Page 82 of Resistance Training
I am saying to you now—and please believe me when I say that I have never said this to anyone else before and never thought I would—if you want me as more than a friend…if you want me in all the ways that a boy wants a girl, then I want you to understand that I want that with you too.
I am open to this.
I am open to talking about where we went wrong and how to get better at being each other’s best friend and how to feel safe enough to love each other and fall in love and do awesome things to each other’s bodies.
And if we aren’t good at doing those things at first, then we will allow each other to get better at it until we are experts at making each other feel good in all the ways people can make each other feel good.
I want that.
I didn’t know I wanted it until it was too late, apparently, but I want it and I want it with you.
If you want this with me and you’re reading this, please, please, please write me back.
Just say hey.
I will take it from there.
But don’t take advantage of my guilt. Don’t try to make me feel worse than I already do about what happened. I don’t even know that what I feel is guilt, to be honest. I feel so bad about what happened and I wish things had happened differently, but neither of us had all the information.
I feel like this is the most mature email I will ever send anyone, so I really hope it gets a response. If not, I’ll probably just go back to being how I was before. Whatever that was. Or who knows, maybe I’ll go down a totally different path. But this is how I feel now. This is what I want. So there is no confusion.
Even though we’re going to different schools in different states next month. Even though we have hurt each other. Even though I made you read Twilight and you read it even though you hated it.
From: [email protected]
Subject: I guess I’m an email stalker now?
Sept 15, 2017, 10:46 p.m.
Okay, now I am genuinely, actually mad at you. I can’t believe I haven’t heard from you at all. Are you even reading these emails? I don’t think you are. I believe…I have to believe that if you read these emails you would at least respond in some way. Maybe you’re just deleting them. If you are, it’s because you’re still hurt. I get it. But I’m not giving up until you tell me to.
I move into my dorm room next week, so I’ll be busy. I’m going to limit my emails to you. I’m not giving up and if you reply, then I will, of course, respond. But I’m going to get on with my life now. I wish I could get on with it knowing that you’re out there somewhere, not hating me.
You should have started classes at Princeton by now. I tried calling the registrar, and you’ll be pleased to know that it got me nowhere. I wasn’t able to find out anything online. I still can’t find you on social media. You’re just gone. And yet Mrs. Chen says she’s heard from your mom and that you’re all fine. It’s weird. But I believe everything Mrs. Chen says, so…I’m glad you’re fine, I guess.
From: [email protected]
Subject: ABC
Oct 7, 2017, 11:13 a.m.
So, I’m a college student. Are you? I have decided to continue Asshole Book Club.
I’m reading that book you told me about. S. by JJ Abrams and Doug Dorst. I had always planned to read it this summer when I could really enjoy it. But I thought I’d be able to talk to you about it while I read it. And then I didn’t want to readit while I knew I couldn’t talk to you about it. But now I just want to read it in the brief moments when I’m not studying or doing homework or being this amazing new college student version of myself that you’re totally missing out on. Not that it feels like reading so much as scanning the pages.
Oh my God, I despise you, Bradley Mitchell.
I don’t know why this is the thing that makes me feel your absence more than anything else. More than when I walked to school by myself. More than you icing me out. More than finally watching the last season of Lost and not being able to vent about it with you. There is literally no one else I can talk to about how much I love this book. I love that it smells like an old library book even though it’s new.
I wish we had a book we had written notes in.
I love the entire physical experience of reading the handwritten notes in the margins and unfolding the letters and finding the postcards and everything that’s tucked between the pages! The mystery and the puzzle of it.
I love the collaborative detective work between Jen and Eric in the notes.
