February 9

2/9

Yesterday morning my usual lethargy was gone. My whole body vibrated with a strange energy. I felt like a dead frog electrified to twitch on a lab table.

I couldn't read, couldn't study, couldn't work. I skipped class and went to the computer lab and opened up a word processor document. “I am an idiot,” I typed, and then I couldn't stop. 

Words flowed out of me so incessantly and forcefully I couldn't control my hands on the keyboard. In less than an hour I had written a 3000 word short story. Then I read it over. It needed editing, but it really wasn't bad – easily one of best things I've written since I started college (although that isn't much). That happened to be just about the word limit for the literary club's new magazine, so I submitted it. This was Christopher's fault, I knew, and it felt amazing. I had to let him know.

“Tell me some more stories,” I texted, “you've been giving me some great material.”

“I don't really want to be used just for stories,” he replied.

“Relationships involve people using each other, right? I can't use your body, so let me use your mind.”

“You can absolutely use my body!”

I didn't know what to say to that, so I replied, “Flattering, but you've got the wrong parts for me.” Since last night's talk, he knew my history with women.

Then I went back to my room and tried to read my English assignments some more. I failed some more. I tried and tried until it was two in the morning and I felt like I was going to die and I texted him, “I won't be able to sleep until I figure out what's going on here. Please call.” Almost immediately, he did.

Even after all this my walls stayed up. I couldn't avoid the first fifteen minutes of small talk. Finally he asked me, “What is it you want to figure out?”

I took a breath. I let go of the breath. “I just want to know why you're talking to me. What are you getting out of these long conversations? I know what I'm getting, but what are you?”

“I just like talking to you,” he said. “I appreciate your intellect. I don't have anyone I can talk to like this right now. I used to, in college, and I miss it.” His “like”s stuck in his throat in a Southern way. “Is that all you want to know?”

I was satisfied with his answer. It was logical and tidy. “Yes,” I said. “I just wanted to know the context of these conversations.”

“Context?”

“Context, background, intent. I thought you might have wanted to lead me along like you led along all those other people,” I said. “I'm sorry if I gave you the impression that that was possible.”

“Well, at first I was … definitely attracted to you. I am still attracted to you. But you don't really like my kind -” he laughed.

“I am attracted to you,” I interrupted. “You are the most attractive person I've ever met, male or female.”

He was quiet for a moment. “It's complicated now, because I'm going away.”

“Yeah, our paths crossed at the wrong time. But me – I mean, I'm probably in love with you right now. I don't really know what love is, but if it involves thinking about a person all the time, seeing him everywhere, then I'm in love with you. Ever since that first night, you've been in all my dreams, just standing there. You're always on my mind.”

“Oh, I -” His voice was thick, more Southern than usual. “I think about you a lot, too. I love – I love talking to you, looking at you. I just wish I could make this perfect. I wish I could be physically close to you.”

“In a way, I like being so far from you because it means I can have your soul and your mind without dealing with your body.”

“No, I don't mean sex. In this relationship, I don't want sex right away – I can wait however long for that. I just – I just want to hug you.”

I laughed. “You've hugged me twice already. Hug is such an ugly word.”

“Embrace you then, hold you -”

“Hold, yes. I want to hold you. And I want to be held by you. I want that so much.”

I poured out compliments to him, to his body, his mind, his soul – way too many for Marie Claire, I knew, but I was drunk on sleep and him.

“You are – beautiful,” he said. “And I never told you this, but I love the way you dress. And your body, your waist -”

“You've never seen my body. And you can't see it on the screen, just my shoulders.”

“I saw you in real life,” he said. “I looked at your body. Is that creepy?”

“No. I looked at yours.”

“What should I do,” he said, “How can I make this perfect? I've got to leave, unless – I can always visit you at school.”

Again I was kicked in the stomach by the reality of my body. 

“Oh,” I said, “I couldn't make you do that, that would be too much for me right now -”

“But I want to. You wouldn't be making me do anything.”

“My emotions are running too high for that. I don't know what I'd do.”

