Dear Peach,

When I first met you, you were wearing sweatpants, and I was probably not wearing much of anything. I know that I was with three or four people, and we were probably doing something weird, though I cannot remember what. You were visiting your friend, who later became your roommate. Whatever we were doing, you seemed not to approve of it and made a comment and gave a look to indicate as much. Maybe you were put off by encountering a group of people as strange as yourself. Sweet southern belle that she is, I think that you are the only person in the world that my roommate ever called a “cunt.” And I know that it probably wasn’t her first word of choice. She probably just agreed once I said it. (I, however, have always appreciated the word cunt and used it freely. Cunt. I think of canned peaches when I think of cunt. I can’t explain why.)

I miss our freshman year insomnia. I don’t miss staying up so many nights in a row that I felt like the floor was moving or waking up confused on benches in the mid-afternoon, but I do miss you.

After I got past calling you a cunt, our relationship entered into a new territory where I was vaguely afraid of you. Not because of anything you did or said but because J-Fro tried to convince me that you were in lesbians with me, and I was freaked out by the possibility of an attractive not strictly hetero girl having any kind of anything for me, though I was (and still am) pretty sure that J-Fro was just a sociopath who was trying to get me to think that you were a weirdo so that I wouldn’t befriend you. He would always tell me that you’d been asking where I was or that you talked about me a lot when I wasn’t around. And then there was the time that you were really excited because you’d just gotten your hamster, and you burst in and exclaimed, “Want to see my hamster?!?” Of course immediately after you left, J-Fro quipped, “She wants to show you her hamster. You know what that means!” I did not know for certain, but I was pretty sure that it meant that you wanted to show off the rodent you’d just purchased from the pet store.

I eventually wrote J-Fro off, deciding that you were not in lesbians me or with anyone, except maybe the silent boy who lived across the hall. You and I had become friends, bonding over sleeplessness and Tennessee Williams plays.

You did kiss me on Mardi Gras, and your lips and tongue were stained red from whatever you’d been drinking. Your mouth tasted sort of fruity. I didn’t know how to react to the entire situation because you were drunk and a pretty girl and my friend and kissing me in public and Richard was there and Richard’s mom was also there. Did Richard’s mom think that all fags were going to hell? She seemed good-natured and fun-loving but hailed from Alabama; I couldn’t be sure. I had this part-embarrassed, part-confused, part-ecstatic buzz for the next few hours. I was like, “Oh fuck, Katy Perry, I kissed a girl and I did like it, and sexuality is much less straightforward than your pop song makes it sound.” Growing up, I’d clung to very close friendships with other girls, very, very close friendships. I’d been naked with plenty of these friends. I’d slept next to them, showered with them, cuddled them, held their hands, massaged their backs and necks, watched porn with them, and exchanged notes with them that (taken out of the context of our fairly tame relationships) could be construed as passionate love letters. Sometimes we would kiss each other affectionately on the cheek or forehead, every once in awhile, we’d peck on the lips. I’d shotgunned smoke out of one these friend’s mouths, but all of the things I’ve just mentioned were not quite the same as the Mardi Gras kiss from you because all of these things had been the result of gradual boundary-pushing caused by intense, codependent friendships. Most of these things were easily explained away (showering together to save time because we were in a hurry, hanging out naked together because it was too hot) or top secret. I’d been accused of lesbianism before by concerned mothers, but their daughters were always quick to come to my defense, “Mom, she is not gay!” Even though in the back of my mind I would occasionally pick up on a barely audible whisper that taunted, Or am I? Your kiss had come out of left field, and there wasn’t even a whisper, it was just a loud and clear YOU ARE AT LEAST SOMEWHAT GAY.

All of that being said, I think it was even more what happened a few hours later that confirmed my interest in women. J-Fro texted me and asked if I’d seen you. He said that you’d gotten lost and needed someone to make sure you got home safely. You called me sobbing saying you’d been separated from your friends and were having an anxiety attack. Your phone was dying, it was raining, the streets were impossibly crowded. You needed me to come find you.

“Where are you?”

“McDonald’s.”

“Which McDonald’s?”

It was too loud, you were too drunk, my phone signal was awful.

We checked the McDonalds near Canal and University and didn’t see you. Fighting our way through the crowd just to get there probably took an hour. We realized we’d have to elbow our way through the masses on Canal to check the next McDonalds, blocks away. We found you there, and you were standing near the doorway, holding your phone, trying to call or text, though I’m pretty sure it was useless at that time. You were wearing a purple dress that I’d given you. I think you’d gotten ready in my room before you went out. You were so happy to see me and I was so happy that you were okay, and it took forever to make sure that you’d be getting home, even after we’d found you, but what eventually occurred to me was that I like taking care of girls. I like taking care of girls and kissing girls and having very close friendships with girls that may as well be romantic relationships, so yeah, I probably was kind of a lesbian. I carried that knowledge around with me for another year, trying to get comfortable with it, before anything came of it.

I’m pretty sure we never talked about any of that.

I’m also pretty sure that I was pretty sure that you were a little bit gay, and we never talked about that, either, though my suspicions were confirmed years later after you confessed that you’d slept with a yoga instructor. (We all did hot yoga together later. I’m still sad that the studio closed.)

I have a lot of important memories of you. I can’t explain why some of them are important to me. I sometimes crave the oatmeal bars that you used to make. You gave one to me one day when I was really, really hungry when I was working at the library. I don’t know why that sticks out in my memory. I always want to ask you for the recipe for those oatmeal bars but then I forget or just don’t do it. Listening to you tell me things that you didn’t tell other people is an important memory. Not being able to sleep, watching film adaptations of plays is important. Thanksgiving at your house was the best Thanksgiving I’ve ever had. And the day that you gave me a glass of wine and I just bitched about Kay, I remember Q left me a really nice voicemail and I listened to it in your living room while you cooked something in a pan, and I felt really okay, like I was free to hate Kay and to hate everyone else I’d ever dated and everyone else in the world and it didn’t matter because genuinely nice people who deserved my attention were giving me theirs.

I feel bad for not responding to your letter sooner. Sometimes large pieces of time pass by unaccounted for in my life. That’s another thing that I don’t have an explanation for. I wish that you were still here or that I’d applied to grad school and ended up somewhere close to you because I like that we can exist separately from each other and then run into each other and listen to each other like no time has passed and it was just yesterday that we were both up at 4 AM on the Honors floor, completely unable to make ourselves sleep. I also like knowing that you’re okay because you’re important to me, and I will be there for you every time you fall in or out of love or find yourself unable to sleep or need someone to get you home safely, if you need me to be.

I hope that you’re okay.

Love Always,

Stella