Hi Hunter. I love you. I hope that the spiritual world is everything you had ever dreamed of, and more. I hope it's like the books about Buddhism and Hindu philosophy that you loved. I hope it's like the world of your dad's prayers :)
I know you're looking down upon me. With your eyes that were always kind and patient and warm, never judging me or hurting anyone. I was talking to your mom yesterday (I know! It's ok.) and she was saying about how you would never hurt a fly. It's so true, I guess I never paused to wrap my mind around it but you have the absolute gentlest heart. I think that's why it was so funny to hear you talk about your roommates and how you could beat any of them up in the 'thunder dome'. It's not that I doubt your strength and agility; you have the body of a Greek god and you can do more with it, to boot. It's just that you're so goddamn sweet and gentle.
I can't believe I wasn't there for you the one day you needed me the most. I can't believe that I didn't sense your pain, because I did, I just wasn't being so good at reading you because I couldn't see past my anxiety and my hurt ego and my fat selfish head. Why the fuck wasn't I present enough to drop my plans to be with you, to ignore D's feelings to let you be with us, to let you relieve your stress and become revitalized, to give you drinks and have you stay over to talk with me late into the night? And why didn't I answer the phone? Why was I so drunk and disoriented that I fell back asleep? I can't believe it, it hurts me so bad to know that I could have done something for you that night, sweetheart. I love you so much it fucking hurts.
I'm not going to drink like that anymore. I'm not going to get drunk anymore. You had made that one of your resolutions for next semester, and I'm going to take over it for you. I'm also going to go hiking more, take over your next resolution too. You had asked me if I wanted to go hiking with you more. I did, I do, and I always will. I cannot believe I sometimes felt, probably expressed, a painful hint of derision when you made these grandiose freeing plans for next semester. Why? I wanted you to be happy and at peace, truly I did. Sometimes your ideas and dreams were far-fetched, far from grounded; but I think that was my own problem, not yours. You have this uniquely open mind; you come up with these freeing possibilities. I don't know why I ever doubted your plans for a beautiful tomorrow; I've seen you do superhuman feats in midair and conquer the silks with insane grace and strength; you dreamed the impossible, and then you did it. And it always looked beautiful and effortless, and you always left completely humble. Shit, I know that if I had possessed half of the talent that you possessed in one little finger, I would have bragged about it to no end.
Sometimes these last few days I have thought about it, and I've never met a person like you who walks this earth. Never someone with as much compassion and openness to people and experiences; with as much warmth or with such kind eyes. Never someone who makes me, or anyone else you spoke to, feel so special. I have so much pain. It sits in my head and then sometimes in my heart. I feel the stinging rise of anxiety in my chest sometimes and then I hurt even more because I knew you were the one person who could always soothe me, make me feel better. Time with you was like a massage to the soul. Like on Saturday, when we ate breakfast together and talking with you and coffee made me feel instantly relaxed, simultaneously energized, and so happy to be bantering with my best friend in the universe. Later that day, you swam with me and eased my tension even more, and then soaked with me in the hottub while I talked probably utter nonsense that you made sound like utter gold, the way you hung on my every word. You were always so responsive to everyone, so good at reading peoples' needs but also being yourself despite the circumstances. I don't think I've ever met someone so unashamed to be themselves. I loved seeing you stomp down the Rocky Horror aisle as Nurse Rachastity, looking over and seeing Johnathan fasten your bra for you and snapping some amazing pictures of the bro-bonding moment. I loved seeing you do that, too. Loved seeing how well you and Jordan got along and respected each other and talked. Loved seeing how you were the glue to your apartment and always took the time to talk to Patrick and tease him and make everyone laugh with your playful jibes, no matter how much you were hurting inside.
I only realized it sometimes, but only really now, the extent of the pain you must have felt, sweetheart. I know that what I am feeling now can only be a fraction of what you were feeling.... when you called me and I didn't come. Please, please, please forgive me. I didn't mean to let you hurt like that Hunter. I don't know how I'm going to do it without you next semester. You were the light that kept me going; the prospect of a funny movie while snuggling with you and a bottle of cider and the end of the day. The idea that after our shit stressful weeks, we were going to soak in the hottub and talk for hours and just let it all go. The knowledge that when I went to Clark I was probably going to run into you there and we were going to endlessly distract each other by pouring out our souls and talking about our lives and our days and watching stupid videos and talking and laughing so loud that we pissed everyone around us off. I'm hurting so hard for you, baby boy. I don't know how I'll live without getting to hug you every day and texting you all my mundane thoughts and seeing your hilarious responses in return, without having you for late night food runs and massive burgers washed down with beer at boylan, your pinings for red wine and the ocean at beach week.
