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x missed connections
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★ Aug 15 hope you're happy (lex > nicholasville and around) 5.6mi
do you remember when we were kids, and we wanted to go to space? you used to read me books about the stars. didn't know the first thing about science, did we? we thought we could get up there with a cardboard box and a prayer. you promised me that we would. you were always terrible for telling tall tales.
when my mom got dial-up and a brand new ibm blue lightning, we used to spend weekends scraping up whatever new website we could find. hours on wordpad spent cautiously pasting in low resolution photos of rocketships and constellations. we used to argue over who got to use the mouse. you loved the space jam website. wouldn't shut up until I let you go on it. it's a stupid movie. I thought that then, I still think it. things were easier, then, all clear, infinite summers and biking around town until our legs were sore. you were my favourite person. but I was a kid- I didn't know there was anyone better.
I remember I always came to you with homework. everything got harder and I lost motivation, and you seemed to get it all effortlessly. you tried for a bit, but I think you realised I was a lost cause. I flunked math hard, my GPA trashed, and you didn't even say anything when I showed up to class with greasy hair and bags under my eyes. mom got sick, and I started missing school days. you made new friends. I hated myself but I started to hate you more.
you got into your dream college and you left me behind.
I think I'm selfish. I think I've always been selfish. when you left I refused to give you my AIM screenname because I didn't want to hear that you were happy without me. I guess I deserved that we fell out of contact, then.
so yeah, I never went to space. got about as far away from it as you can get, flipping burgers for minimum wage until my eyes were gritty and I wondered if it'd be better if I wasn't here anymore. if mom wasn't around, I think I might have followed through on that thought. but she was, and she needed me, so I didn't. I had to quit my job eventually, you know? she got too ill to look after herself. I was nineteen by the time I became her full-time carer. I was twenty-one when she died.
all those years, I heard about you on the radio. heard you were some kind of big shot now. heard your interviews, imagined you all bright-eyed as you talked about seeing planets, galaxies. you were making a breakthrough, you and the rest of your team. I wondered if you remembered who I was. I kind of hoped you didn't. I was washing dishes during the countdown, you know? you were about to make history, and I was up to my elbows in suds. the whole world glued to their screens with bated breaths- or at least that's probably what you wanted. it was all over the magazines, all over the headlines.
part of me thinks you knew what was going to happen.
we all remember where we were when the live feed started getting all shaky and the journos began to scream. everyone else talks about the blood, the void, the bodies. one moment there's a press conference full of people- the next, well. you don't need me to tell you. you were there. my eyes were fixed on you the whole time, and you looked like you were smiling.
you've always been a selfish asshole. I can name a hundred times you screwed me over for your own gains. and I was a shitty friend too, real shitty, but I'm not the one who got fifty-three people killed by it. we were going to go to space together, and instead, you single-handedly destroyed the american space program. congratulations.
where did you go after that? everyone thinks you died too. I know you didn't. you wouldn't. you're not like that. you won't give up. and I saw, I saw the look in your fucking eyes, and it was the same one you had when you pushed me off the swingset when we were little, or when I told you mom was sick, or the last time I ever saw you and I yelled at you until I cried.
you had stars in your eyes.
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