“Isn't that perfect, then?”

I changed the subject. “I hope you don't forget about me in 

Colorado.”

“I won't forget you. How can I forget you? This relationship is different, this is forev-”

“But don't stop dating people or anything like that.”

“I don't think I'll be able to date anyone.”

“Why? It wouldn't be fair of me to make you do that, when I can't do anything for you.”

“You can't control what I do. It's just me. I'm stuck on you.” His accent was full strength and twanging like a banjo. “But I don't want to be selfish,” he continued. “I don't want to stop you from having experiences, meeting people -”

“I can't do those things anymore,” I said. “Whenever I'm with 

anyone all I can think about is how much I'd rather be with you.”

And on and on, for hours. I don't think I even got any of this in the right order. Finally I said I'd better hang up – the sky was starting to hint at dawn.

“Sweet dreams,” he said.

And they were sweeter than I ever thought I could have. 

February 8

2/8

Christopher may have been free that night, but I wasn't. That afternoon Mom, Dad, and Abigail arrived at my dorm to take me to the ski resort. I was glad to see them, but my first look at Abigail felt like one of those dreams where all your teeth fall out. Her hair is gone. Her beautiful gold-streaked light brown braid had been replaced with the same androgynous chop sported by all the better-looking butches here. Like them, she looks more like a boy than a girl now. An attractive boy, a really well-dressed boy, but a boy. Actually, she looked a lot like Christopher, but I see him in everything now.

I shared a bed with her at the condominium. Curled up next to her in the morning, in the post-dawn dimness, I got into a sisterly confiding mood. So I told her about Christopher.

“It's like a story,” she said when I was finished.

“Stories come from real life,” I said. I showed her a picture of him with his family.

“He is very handsome,” said my handsome sister. “My, my, my.”

Then Mom came in and jumped under the covers with us like we were all ten years younger than we are. Of course I had to tell her a little, too. As soon as she heard that he was Filipino, her mood changed.

“Filipino men use you,” she said. “They use you and lie.”

I showed her the picture I had showed Abigail. “Oh, yeah, he's baklat,” she said. “He's just using you.”

“You've only seen one picture of him,” said Abigail.

“First impressions never lie,” said Mom. “You can do better. Much better.”

“Like who?” I said.

“Maurice. He likes you.”

I recalled the face of my godbrother Maurice, a less fortunate mixture of Filipino and Caucasian features than most mix kids get, and how he couldn't talk about anything but Avatar: The Last Airbender when our families met at the museum last winter. I knew Mom was recalling his family's sprawling property in Antipolo. Abigail and I groaned in unified protest and we all jumped out of the bed.

Mom and Dad were planning to take Abigail skiing and leave me in the condo that day, but they decided that they'd rather spend the time they had with me instead. We visited the Clark in Williamstown, then had breaked for a vegan lunch at an organic co-op, then drove to North Adams to visit Mass MoCA. The exhibits at Mass MoCA were so interesting this time that we stayed there until closing, and then we went shopping at the really good Goodwill a few blocks away. Dinner was at the Mexican restaurant near the ski resort Mom really likes. The food was good, and the margaritas must have been, too, because Mom laughed and laughed and made funny conversation. When Abigail began to bring up Christopher, though, she said we should change the subject.

The next afternoon they drove me back to Radcliffe. We stopped in Lee, a summer town quiet quiet and abandoned-looking now, for cold lobster rolls at the empty fish house. By the time I got back to my room it was almost six, and I could finally call Christopher.

“So have you ever had a boyfriend or anything?” he started out asking. But I didn't want to tell him anything until he told me about himself.

“I don't really want to tell you about that stuff,” he said.  “It'll make me seem like a jerk.”

“That makes me want to hear it even more,” I said.

“My history with girls is – well, I can count the girls I've been with on one hand.

“Basically, I was selfish. I used them, I led them along. It was all very … animalistic,” he said, borrowing a word I'm fond of. “There was one girl – she really wanted a relationship, like to go on dates and stuff. So we went out a couple of times, but it was really awkward, and I just let it drop.”

