remember last time, we don’t want it like that this time around

Hi, Dylan. Google analytics tells me someone in Charlottesville spent a while on here late last week. Then you tried to friend me on facebook. I have a hunch those things are connected.

When you tried to friend me, I responded with a single question: why? I’m not sure yet if I’m interested in your interpretation of that question or your answers to it, but I am interested in a thought-ramble about you. Stina complained I only wrote hurt letters to her, and maybe it’s time to fix that.

To start with, I never wrote hurt letters to you for a few reasons. One is because the pair of you are a collective unit, and I knew whatever I wrote would make its way to you. You were my friend first (Stina intimidated me terribly when we met), and we were so close of course I had to be friends with both of you. We told strangers we were siblings. We told your coworkers we were siblings. And I loved you like the brother I wanted to have. You frustrated me and hurt my feelings and I loved you anyway.The relationship we had could not be quantified in words, could not be described with pen to paper or words on a screen. I didn’t write you letters because I don’t think about you in words.

Not speaking to Christina hurts. Our whole relationship was built around words, around the way we used them and had shared language to draw upon. Not being near you hurts. I miss the physical comfort I had with you–it’s hard to come by, for me, but you made me feel at ease.

You hurt my feelings–often, actually. You refused to use the language I asked you to about my sexuality. You were so dismissive of non-binary genders I never made a sound about my own after a single, tentative suggestion. You styled yourself as an expert on the autism spectrum because you work with little boys with social issues. Dylan. I’m not a ten year old, socially awkward boy. I’m me. And I’m autistic. Insisting I was wrong, that I was looking for excuses, that I wanted to be special, it fucking hurt. You never noticed that I hate the Little Prince, hate it with a passion. Instead you got me another, more special, more expensive copy.

I wasn’t a model best friend. I still don’t know the full story about your falling out with your parents. I don’t know if you had lung problems before you started binding. I don’t know why you became a vegetarian. I don’t know a fucking lot of things. I was afraid to ask. Asking feels off-limits, so staunchly rule-breaking I can’t do it–not an excuse, just an explanation.

I don’t know anything about you anymore, and I’m no longer sure you know anything at all about me. I’m not sure I want to be friends with someone who made me feel inferior all the time. So, why? Why ask? Why now?