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Sunday, January 7th, 2017
I have to say goodbye to you, Theo McIntyre.
I’m kneeling before your headstone, my knees buried in the snow, and I hope you know this is what’s best for me. My psychiatrist is treating me with exposure therapy for my OCD, and medicine because she’s diagnosed me with a delusional disorder. I’m not convinced she’s right, but I have to face a version of truth that’s painful—you aren’t actually listening to me. This thought gets me scratching my palm and pulling my earlobe, because if you haven’t heard a single thing I’ve said to you since you died, then you died without knowing the truth.
But now that I’m here, where we buried you, maybe I can talk to you.
I haven’t lost my love for you, I swear. I’m actually nervous I may never lose my love for you, as if I’ll start dating someone else and while I’m piecing together that new puzzle, that new story, I’ll find myself reaching for you-shaped pieces. This might be okay for two or four or six or eight pieces, but anything more than that, and I’ll be left with a puzzle that has half your face, half someone else’s. That’s not fair to the guy who’s expecting me to give him my all the way I did with you.
It’s not fair to Wade.
You’re always going to be my first favorite human. No one can steal that from you. But now I have to get it together and allow room for more favorite people, to trust that Wade and Jackson are worthy of their own crowns.
It’s been rewarding to be this honest lately. I’m determined to stay this honest, as if lives depend on it, which I guess they sort of do. No one will die if I lie, but lives can grow and be fuller when I tell the truth. Being honest will end the fight I have with myself when I’m with Wade, and I can see him for himself instead of someone around to fill up the emptiness.
Maybe when Jackson was here he had this talk with you, too. It kind of makes me sick, like we’re all abandoning you for something that wasn’t your fault. But I guess the point of all this is, Jackson and I will always keep you close, but we’re putting ourselves first, and we’re going to move forward as we’re sure you would want us to.
I promise I’ll find happiness again. It’s the best way to honor you.
I stand, shaking a little as I wrap your hoodie around your headstone to keep you warm. I don’t think it’s right for me to keep this around anymore. I wonder what will happen to it. I wonder if it’ll miraculously be here the next time someone visits you, or if the wind will blow it off and bury it deep beneath the snow, only for some stranger to discover it later. This person won’t know anything about how you gave it to me the afternoon we had sex for the first time.
But that’s okay. History remains with the people who will appreciate it most.
I love you, but I can’t stay longer.
It may be a while before I speak to you again. I’m so happ
y you were my first, Theo, and you were worth all the heartache. I hope I wasn’t living in some alternate universe where I wasn’t actually your first love, too.
But this universe is the only one that matters, and I have one last question for you: I didn’t get our history wrong, did I?