“Tell me about the girls.”

“I can tell you about my first time.” I didn't really want to hear it, but I listened. He took a girl out for drinks and sandwiches and then back to his place. His place was a basement with no furniture except an inflatable mattress, which he worried she'd think would seem like somewhere a serial killer would live. From the way he laughed I knew he'd told this story before. “She was a redhead,” he said proudly.

“Oh, good for you,” I said. “Did you find red hairs in corners afterwards?”

“I guess.”

“For me it's usually black hairs,” I said, and I told him some things.

Somehow we ended up talking until one in the morning without any mention of the text exchange from days before. I didn't want to bring it up. By one I just wanted to go to sleep. I said so.

“Talking to you feels so good I don't want to stop,” he said. He did anyway when I insisted.

February 6

2/6

I was depressed two nights ago. I won't tell you why I was depressed, except that it involved men with whom I was not in love. When I am depressed, talking to Christopher is the only thing that can make me feel any better. So I called him.

I told him why I was depressed. He helped me see the whole situation as the farce it was, and we laughed. Then I asked him what he had done that day, and he said he was getting ready to move to Chicago on Monday.

I have never been punched in the solar plexus but I don't think it would feel much different that how I felt in that moment. When I had my breath back, I managed to say, “Wow! Great! So sudden!" He had told me he was going to Chicago to attend his best friend's wedding in the spring, but he never hinted he would leave so soon.

“Yeah, it's the most sudden move of my life,” he said, with some pride.

We talked about stuff and things for a few hours and then at one the conversation came around to Chicago again. My throat didn't feel like it would let me talk much longer, so I tried to street the conversation to a close.

“Well, I'd say I'll miss you, but it'll be just the same in the end,” I said. I meant that we'd still be hours and hours apart, unable to see each other beyond pixelated buffering versions on a screen, unable to touch each other's hands or feel each other's skin. We'd have exactly the same amount of contact.

“Say it anyway,” he said. But I couldn't. “I'll miss you,” he said.

“What is there to miss?”

“Why do you have to ask that?”

“I don't think I'll ever see you again,” I said.

“We can still Skype.”

“No, I don't want to Skype you anymore. It'll just make me sad.”

“Don't say that. We'll see each other again.”

“In ten years, right?” I remembered what he said about settling down. “You'll have long hair down your back. And you'll finally be able to grow a beard.”

He laughed his open laugh and I don't remember what nonsense we said after that but I remember that my throat was so tight by the end of it that I could barely say goodbye when I hung up. I thought I would never be able to fall asleep, but bodies always surprise you and I woke up to the red sun over Prospect Hill as usual. And moving was difficult but I washed and dressed and studied Mary Barton until it was time to go to class.

“Write me a postcard from Chicago,” I texted him afterward.

“You'll hate my handwriting. I write like a right-handed ten year old writing with his left hand.”

“I wouldn't hate anything from you.”

“Ok, but I warned you.” When I finished bundling up to face 

Massachusetts winter he sent another: “You're making me regret leaving New York. I can't wait ten years!” And another: “But if I have to, I will, for you.”

Wax-sealed parchment envelopes, delicate notepaper scented with rosewater – they are overrated. I don't think any expensive stationery could have made me feel more than those green rounded boxes on my screen did. “Just know that I waited 20 years to meet you and if I live another 20 I can wait that long again,” I wrote.

“First, I want to talk to you tonight,” he responded. “Second, I'm going into the subway right now, so I won't be able to text for 30 minutes." 30 minutes later: “Third, I can't write anything sufficient to what I feel, but yes – 10, 20 years I can wait but if I had full control over when I can see you next, it would be in 2 seconds.”

I had to see him. I had to touch him. I had to run my cold anemic fingers over the gnarled pneumonia surgery scars on his ribcage. But I knew I couldn't, so I had to call him instead. I asked him when he was free.