I hope that you are at peace now. I hope that it doesn't hurt anymore. I had this awful dream last night, that it was all a joke and you texted me and said 'Kam! Whats up!' and I was so happy, in sleep my heart soared to the sun, and then I woke up to your dad calling me and everything was shattered. He pulled a couple lines from poems; one by an Arab poet, very beautiful lines about your shadow gracing my brow. Another from Hamlet; I had to keep myself from laughing though, because although you certainly are his sweet prince; handsome and chivalrous and respectful and just; you hated that play, and I remember you talking about it. I can't say I exactly remember your explanation (or that you exactly knew it either), but I remembered it so clearly it almost brought me yet another misplaced laugh in front of your father. God knows that's all I need to improve my image for him, right? ;) Your propensity to laugh that fucking hard while remaining silent will never cease to amaze me, my sweet prince.
You were too full for this world; too full of laughter and light, too good at making others feel special. You are indescribable; enigmatic, a shimmering sweet fairy, effervescent even though we finally figured out what that word means :) To you, it can mean whatever you want. Just like those filler words you'd use in your essays.
I'm sorry if I came off as too harsh sometimes. I think you knew, and hope you continue to believe, that it is because I am so damn comfortable with you. I know it's not really fair to justify being kinda mean based on that alone, but the crush on you didn't really help, I guess. Who couldn't crush on you Hunter? You're attractive as all hell, you have the most approachable, interesting, conversational and engaging personality, and you're flirty as all get-out without even understanding what you're doing. I saw girlfriend after girlfriend fall in love with you, and half the time they didn't even know it (or want to admit it to themselves) in the first place. It made me burn with jealousy, which I know you knew. I'm sorry for loading that on you, I just thought it would mitigate my stress levels (which it certainly did) and I hope it helped you realized how much I treasure you, how much I prize you in my life. It's like I told you that one day, I felt like a middle school girl and her best friend; I couldn't help but be insanely possessive of you. But it didn't work, thankfully; your light seeped out and warmed everyone you spoke to; whether it be the kids in our Hindi class who I was too nervous and haughty to get to know (but who became your best friends) or Jen, who I was too nervous around to let in, or Mari, who fell for you like anyone with eyes and a heart. I am so glad they got to feel your light and your warmth. Know that my jealousy was only testament to your insane power over people.
I think that right now, two things scare me the most. The idea that I won't have you beside me to weather and suck the marrow out of and love and enjoy the next semester. The idea that I don't have my best friend to share my every mundane thought and every fleeting pain and every flight of fancy and immature moment with. The idea that I can't bare my soul to you and have you massage all the pain away.
And secondly, I'm scared for your memory. I will never forget you. You left footprints across my heart. But I am scared for how hard it can be to recall your voice saying the things I know you said. I don't ever want to forget what your tight hugs felt like, where I tried to squeeze into you all my aching, hungry love and you squeezed back just as hard as I did. I know now that if you ever seemed distant or like you weren't reciprocating in our friendship, it was because of how much pain you were in. I never want you to be alone. I never did. You thrive too much on people, on making people happy and laugh and on freeing their minds and their stressed, aching chests from pain. That was your gift, among the many others you shared with the world; this was the most golden.
I'm scared that all the distinct memories we share will blur into one amaglamated mess. I'm hungry to pen them down.
I want to respect your memory in the way that would serve you best; by trying as much as I can to spread your light. I will be as attentive and genuinely fascinated in other people and their lives as you always were. I will laugh as hard and as genuinely at their jokes and their silly comments as you did. I want to make people feel a fraction of how special you always made me, and all of your friends, feel.
I want to try to do something spontaneous every day. It brightened everyone's day that you didn't adhere to rigid expectations of the world; that you would burst into song or speak to people in other languages; why did I ever question it? Sometimes I just couldn't appreciate it, how refreshing it actually was that you always had something exciting and refreshing and NOT mundane to talk about; how you wouldn't complain about your day as a conversation starter, but would instead say something completely random that others would want to respond to simply because you were so funny and charming.
I'm ready to carefully pen some detailed memories, because I want to store them in that pocket beneath my heart (not that other pocket that we were always talking about;)), forever.
Last year, I loved eating with you and Dakota late night at Ihop or Applebees. I loved "studying" with you at Clark, while we actually dicked around and laughed together for hours. I loved staying in Clark with you after Astrobiology (vomit) and laughing at news bloopers and wasting your time talking about all sorts of things, and always skipping Physics because being with you was just so much more fun. I loved finding Kid Cutie on my chair in Clark's back room. It made me feel so special and loved while I was studying for a test that i had on my birthday (ah, woe is me). I loved dancing with you at escafe, and the (not so) secret kiss we shared at the beginning of the semester. I loved playing with you in the snow; putting you on the phone with Peter and sledding down the rotunda steps and freaking out at you for doing a totally unsafe front flip off of the railing around the rotunda steps.
