Letters With Boys

Memphis and Gray, Week 5 - October

Mem,

I don’t understand. You’re scared of men, yet you spent the weekend with an ex-boyfriend with a suspiciously male name? And why does a not-couple-anymore need to celebrate a not-anniversary-anymore, especially if they’re, as you say, “a million miles apart?”

Please don’t be scared of me, Mem. I’m not scary. I know I told you I get into fights sometimes, but that’s different. That’s with guys—bad guys—ones who deserve it. (Which just so happens to be a lot of the guys at my school.) I would never hurt a lady. And I would never hurt you.

As for “what I deserve,” I think you’re very much incorrect that I deserve better than you. If I’m being honest, I probably don’t even deserve you, given that I’ve pretty much accomplished nothing in my life and probably never will. But let’s pretend I never said that, okay, because if you give me a chance, then being with you will constitute that great accomplishment and then I can go on and continue accomplishing other things from there.

Anyway, why does it all have to be so serious? I’m not asking you to do anything you’re afraid of. Just to maybe go on a nice, little date with me sometime. Even just another soccer game, or something. Whatever you want. 

And to maybe tell me how your weekend was, and that you haven’t gotten back together with this loser who is clearly wrong for you.

And maybe for you to further explain your fear of men, please, because my mind is starting to think up some pretty messed up reasons for that and I would like to stop guessing.

Love,

Gray

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Gray,

I’m not scared of Matt. He’s one of the only men in the world I’m not afraid of, I think, which is why I agreed to go on this trip with him in the first place.

If it makes you feel any better, it was a really s**t weekend. We didn’t even make it to the concert before I got a call from Tally. I could barely understand her through her sobs. I was the one driving, since I’m a much better driver than most humans, so I turned the car around and routed us straight to the restaurant she told me she and Ezra were going to. I kept her on the phone the whole time, you know, just to be safe. I really don’t like this Ezra guy, as I think I’ve mentioned to you before.

Anyway, she wasn’t right there at the restaurant, so I left the car in the rideshare drop-off spot (spoiler alert, I ended up with a ticket), and Matt and I split up to look for her. I found her cowering in an alley a few streets down. She jumped when I saw her, thinking I might be Ezra.

Later, when she was able to tell me what happened, I learned that he never actually hurt her. That was my biggest fear. He tried to get her to go back to the hotel with him, a hotel she had told him in advance he shouldn’t book, because she wouldn’t be spending the night with him. When she refused, I guess he said some really ugly things to her, you know, called her a prude and a tease, and she was worried he’d hurt her, so she ran away from him, into that alley. And apparently he just drove off and left her there, which is probably for the best, really.

I just can’t stop thinking about how she jumped when I found her. It was a little too familiar.

I wish I could explain it all to you, Gray—why this makes my blood boil so much, and why I now wish I could sink my fingernails into the skin of his stupid, little face and tear it apart. It’s really hard for me to talk about, though, with anyone. All I can really say is that I’ve felt how Tally felt in that alley, only much, much worse, after someone who is even worse than Ezra did something even worse to me.

Please don’t ask me for more than that anytime soon, because I can’t give it.

Anyway, we took her home at that. I offered to drop Matt off at the concert, but he wouldn’t have any of it. He knows how we are—that we process our s**t together—and that we needed to get back to Bridge. So he sat in the back and stayed really quiet the whole way home, and I just held Tally’s hand and told her everything would be okay.

I've never liked saying that, though, because sometimes I’m not sure it will be.

How was your weekend?

Mem

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Mem,

Jesus Christ. I knew Ezra was a scumbag, but that is low even for him. I’m so sorry for Tally, as well as for you, since this experience was clearly hard for you, too. If it makes you feel any better, I taught him a little lesson this morning on the quad.  (Not quite as good a lesson as he deserves, but unfortunately his stupid entourage follows him everywhere and makes these things difficult.)

I like the image of you clawing gashes into his face with your fingernails. But I don’t think you should go anywhere near him after what you told me. And I don’t think Tally should keep exchanging letters with him. Does she have a plan for this?

Remember the guy I told you about whose spleen I accidentally pierced via his rib cage? Well, he did something worse than what Ezra did to Tally—something that I'm surmising was done to you, too—to a friend of mine I cared about very much. And even though I got kicked out of my Manhattan school for it, and it made both the girl and my parents basically write me off as a lost cause, and it more or less ruined my future, I don't regret it. She never reported him, and it was the only way he ever had to pay for what he did.

My point is, I really, really would like more information on this person who is so much worse than Ezra who did bad things to you, Mem, because I would like to do much worse things to that person, repeatedly, until the end of time, and/or until he is dead. 

(Because of your fear of men, and my previously having mentioned piercing someone’s spleen, I think I should clarify that I would not actually kill anyone. Probably. But no promises regarding his spleen.)

But I also get that this is hard for you to talk about and honestly I’m just glad that you told me any of it. It makes it a lot easier to understand this fear of men, and even makes me feel guilty if I ever poked fun at that fear.

I really wouldn’t ever hurt you, though, Mem. I need to make sure you know that.

Maybe I could bring you and your friends some coffees one day after school, and give you a hug? I don’t know if you know the healing powers of hugs, but they’re very real. Ask any scientist.

Love,

Gray

P.S.: Everything will be okay. 

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Gray,

If you wanted to swing by after school today with some coffees, I think that would be nice. We will wait for you in the parking lot. Tally is a latte girl, and Bridge and I take our coffee black.

Thank you for telling me more about your spleen victim. I found it oddly comforting, which is probably a problem. Unfortunately, even if I wanted to tell you more about this person, I couldn’t, because I don’t know who he is. All I know is that he goes to Lancaster and that he has a really stupid tattoo of a lion somewhere on his body, but I can’t remember where.

Sometimes I think maybe the lion was a figment of my imagination, though, because Tally and Bridget spent months afterwards asking around about a Lancaster guy with a lion tattoo, and nothing ever came of it.

As for the Tally pen pal thing, don’t worry—we have it sorted. Bridget is now Tally, and Tally is now Bridget. (Which Kai is probably thrilled about.) I preferred that we all just stop writing to Ezra altogether, but Bridget got all wild-eyed and passionate and said she was going to teach Ezra a lesson, so I left that one alone, because I do always enjoy seeing Bridge teach anyone a lesson.

Thank you for being so nice to me. Please don’t kill anyone. I think that you are going to accomplish much more than you realize with your life, unless you kill someone, in which case you will accomplish nothing but rotting in jail forever.

Mem

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Mem,

It was really nice seeing you yesterday, particularly the look of panic on your pretty face when you saw my injuries. As I told you in person, they’re worse than they look. And you can rest assured that Ezra’s weak, little fists did not cause a single bruise, as he is the type of guy to have his stupid entourage fight for him.

It’s nice that you care, though.

I will not push my luck and ask you to meet up with me again this weekend, but I’m enclosing my number (for the second time) (just in case you didn’t save it the first time, since I noticed you never actually called or texted me) just in case you want to ask me. Even just if you need another hug.

You are an excellent hugger, by the way. 10/10 for sure. You smell really nice, too. Not like perfume, which always gives me a headache and makes me a little nauseous. But fresh and clean and just… nice.

Can’t wait to see (and smell) you again.

Love,

Gray