It’s not just the shameful things I’ve done that are driving me crazy, Theo. I know you’re there, and I know you’re watching me, tuned in to my life to piece everything together yourself. It’s what comes after we broke up that’s making me so nervous. It’s what comes after you fell out of love with me that it all goes wrong. Let’s leave his name out of my mouth as long as possible this morning, okay? If I’m going to have any chance of getting through today, tomorrow, and all the days that follow, I think I need to go back to the start, where we were two boys bonding over jigsaw puzzles and falling in love.

But being face-to-face with you for the first time since July and for the last time ever is going to be impossible, especially given the unwanted company of your boyfriend. If there was a promise you were allowed to break, it wasn’t that one, and now I’m forced to approach your casket in one hour to say goodbye to you. I’ll never die,” you said as you hugged me. I saw our endgame-to find our way back to each other when the time was right, no matter what-disappear, and I made you promise to always take care of yourself and never die.

But on the day we were walking to the post office with Wade to ship your boxes to California, you walked backward into the street and almost got hit by a car. Some of those promises took bad turns but weren’t broken, like how I said I’d never hate you even though you gave me enough reasons to, or how you never stopped being my friend even when your boyfriend asked you to. We made promises to each other on the day I broke up with you so you could do your thing out there in Santa Monica without me holding you back. And if bringing up the past annoys you now-as I know it did when you left New York for California-know that I’m sorry, but please don’t be mad at me for reliving all of it. I just want you to remember things the way I do.

You knew enough meaningless trivia to fill notebooks, but you occasionally slipped on the bigger things, like my birthday this year (May 17th, not the 18th), and you never kept your night classes straight even though I got you a cool planner with zombies on the cover (which you-know-who probably forced you to throw out).

I doubt it’ll even surprise you since we always joked about how your brain worked in funny ways. Trust me when I say I’m not talking down to you as I recall this memory, and many others, in great detail. I’ll break down the details of this promise again. It hurts even more because this isn’t the first promise you’ve broken. And you should know I’m really pissed because you swore you would never die and yet here we are. You’re still alive in alternate universes, Theo, but I live in the real world, where this morning you’re having an open-casket funeral.

History is all you left me about