Oh and remember that night when it was snowing SO HARD and I was over at Tomas's place with you and Dakota while you and Tomas played video games, and I worked on my essay and complained about a test I had the next day. Like a complete baller, you drove Dakota's car in the snow without a single slip, and then the next morning I still remember the text I got from you; 'No test for you today. *said in a very expensive Russian accent*'. I guess I couldn't forget it because only Hunter would describe an accent as expensive.
I loved when you would come hang out in my room before your math class; sometimes we would nap, sometimes we would watch tv and snuggle, mostly we would talk about anything and everything and laugh until we were giddy and delirious. I can't remember ever having had a friend like this before that. I never will; you are Hunter, as you always liked to say, so that people couldn't categorize you; but really it describes that no one else was quite as special.
And I loved that sometimes we would be having so much fun that I would be able to convince you to just stay, to not go to your next math class.
Damn, we were bad about that, weren't we? Remember that time I think you must have spent the night or something, but you came to Immunology with me the next day and we sat in the back row being loud assholes the whole time, cracking up every time he would say 'phagocytosis' cuz ain't nobody cytosing this fag. He's all mine. And the times you tried to convince me to come to Math with you, but then realized it would be weird because it was such a small class?
I loved that I could bitch to you about my boy problems, and that you wore my tights under striped underwear to that SOR party that literally noone else dressed up for (that's my boy). And I loved, loved, loved beach week; playing with you for hours in the waves, learning from you how to boogie board and body surf, dancing with you whilst drunk off my ass at that gay club, spending ridiculous hours on the beach, and then crashing into the lazy river to terrify small children.
I loved that you were always there for me this summer; you were there to receive my drunk phone calls, even there before I threw up from drinking too much rum. Whenever I felt anxious or down, I could skype you for long hours, into the night. I loved that last winter break too; loved that I could sneak into my living room and you'd be so funny and warm that we'd stay up for hours laughing and my dad would come into the living room to shush me and ask me if I knew what time it was. Do you know the last time that he did that? It was when I was 12 or something, having a slumber party. You made me giggle like a 12 year old girl, sweetie.
Haha, and it made me laugh the way you called me out whenever I would call you honey. It's a weird speech mannerism that I had no idea where I picked up (or why I thought I could pull off), but it was so funny when I'd say it without realizing and you'd raise an eyebrow at me and be like 'honey?'. And your accents; I don't think I'd heard them til this semester, but your australian accent was just great. Like I told you, sexy in a weird way. And that blacksburg (sorry Giles, Saaalem) southern accent was just something else completely.
I liked hearing about your dates and your friends this summer. Imagining you teaching those swimming lessons was just about the most adorable, most endearing thing I had ever heard. How you told me when you'd say 'ok, jump in when I say green. Grrrrraape' and then you'd show me how they shook their heads and said 'Nooooo'. And that baby boy who you gave swimming lessons to; oh, I just crumbled inside. If I had been your swimming student, I would have had the biggest crush on you. Oh wait. oh, and Sakikooo Okimoto's answering machine; never failed to crack me up.
All these little things you told me, they just helped me feel so much more connected with you, part of your life. I hope you can see me Hunter. I understand why people want to believe in the life after death now. Finally. I know you are still part of the spiritual world because you always were, sweetheart.
This semester; I know it started out rockier than you'd expected. I knew it was going to be hard, for both of us; but I didn't in any part of my mind think it would be like this. You were so close. SO CLOSE. to being out of whatever funk being at UVA was putting you in. Whatever hellhole was happening. I almost feel selfish for beseeching you so hard to stay at UVA last year. I'm not sure anymore... I don't know.
But I loved that, the day I got back from Utah, your dad was there helping you move into Bice. I loved that he took us to lunch and I fucking laughed at his native american prayer again and I hugged you so hard your back popped and that while he wasn't looking you paid for our meal. You sweetheart. And I loved being at the activities fair with you, where you talked to some chick from the ski team (ok, lets be honest I think she was just hitting on you), and then.... you disappeared and I was hurting for you, because that was the first day that I had gotten some idea of what it would be like for you this semester.
I remember sitting with you in the garden while you called CAPS. You were really brave about it. I remember getting lunch with you at West Range or Newcomb after Hindi classes and just yammering your ear off; even if you had homework to do you were so attentive and you actually did listen to me, which is a lot more than I can say for some of my friends, even when I'm talking to them face to face. I loved when we would sit in the library late at night and just end up having great, long conversations even when we were supposed to be doing homework. And I loved that you said how you loved talking to me; like that night that it rained hard and we came back from Clark (after you had made best friends with Felissa and talked to her for like an hour) and went back to my dorm room and Arni was in the room with us and you told me that; told me how we couldn't get any work done because it was so awesome talking with me. We shared everything with each other, and I really had never felt so connected to a friend in this way, ever before. It was so cathartic, so enriching. Then that night I remember you took the time to take care of Arni, you are such a lover. Your heart is so good, Hunter.
