TIME CAPSULE

May 24, 1987

Dear Brian,

It’s almost three in the morning and I can’t stop crying. I’m just gonna die if I don’t tell someone, even if it’s just you in this letter, which I am never going to send. I can’t sleep anyway. I’m so sorry I messed everything up. We were having such a good time at the movies. I’m so sorry I had to ruin it all by trying to kiss you.

I have to get it out of my head. So I never have to think about it again. I will never think about it again. But I have to explain. To you. To myself. It’s not like I planned it. It wasn’t a date or anything. I just wanted to see my favorite movie with my best friend.

We had so much fun laughing and joking in the car on the way there. No one can make me laugh as hard as you. And then, when we were in the theater and the Star Wars music started playing and you smiled at me, I got this horrible, awful, wonderful feeling. Like a cramp in my stomach from too much Mountain Dew and my heart was fluttering from all the caffeine. But I hadn’t had any soda and I didn’t have the flu.

And I just felt so happy. Like it didn’t matter that Dwight and Jason call me names at school. Or that Dad is bugging me to join the football team again. It didn’t even matter that you’re leaving in two weeks. Because in that moment, everything in the world was absolutely right. Absolutely perfect. Like I couldn’t ever get any happier.

I looked over at you as the escape pod fell to Tatooine and I could see your face in the glow of the two suns and you looked as happy as I felt. And you glanced over at me and you smiled, and then you put your arm on the armrest so it was touching mine.

It was touching mine!

After that, I couldn’t concentrate on the movie at all. I just kept thinking about how your arm was right next to mine. You had on that same striped shirt you’d worn at the beginning at Skylab. Even in the darkness of the theater, I could make out a few freckles on your arm, just above your wrist. Like stars in the sky.

And then I had a thought.

Maybe you liked me too.

I mean, I know you like me. But maybe you liked me. And you are moving in two weeks. And what if you liked me and I never knew because I never told you.

Then Obi-Wan was using the Jedi mind trick on the Stormtroopers. I always loved that scene. I’d gotten a puzzle of it one year at Christmas. And I thought, I’ll try it on Brian. Maybe I can get him to smile at me again.

I know, it sounds insane. I know there’s no Jedi mind trick and you can’t will someone to do something just by thinking it. But for some reason, it seemed completely logical at the time. Like, yes, of course, that’s an excellent plan.

So I started thinking, Look over at me and smile. Look over at me and smile. Again and again and again. While Alderaan blew up, and Luke released Leia from her cell, and they all escaped the trash compactor.

Then just before Luke and Leia swung across the chasm in the Death Star, it happened. You turned to look at me and smiled.

And that’s when I leaned over . . .

I don’t know what I was thinking! I didn’t know what I was going to do. I didn’t even get close to your mouth. But when you put your hands up and pushed me away and asked, “What the hell, dude? Are you trying to kiss me?!!” I honestly thought I was going to die.

My lungs tightened and I couldn’t breathe. There was this horrible ringing in my ears. While Darth Vader killed Obi-Wan, I kept blinking, blinking, but I couldn’t make my eyes focus. I was hot, then cold, then hot again, my heart pounding with the music. You leaned over to the other side of your seat, as far away from me as possible. I felt like I was going to throw up.

I wasn’t planning to kiss you! It was just an impulsive thing. And kids are impulsive, right? It didn’t mean anything. I’m not like your uncle, I’m really not. I mean, sure, maybe I’ve thought about kissing a guy before, but it was just a thought. I bet a lot of guys think about that. They just don’t talk about it because it’s too embarrassing. It doesn’t mean . . . anything!

Okay, so maybe part of me would like to be like your uncle. I don’t want an earring, but I’d love to be as brave as him, and not care about what anyone says about how I dress or act. But I’m not like that. Except when I’m around you, Brian. You make me feel brave and confident and like myself. I’m sorry I had to go and ruin our friendship.

I wish I had been fearless enough to say some of that to you. But I wasn’t. We just sat there and watched Luke blow up the Death Star and I wanted to be on it too. You are brave, and I know you were trying to be nice when you wanted to talk to me about what had happened afterward. But . . . I don’t want to talk about it.

I never want to talk about it. I just want to forget it ever happened. Those feelings didn’t mean anything, and if I ever have them again, I just need to ignore them. Maybe I was trying to kiss you—I don’t know—but it doesn’t matter, because nothing like that is ever going to happen again.

I’m glad you’re moving. Glad in two weeks you’re going to leave and I’ll never see you again. No one can ever know what I did. No one. I should burn this letter as soon as I’m done writing it.

But I can’t. I just can’t. I can’t erase our friendship. That’s all it was, right? A friendship. I will be different. I’ll be good. I won’t have these thoughts anymore. I won’t let myself.

But I don’t want to forget.

Your friend forever,

Jeff