Dear Little Jo,
I know we’re not really writing anymore, and I know I already said I was sorry a few times in person. It still doesn’t feel like enough somehow, so I’m just going to write it out. Get it down hopefully once and for all. Maybe this is what they mean by a formal apology: It doesn’t feel like it sticks until it’s written out.
We were in your bedroom, sitting on the floor just inside the door. Not in your tent yet, although that’s where we were headed. You were kissing me and you stopped and said, “Are you okay, Kurl?”
“Why?” I said.
“Sometimes I get the sense that you check out for a few seconds. As though you suddenly jump ship, and I’m the only one here with our two bodies.”
I said I didn’t know what you were talking about. But of course, Jo, of course I knew. I’d felt it—exactly what you described, like I’d gone somewhere else.
“Maybe it’s related to your uncle in some way,” you said.
I didn’t move a muscle and I didn’t say anything. But I mean you must have felt me pulling away even further because you rushed in to say more: “But my point is that I don’t care what it’s related to,” you said. “I just don’t want you to worry about calling a limit, or saying ‘no’ to me. Ever. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You’re not hurting me,” I said. I tried to add in a laugh to it, but we both knew it wasn’t a real laugh.
“Can we change the subject, please?” I said.
“Okay,” you said.
So we sat there a minute totally silent while I tried to think of another subject. My brain had nothing in it though. Just white noise. Static.
“Have you started writing that autobiographical essay for the college application yet? The ACE piece?” you said, finally.
“It’s under control.” Small talk, I thought. We were making small talk, like distant cousins or something.
“I can help you with it, if you want.”
“Nah, I’m good. Thanks though,” I said.
“It’s just that I sometimes worry a bit when we’re together,” you said, rushing the words, “that maybe you’d let me push you past where you’re comfortable, or where it’s feeling good to you. You know, because you’re used to Viktor doing it.”
I swung forward onto my haunches and spun around to face you. “I’m not fucking broken, all right?” I said. “I’m not like some broken thing you have to hold together.”
“I know that, Kurl. I just wanted to have it said.”
“Stop acting like a fag for one second, would you?”
Your head snapped back so hard that your hollow bedroom door gave a loud thwack.
“Seriously,” I said, “you can be such a fucking pussy sometimes.” My voice was terrible. Terrible.
You got up off the floor, backed over to the chair by your desk, and sat down. The worst thing of all was how you were trying to not let me see you were crying and also to not take your eyes off me, both at the same time.
It was like a contaminant had leaked out of my mouth. A chemical spill. There must have been a stench. I mean I’ve inhaled this exact poison for five years now from my uncle. No surprise really that eventually it would build up and boil over.
So that’s when I started saying I was sorry.
Right away you said, “It’s okay,” but I said, “No, I’m serious, Jo, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean it.”
“I know you didn’t,” you said. “Ignore the crying.”
I kept apologizing, and you kept saying to forget the whole thing. Finally you asked if we could please pretend it never happened. We went downstairs and made ourselves dinner from the stuff we found in the fridge: eggs and oven fries and eggplant and peppers.
But I know the night was ruined because of me. And I know it’s not going to go away. A chemical spill doesn’t just soak into the dirt and disappear. I don’t know what it’ll take to clean it up, but maybe a formal apology is a place to start.
Jo, I am sorry for what I said. Forgive me?
Sincerely,
AK