Page 44 of Only After We Met
PS: Don’t freak out. I’ll send you another email soon and keep up my side of the bargain. And I promise I’ll try to put it all out there, as much as I’m able to, even if I suck at it. You’re lucky—I can’t fall asleep tonight.
From: Rhys Baker
To: Ginger Davies
Subject: Second try
Honestly, Ginger, I don’t know where to start. For half an hour, I’ve been looking at the computer screen, and I’ve started this email a million times, but then I keep erasing everything I write. I think that’s why I sent you the other one earlier, because I wasn’t sure how long it would take me to write this one. It’s morning here, so I guess you’re already at school. Ginger, Ginger. You know what I like most about you? How you let me see you from the word go, without asking for anything in exchange, without hiding. You made me want to do the same, to give you…something.I don’t know why it’s so hard for me to talk about myself. I’m not anyone special. I haven’t had a traumatic life. In theory I’m no different from you, but…look at us. Me writing and erasing and rewriting while you’re probably banging on the keyboard nonstop.
From: Rhys Baker
To: Ginger Davies
Subject: A part of me
Okay, it all comes down to that time I told you that you’d hit the nail on the head. It’s true: I grew up in a big house in one of the nicest parts of the state. We had a maid and a gardener. I had a happy childhood. I adored my father. I adored my mother. We looked like the perfect family.
And yes, Ginger, I was captain of the football team, the guy who got invited to all the parties and went out with the hottest chick in class. And—right again—I was prom king. So what do you think? Impressed? I never pushed to make these things happen; they just did. I didn’t even try. I had everything a person could want in arm’s reach. For a long time. My life was idyllic.
From: Ginger Davies
To: Rhys Baker
Subject: RE: A part of me
Rhys, I don’t know what to say. I didn’t imagine… Honestly Iwas joking when I said all that stuff. I never thought a person like you…the person I met… I don’t know, I mean, I can’t even imagine you like that as a kid. Just forget it. Don’t tell me anything you don’t want me to know, my snail boy. I’ll be your friend no matter what.
From: Rhys Baker
To: Ginger Davies
Subject: The other part of me
So the other side of the coin is that I had never felt emptier than I did at that time in my life. Or more alone. Is there any solitude that’s sadder, Ginger, than being surrounded by people but feeling like there’s no one there?
Remember what you told me that night in Paris about how you were scared you’d killed and buried the true Ginger? Honestly, you don’t have to kill the real you; you can just throw a muzzle on and forget yourself day after day. I feel like that’s what a lot of us do. We convince ourselves we want to be a certain way that doesn’t come naturally from within us, and we don’t even really like it. It doesn’t fulfill us; it doesn’t move us. But we force it. And we keep trying. And the years pass. And you start doing this thing and that thing, and you convince yourself that you can be happy since everyone else is (or looks like they are). But you know what? It’s not true. And one day, I realized that.
I realized I just had one life, and I didn’t want to throw it in the trash.
I realized the time had come to change things.
And here we are, Ginger, talking about what life means…
From: Ginger Davies
To: Rhys Baker
Subject: RE: The other part of me
For the first time ever, you’ve made an effort to really open up. You’re doing great. For real. See? Nothing bad happened; the world’s still going on its merry way. I’m proud I can inspire you to open up and be more expressive. I admit I didn’t expect what you told me about your past, and it surprised me, but… I like it, Rhys. I think you’re the most contradictory, unpredictable person I know. I wonder if that should scare me.
From: Rhys Baker
To: Ginger Davies
Subject: RE: RE: The other part of me
Why should it scare you, Ginger?