people” that you slept with after we started talking could even exist. I know we weren’t exclusive, but come on. From the moment we started talking, I didn’t even look at another girl. You were all I cared about and all I wanted. To learn that you not only felt differently, but apparently acted differently, with multiple people, is pretty f*****g devastating.

I could have gotten past all of that, I think, if not for the fact that it’s Matt. Even if you didn’t feel like you owed me the truth about the “list,” surely you can understand that I deserved to know that you f****d your ex-boyfriend who you were previously with for, what, six years?

It isn’t just him, and it isn’t just this. It’s the cash register guy at the coffee shop. It’s the bartender (and the bouncer) at the Velvet Room. It’s the lead guitarist in your new band who you couldn’t stop touching. It’s your not having been able to put ice on it since we started having s*x. It’s your damage—your palpable, heartbreaking, soul-crushing damage—I’m sorry, but it’s true. It’s all over you, and it’s all over all of your interactions with men, and you need help—help that I can’t give. Help that you refuse to get. And I’m sorry—you don’t know how sorry—but I can’t deal with it anymore, Mem. I can’t. It’s too much.

This will be the last letter I send you. Please understand that this is hard enough for me already, and that hearing from you will only make it worse.

And please get help, Memphis. You need it, and you deserve it.

Gray