This is everything that I never said, and it starts with this: I liked you.

Or really, I liked the idea of you. The problem is that humans aren’t ideas. When you push, they pull; they can give and they can take. They say and do things that surprise you, things that you would never understand. They are living and breathing and dirty and messed up and so wonderful that it hurts. That was you. That is you. 

You are all of that, and you always will be, as long as you are alive on this earth. It was what I loved about you, and what I will miss for the rest of my life. It was also what scared me. 

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The third time we ever talked, you gave me a gift. 

Not something corny, like the gift of knowledge, and not something overt, like a flower or handwritten card. It was a real and simple gift, a keychain with a character painted on an acrylic piece, a character that I vaguely recognized from that one show you had mentioned before. The one that I said I would watch, but never did. Some anime set in some fantastical world, a world where people learned to solve their problems with sword fights and magic.

Along with it you gave me a small sad smile, the reason for which I hadn’t quite realized yet.  

“You never ended up watching the show, did you?” you said. 

Of course I hadn’t. But a hard little edge of shame stuck in my brain kept me from admitting the truth, and instead I resorted to a shrug. 

“I was planning to this weekend,” I said. “Promise.” 

You nodded, a bit too quickly. Before I’ve even finished speaking. Your hand on the table clutches a coffee, but you haven’t taken a sip. “He’s a lot like you, in the show.”

I turned the keychain in my hand, the metallic chain cold and the plastic warm. The character stared at me in defiance. Was this me, in your mind? A cartoon figure, bold and animated, a caricature of human complexity. The look of defiance on his face said it all. Driven by something—courage, determination, dreams, narrative. Having a reason to exist, and proud of it. We couldn’t be any more different. And yet.  

I couldn’t fight demons or channel flames, but maybe you thought I could, if I tried hard enough, because I had that spark; an inexplicable, fundamental part of me that you saw reflected in this character on the keychain and somehow made us alike. We shared something that made you cheer us on, whether through an episode or a lunch at a cafe. It made you return to me, again and again, a lingering fascination in your eyes. From what? Sympathy, empathy, a point in between? How long would you watch before you changed the channel?

Maybe you knew what I was driven by, a part of myself that I couldn’t see. Maybe you wanted me to find it. 

The thought passed, and so did the conversation. When we got up to leave, you lingered by the table for a moment, next to me. The fabric of our sleeves touched. A shiver in the air between us, a moment of opportunity. It dissipated all too soon, fading into the murmur of the room. 

You gave that sad smile again, and the distance between us widened. Your hand slipped out of reach. 

“Let’s head back,” you said. “It might rain soon.”

---

When we talk, I feel a current.  A hum like the power lines along the streets, buzzing with potential, a quiet connection in the evening air. I realize just how much you want to know; not just about me, but the world. Curiosity makes us human, but we are so limited by our bodies and our minds. The questions we ask never really fit the answers we find. 

Sometimes this leaves you frustrated, as the concepts in your brain don’t find the right words, and your brow furrows and you hold your breath and you stand there, trying to attune to the universe, searching for the elusive truth that you’re missing. If the rest of the world wasn’t there to interrupt you, I swear you wouldn’t move for the rest of time, not until you find what you want to say. But I tap your shoulder or call your name, or the rumble of a passing car disturbs your thoughts, and that brings you back. The question you search for slumbers on for a little longer. 

I have my own question for you, many times. Nothing so much about the world, but something more selfish. For myself. It drives me crazy, this question; I want to shout it from the rooftops, let my voice ring through the open air and find its way to you, watch as my question fills your heart as you were able to fill mine. I want to succumb to the current that vibrates between us, bright and clear, grab hold of your hand and look you in the eyes and find the response that I’ve been waiting for since the day I met you, plain as day, as perfect as it should be. It burns on my tongue and scorches my mouth, threatening to break free, and just as fiercely I bite it back, every time. I swallow back the desperation and my stomach churns into pulp. My body aches from the effort. 

Because the truth is that I don’t know what your answer is, no matter the question I want to ask—and how do I know I’m even asking the right thing?

---

Think back to before. How did it start?

When we both walked home after that party, the one at _____’s last fall, and it was just the two of us making our way down the narrow sidewalk—do you remember? I’d had three drinks and you’d had four, but the night was cold and the walk was long and our heads cleared up enough to feel the silence, and one of us, I don’t know who, started to talk. It was all we needed. Our voices opened up to fill the quiet, hesitant at first. Uncertain. To speak was to leave ourselves vulnerable. Yet the words kept coming, spurred on by the empty night and the alcohol in our veins, and our responses grew longer, expressive, engaged. We pushed the boundaries of what could be said, like water filling a glass already full, the liquid brimming at the top, bulging against gravity as it tries to hold back from spilling over. Yet neither of us wanted to be the first to make it burst. 

Two acquaintances that had only just met, leaving from a party that neither really liked, a place where booze churned out both mirth and sorrow and we didn’t have enough of either, two placid islands in a dark sea of emotion. And yet. We had chemistry, in a way. Not instant, or explosive, or radical. It simmered, heating up a flask of inert emotion, bubbles starting to cling along the bottom of the glass. Ready to break into a boil with the right temperature, and then it did. You chose to be braver than me.

You said something, a phrase lost to time and the blur of alcohol, and there was a snap, almost imperceptible, a quiet release in a tension I hadn’t realized was there. A shiver passed through me, an invisible breeze in the still night air. Suddenly there was nothing to hide. I gave you a smile and you returned it, the only time we made eye contact that night, and I realized that I knew you. There were a million things that I didn’t, but none of that mattered; I saw you, perfectly framed in the lingering echo of your words, every fractal of your mind branched from a single, beautiful thought. It stunned me. And I knew that I could never afford to lose you.

---

I still have your keychain now, clipped on the zipper of my backpack. Sometimes I look at it and wonder how you’re doing. The loss doesn’t hurt as bad as I thought it would; insecurity makes for a strong shell. What hurts is the regret.

…

[MORE TO WRITE]

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aka sadboi needs to grow a pair 

Crazy week for me—busy with work and running and taxes, and writing has been a good way to balance out the growing insanity in my brain. What I have written here is only bits and pieces of a whole, the pieces all scattered over the floor, and it’s like all I brought was a glue stick. Overall it’s introspective and underdeveloped as is, and needs more active scenes to show how the main character exists outside of the vacuum of his indecisive little head. I hope to find the time to write out the full thing, since the message of the story means a lot to me. 

Also, quick update: I’ve joined a writing course that starts this weekend and continues over six weeks, which I’m extremely excited to start! The end goal in the course is to have a fully written twenty-page short story or excerpt from a novel, which I will definitely be posting here(!!). You can probably also expect a handful of practice exercises, depending on how not-terrible they are.