Stay gold.

I found your letters tonight. Stuffed in the back of my drawer. I realize I have done that with everything about you, stuffed it all away in the back of my mind. Avoided it. But since Trevor’s death, everything has new perspective.

He sat in the same classrooms as me, grew up in the same area as me, drove the same roads as me, walked the same graduation stage as me. And now he’s gone. A guy of my same age, just gone. He didn’t even get to get married, have children, hell, even finish college. It’s not fair. Life isn’t fair. And now everything has new perspective.

They say you never get over your first love. But you seem to have done that pretty easily. Nothing will hurt more than that realization. I see now that I relied on you to feel happy. For over 2 years I did that. And the bad part is, you made me happier than I think I have ever been. But now I make myself happy. And that took a long time, and I am proud of myself that I can do that now. Sometimes I wish I had never moved here. I miss our good times. Senior year, summer 09, even when you moved away to school and we relied on spending the whole weekend together, every weekend. But that was a different time. The ties I have here are good, solid. I can’t run back home just because it is comfortable. I was meant to move to Texas. This was meant to happen.

I don’t understand how you can love someone so much, the way we loved each other, and have that just disappear like it never happened. We didn’t have a high school fling. We knew each other better than anyone else. What we had was real. Even all of our friends knew it. How do you lose that feeling? It has dwindled for me, but I know that it will never fully go away, no matter how much I want it to. The one person I thought would never hurt me, hurt me more than anyone has in my whole life. And still I care. I probably always will. But it hurts that you don’t. I don’t even know you anymore. And that’s how you want it, and I’ve accepted that.

But don’t you ever wonder about me? About my brother? He adored you. You were his hero. About my dad? About his heart problems? My dad loved you. He’d ask about you every day. Every single day. But this is what you wanted, and I’ve accepted that also. I’ve done well. I’m different now, too. There are new things in my life, things I would have loved to share with you. But this is what you wanted.

We were strangers, then friends, then we were in love. And now we’re back to strangers. I don’t think I will ever be okay with that.

Trevor’s death reminded me how short life is. How we all should take care of each other, and keep our bonds with one another strong. I guess ours is the only bond in my life that I wish hadn’t ended up this way. But regardless of this moment of weakness in my feelings tonight, I am strong, I am happy. I am doing well, and I guess that’s all that is important right now.