It’s too bad you don’t have agrizoophobia. (Fear of wild animals, just in case you haven’t hit that in the dictionary yet, either, slowpoke.) That would get you ten points just for the Z.
Maybe next time. I mean, some wild animals are pretty damn scary.
Later, gator,
Griff
P.S. Your letter told me everything wrong with you . . . or at least everything you think is wrong with you. Tell me three things that you’re proud of in your next one.
P.P.S. I lied. You were never not dear to me.
P.P.P.S. I’m so very sorry for your loss, Luca.
“So let me get this straight, he poked fun at your condition, and that’s one of the things you like about him?” Doc stopped and held his pointer finger up to his lips to shush me, even though he’d just asked me a question. We definitely didn’t have traditional therapy sessions. Twice a week, we walked in the woods for a few hours and talked while he looked for birds. He brought a notebook, but half the time he was jotting down notes on the breeds of bird he saw, not anything that I said.
“Yeah. I know it’s odd. But he wasn’t really poking fun at me. I mean, he was, but he wasn’t. It’s one of the things I’d always loved about our relationship. He was always honest, and his joking around was never mean-spirited. It was more like his way of showing me that whatever I was obsessing over wasn’t such a big deal. Like when I was seventeen and still a virgin—I’d told him I was nervous that by the time I did it, everyone else was going to be more experienced, and I’d seem like an awkward amateur. So he made up this crazy song called ‘Urgin’ the Virgin.’ He just has a way of making it okay to laugh at my fears.”
“Hmm,” Doc said. I assumed his response was related to a bird sighting and not what I’d babbled on about. But when I looked over, his trusty binoculars weren’t even up.
“Hmm, what?”
“Well, you fired your old agent because she made a few jokes about your condition, even though she’d always said she was joking. You were never fully convinced of the nature of her ribbing. Yet with Griffin, a man you’ve never even met, you’re able to accept his poking fun as harmless and almost comforting. It seems that you’ve placed a lot of trust with this pen pal of yours.”
I thought about it. “I do trust him. I might not have ever met him, but I considered him one of the closest friends I ever had. We shared a lot over the years. He lived in England, so there wasn’t a chance we were going to walk into each other in the halls at school, which helped break down the normal walls that kids put up to protect themselves. We were really close. Even about some pretty intimate stuff.”
“And yet you broke off all contact with him after the fire.”
“I told you, I was very self-destructive back then. It felt so unfair that I was still alive and Izzy wasn’t. I didn’t allow anything that might cause me happiness to stay in my life. And I think a part of me was ashamed to tell him what had happened. I know now it doesn’t make sense, but I was ashamed I didn’t save Izzy.”
Doc and I walked in silence for a while. Eventually he stopped to peer through his binoculars. He spoke to me while looking off into the distance. “Allowing him back into your life can be good for a number of reasons. One, your relationship with him is intertwined with the period of your life that has caused you the most sadness and grief. You’ve permanently eliminated almost everything from that time of your life—leaving New York, not listening to music, crowds, gatherings, sadly even your parents have passed. So on a daily basis it’s very easy for you to pretend that part of your life didn’t exist. But it did, and while we can push things we don’t want to think about into the recesses of our mind, the only way to truly put them behind us is to deal with them. Griffin is part of your old life that you’ve tried to bury. Dealing with that relationship is a step toward moving forward.”
I nodded. That made sense. “What are the other reasons?”
Doc adjusted his binoculars. “Hmm?”
“You said allowing Griffin back into my life could be good for a number of reasons. But you only told me one.”
“Oh. Yes. Acceptance. The more people you open up to about your condition, the less you’ll fear the reactions of others and the better your support system.”
“I guess . . .”
“Plus, then there’s the coitus.”
I assumed I’d heard him wrong. “The what?”
“Coitus—you know, the unison of the male and female genitalia. It’s been a while since you’ve been with a man.”
Oh God. “Um. Yeah. I got it. Let’s just take it one step at a time.”
Once, I’d written 14,331 words in a day. It was the most productive writing day I’d ever had. Although my average daily word count was more like two thousand. Yet it took me half a day to write a few hundred words in a letter to Griffin. It wasn’t so easy answering the question he’d asked.
Dear Griffin,
The ten pages of tragedy and heartbreak that I wrote to you about bled from my fingers. Yet you asked me a simple question—what three things am I most proud of—and I’ve been staring at an empty page for the better part of an hour. The first one is easy.
My work. I’m proud of the books I’ve written. I guess in my depressing first letter, I failed to mention that my dream came true—I’m a writer, Griff! Four years ago, my debut crime-fiction novel became a New York Times bestseller. I’ve published three additional books since, and I’m currently in the thick of the editing process of my fifth.
The other two things I’m proud of aren’t so easy to come up with. But I guess something I’m very proud of is asking for help after Izzy died. It took me a while longer than it probably should’ve, but I found myself a therapist, and I’m working on facing my fears. One of the hardest things I’ve ever done was to pick up the phone and make that first appointment. It may sound silly, but even explaining my issue over the phone the very first time was difficult. I’m not better yet, but I’m working toward it these days, and for that, I’m proud.
God this is tough. Why did you have to ask for three things? I’m realizing I’m not very good at tooting my own horn. But the last thing I’m proud of is something I do as often as I can—I guess I’d describe it as random acts of kindness. For example, a few times I paid for the groceries of a stranger behind me. Or on a really cold day, I sometimes pick up hot chocolate for the school crossing guards—they’re stuck outside in the cold. I know it’s not earth-shattering, but I enjoy doing it. Once a month, I spend the day cooking a bunch of different meals and then drop them off at Mr. Fenley’s house—he’s my neighbor who lost his wife last year, and he really misses her home cooking.
Okay, enough about me. Now it’s my turn to pick a question for you to answer:
Tell me three things you’re afraid of.
Your favorite pen pal,
Luca
P.S. I love handwritten letters, but if you feel more comfortable on e-mail, we can exchange messages that way.
P.P.S. I’d love to exchange more recent photos. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours? ;)