These Coming Years

Chapter One: Six Years

Brendon,

Nothing in this letter is meant to come off as mean or bitter. Now that we got that out of the way, what the hell is your problem?

I'm just kidding. I'm really not angry at you for leaving. I get angry when I think about it sometimes, but we both made rash decisions that day. I can't say I can entirely forgive you yet. That's just me being stubborn.

There are about a hundred million things I want to tell you, but my hand is never going to be able to keep up with me for all of it. And a lot of the things I'm going to write are going to be so stupid, but I already feel like a jackass, so I'm writing it down anyways.

It's only been about three months, but living at home again has made it feel like three decades. My mom is still driving me bananas, and I have nothing to do to avoid her. Unless I want to go sit in my truck alone for a few hours. Not so say I'm not friends with Rudy and Marisol anymore. But it's not like school anymore, you know?

Rudy doesn't have as much time to hang out. He is in deep love, and he's trying to save up a whole lot of money. He wants to get a better job with much better pay so he can get a small apartment with Marisol. He's never been a forward thinker until now. It's something new about him. He wants to advance in his love with Marisol and in his own personal situations. I guess love made him grow up fast.

Marisol got fed up with "Sad Lisa" very quickly, and I guess I don't blame her. She's really different too. She used to be so love struck and girly and dependent on earning Rudy's love, but since they've been together, she's slowly become a more independent kind of woman. And it feels like it happened over night. I think she still really loves Rudy, and I don't see any signs of them breaking up soon, but she has certainly changed. Maybe it's a good thing. She shows her love for Rudy, and eagerly accepts it from him, but she's made it clear that she doesn't need his affection to survive. I think that's really healthy. I had never thought about it that way before, but it seriously makes so much sense to me.

I don't talk to anyone besides them. I guess I'm at a new phase of my life. I spend most of my time thinking alone nowadays. Mostly, I think about all the things I should've said to anyone ever. Currently, it's the things I should've said to you that I can't get out of my head.

So, I'm going to tell you some of the things I meant to tell you before. I don't care if they aren't important to you. It's important to me to get these things out.

Two months after you showed up, I disappeared for three days or something like that. Thinking about what happened from the point of view of anyone else, it seemed random and out of nowhere. In my head, however, it seemed like what I had to do.

The the day before I Houdini'd, I had been feeling somewhat depressed. Maybe that's too harsh of a word. I was just in an awkward funk. I fell asleep in Wimble's class, and I had this dream.

So, in the dream, I woke up in Wimble's classroom, but you were the only one there. You told me something about Wimble not seeing me throughout the period, so I slept all the way through. You became very weird and intense, and you somehow knew about my scars. You told me you were worried that I was feeling similarly to how I might have felt when I cut myself.

Thinking about it now, it was such a dumb thing for me to dream about. But that wasn't the important part. In the dream, you kissed me. I don't remember quite so much of that part, but I did remember you saying something kind of strange. You said, "I've got more where that came from to spark you." I wonder now if you said that because my mind described the moment to feel like a storm. Like you were striking me with lighting, or something like that. It was something stupid and poetic.

Anyways, when Wimble woke me up, I was so embarrassed. I didn't want to face you or anyone, and that's why I stayed home for all those days. I assume the dream was just a way for me to tell myself that I was pretty sure you had feelings for me. On all those days I stayed home, I dreamt of you. You were constantly telling me to reach out to you. You told me to talk to you like there wouldn't be any consequences. That's when I finally called you.