Becca, Ana, Buchloe, Everyone Else
Becca. You’ve been the person I’ve relied on most these last few years, even while fighting battles I could barely see the edges of. I love you, and it was genuinely an honor to push back with you against all the small-minded walls people kept trying to build around us. I’ll miss lying in bed with you and just letting the world go by outside the window. But we’re not going anywhere, not really. We’ll cook together. We’ll complain at each other over the phone. We’ll do sexy things on webcam. And when the time is right we’ll finally get comfortable on our own small island somewhere in the South Pacific—just you, me, and the monkey butler.
Ana. For a long time it was impossible for me to do either of the two things I needed to do with you: let you go, because I was hopelessly in love with you, or hold on to you as what we briefly were—best friends. Looking back over the past year, from that summer at the gravel pit lake and those wild, beautiful nights together, through to this summer when I simply couldn’t do it anymore—I’d say I managed to ruin most of it. But I think I finally understand why. You were the first person in my life where I was Bert. And you were Ernie. That I fell apart over your sweet and childlike naivety, your self-destructive way of moving through the world, and your passion for small things—you can’t hold that against me. You once compared love to fire: something you can’t approach too closely without burning, but that you keep seeking out anyway. You didn’t mean it the way I took it, but that’s exactly what you’ve been for me. A stupid little moth flying headfirst into the same lamp, over and over. Part of why I have to leave. I admire you, Ana. Nobody haunts my stupid head the way you do—your ideas, your particular angle on everything. I always wanted to say so much to you. How much you’ve changed me, how much you’ve meant to me. But I couldn’t get it out. And when I finally managed to squeeze something past my own defenses it came out as an embarrassing pile of sentimental garbage that sounded like anything but the truth—while all I was doing the whole time was fighting to be something to you. You’re an extraordinary person and you know it. Maybe a little too well. I wish you every possible good thing. Whether you enter a convent next week or decide to live on snow or go off to conquer the sky—you’ll be fine. Even without me.
Buchloe. I have a complicated relationship with most things, and with you especially, my small hometown. But of course I’ll miss you. I know you like the back of my hand. The hill on Alpenstraße where Ali once went down so hard he could have kissed his own feet. The Zugspitz playground where Eniz and I burned years of our lives. The new development on the western edge that I had to sprint through under time pressure just to get to a blonde with great tits. The gravel pit lake with the cliffs we threw ourselves off in summer. The Fritz, where our already-fractured friend group threw parties until there was nothing left to break. And the long stretch of Bahnhofstraße I’d drag myself down at dawn because we’d spent the entire night on Phantasy Star Online and nobody wanted to be the first to call it.
Everyone else. I’ll miss you people. Because you put up with me even though I’m clearly not quite right in the head. Even though I’d want to hug everyone one moment and kick them out the door the next. Even though I ignored my phone for days when things got bad. Or because you hated me—for strutting down the street like a total faggot, for being with one of my exes while she still, more or less secretly, wants something from me, or because I called you a fat rum ball and meant every word of it. Like it or not, you’re all part of what I am now. Ha.
Thursday at three in the morning, I leave. Most things are already packed—some CDs, DVDs, books, clothes. I’m not taking much because the dorm room is furnished. For days I’ve been meaning to write a list of everything I need to buy in Berlin, which turns out to be everything. Toilet brush. Salt shaker. New pens. And for the first time in my life I’m going to have a microwave. We didn’t have one here. Insane, right? Alright, capital—get ready. My aunt says it’s about time I left, and for once I think she’s right.