I Hope This Doesn’t Find You

by Ann Liang

Julius, I’m writing this to inform you that you’re the most infuriating person I’ve ever met. You, with your smug, razor-sharp smiles, your mocking eyes, your arrogance, and your vanity. Your voice when you call my name, your hands when they wrap around mine. I’m not so familiar with vices—I like to think I have none, but if anything were to count, you would be my only one. It must be an addiction or an obsession. I have never known anybody as completely as I know you, and yet I still want to sit next to you, draw close to you, closer. I want you to tell me every story, want to listen to you speak until the night sinks in the sky and the stars fade out. I want you to hold me like a grudge, keep me like a promise, haunt me like a ghost. You’re so beautiful it enrages me. Maybe you’re expecting an apology after all this time, so I’ll cut to the chase: It’s not coming. I apologize far too much—I’m working on it, I promise—but I’m not sorry for those emails. You know that evening when I stumbled across your conversation with your brother? All right, not stumbled—followed. That’s beside the point. Afterward, I could track the hurt in your eyes, and everything in me burned. I’m not sure if I expressed myself clearly enough then, if I’d convinced you enough. If not, then let me establish for now and forever that you will never be second. You will never be inadequate. You will never be anything but good. Because you care how your parents see you. Because you will talk about anythi...