I know there was some pain involved in our month of hooking up, but I don't regret it because you said you liked it, and i know you liked it, and I know you liked exploring this new world of pleasure. (god I know, don't judge me for how soft-porn that sounds. Sapno ka Jahaan ka porn, ji han?
Anyway some beautiful nights were passed in your arms, or feeling your conscientious, sweet lips everywhere. You're really good in bed, I hope you know that too (though I think that wasn't ever something you were insecure about ;)
In that short month, I had the pleasure of experiencing you in so many more ways. It was like we had nothing to hide from each other after that, it was kind of cool in a way that we were able to connect on literally so many different levels. I'm sorry for being impatient with you with your emotions; I know it wasn't reasonable for you to be emotionally on the same page as me for so many reasons, but I couldn't help but wish. You're super irresistible to everyone who meets you.
I loved our late nights studying, then drinking wine together and fooling around before i fell asleep in your arms and showed up exhausted but thrilled to class the next morning. Our weekend in Blacksburg over Halloween was so fun; I loved how excited you got when we entered Blacksburg, how you lit up and then we jumped out into the freezing rain and went to the liquor store where we acted like straight up idiots and you started singing the good ol' song before you realized you didn't know the words and Andrew screamed 'Wahoowa!' and then to my chastisement stood in the middle of an aisle and said "I wish a bitch would!" and flexed his massive biceps. I'm so sorry that I tried to make you kiss me when we were in Bburg and then got so angry when you didn't. I didn't mean to hurt you or make you cry. I was a cruel drunk, and a selfish lover, I know. You were just looking out for Kendall's feelings, and I should have been too; I know that this was the right thing to do and that you were just being considerate and thinking of him first. But the next day was so fun; I loved meeting your mom, eating at that diner where Landon's brother worked, getting Pho with you and Brenda and her boy thing, and then looking through that asian store with you guys. I loved playing ping pong at virginia tech and then getting an (exhausted) tour of the drill field and the beautiful fountains. Vtech looks like a massive stone castle. I was supposed to live in Blacksburg and do that psych internship this summer, and you were going to be there too, and it was going to be so fun. I don't know if I could handle being there again without you. And then Andrew picked us up and we went to Dominoes and you jumped on me when I hugged you and I said you better be thankful that I have hips because otherwise you would've slid right off. remember that nasty giant bag of M&Ms? Can't believe we kept eating that shit.
Then, that night when I was hurting so hard inside because I knew you didn't want to hook up any more but I also knew it was the right decision; I think it was the day after the SOR meeting and my chat with Emerson, and we sat in the Little Johns for hours talking and figuring our shit out and I broke down into tears and you took care of me and put your arms around me and it was perfect, because I knew that since we communicated so often, so well, and so honestly we were able to keep our friendship intact despite hooking up. And then you walked me back and said that you were so happy that we had done that, that you loved talking to me so much and you invited me to the gymnastics semiformal the next weekend; which was one of the most fun days seeping into nights of my life. I loved going shopping with you; making you buy that super cute sweater that I know you liked, that I saw you wore to karaoke with Mari on Sunday (I'm glad you went...). and I loved dressing you up, and I loved that you had me try on that floor-length dress at Body Central and it wasn't even a little slutty, and it was so perfect and we ended up matching that night too :) Dinner at Fig was perfect. It was also so sweet of you to come to Morgan's party with me, at least for a hot second, and then I had a lot of fun at escafe and then with your obnoxious gymnastics friends at Cookout later. That had to be one of my favorite weekends of my LIFE, aside from that weekend before we went to Blacksburg when you did your silks performance and we went to tea bazaar, then had an amazing time over dinner at the nook, bought champagne and OJ for mimosas, and went home, skyped jake, and hooked up. You were so into it that night. But I had been so into the way we had connected the entire night.
Anyway, we've had a lot of blissful times together. Some painful too. We've sometimes made each other hurt, but more often we've healed each other's pain, or at least shared and supported it. We've held each other when we were crying, we've made each other laugh until we cry, and we've shared so many soul-filling, spiritual experiences as well as mundane conversations, dining hall meals, the everyday study sesh, the tighest, sweetest hugs. I'm going to miss you every second of next semester, every day for the rest of my life. I'm never going to forget you. I love you so much. I know you felt a lot of pain this last week, this last weekend, and I'm really, really really so sorry that I wasn't there for you at the time you needed me. I hope you can forgive me, sweetheart. I hope you have found peace.
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