“For you?” he wrote. “Always.”

end of field book 1

February 1

In the end my bad wifi here in the boondocks of the campus made streaming the movie pretty impossible, so instead we talked. And we've talked every night since then, deeper and deeper into the morning. Last night we didn't stop until two, by which point I had learned that he fell into a bad place after his parents' divorce and almost got involved with a Chicano gang but chickened out of their initiation rite, which involved beating someone up and fucking a girl. He was eleven years old. And he had got me to admit that all my goals are about escape. He drank white wine this time.

Now that I know him better I understand that these conversations are just his way. He has no more interest in me than he does in any other thinking human being, and that's fine. But I dreamed about him after I finally fell asleep last night, the first time I've dreamed about a real person since I was little. I dreamed he helped me pack up my things and move out of this room I haven't left in three days.  

January 28

1/28

Tonight Filipina Club met in the “lounge” - an unused club office crammed with discarded plush furniture and bookshelves. There was a new member, a really pretty half-Filipino sophomore named Bella, so Chair Casey had us go around and say our names and “one good thing that happened that day.” I couldn't think of anything, so Tania nudged me and said, “You got a text, didn't you?”

I had. Christopher had acquired a copy of Spike Jonze's movie Her, which is still in theaters, in some mildly sketchy way. He asked me if I wanted to watch it with him via Livestream. The only Spike Jonze movie I've ever seen is Where the Wild Things Are, which gave me the impression that his stuff is hipster conceit and not much else, but I said I would. We set the date for tomorrow. “Our first movie,” he wrote.

I live a strange life.

January 27

1/27

I asked Rosa to brunch today because I had to talk to someone about the conversations I've been having with Christopher, because I've never talked to anyone like that before. But when I brought him up it was clear she didn't really want to hear about him, so we discussed classes and women in the workforce for an hour while I worked through an enormous plate of pineapple and cottage cheese.

In the evening Christopher sent me a picture of a pretty outdoor skating rink somewhere in Brooklyn. “If it's still cold and I'm still here when you come down from college, I'll take you skating,” he said. If he's still there. This is what it feels like to be one of those forlorn farmer's daughters in cowboy TV shows - “When will I see you again, [hero's name]?” But if she's just an extra, far from the payscale that would allow for multiple-episode appearances. Oh, well.

January 26

1/26

We Skyped again tonight, this time for more than three hours. The topic of the evening was transience. Christopher insisted that he'd ask the questions this time. I rebuffed some of them, but answered most, and it was strange to hear myself telling him thoughts I've never admitted to anyone but these notebooks.

Still I managed to keep him talking the majority of the time. Right before going to college and taking on the backbreaking loans that will cripple me for the rest of my life, I convinced myself that the untethered lifestyle I've always wanted was just a teenage fantasy, immature and impossible. I wanted to know what it was like to have proven that it is possible. It sounded something like a sickness.

“I can't stay in one place for more than eight months,” he said. “I think that's my limit. Eight months and I start getting to this really low place. That's how long I could work at the country club. And I'm coming up to that limit here in New York.”

I calculated and realized that the limit would be over before my spring break. “Where are you headed next?” I asked casually, although I felt like I was sinking.

“Denver,” he said. He didn't have to think that time. He was going to the University of Colorado to do his Master's in Engineering.

“Denver? Why would you want to go from New York to Denver? I heard it's really boring.”

“I heard it's great.”

“You know, there's one thing about your style of transience I don't like,” I said. “My desire for transience comes from a desire to avoid close relationships. But you, you have this desire to get deeply involved with everyone you meet. You get people attached to you, tied to you. And when you pull away, those ties break. And that hurts people.”

“I'm just not an exclusive person. I have like a million best friends. I don't want to hurt people.”

“You may not want to, but you do. What you're doing, really, is collecting people, like Pokemon cards.” I remembered the fan of business cards at Goldman-Sachs. I felt collected.

“I don't know. Maybe you're right. Do I really make meaningful connections with any of those people?” He sipped thoughtfully. 

“You know, your questions … you make me think about myself like I've never thought about myself before.”

“Yeah, you do the same for me.”

"As long as I make you feel something," he said.