I guess I never really expected us to keep in touch after the group broke up. You and I were best friends, but only because we shared a common interest - Nsync - and when it was gone, so were we. I got a few letters from you after we split, but they dwindled off, and came only at holidays and around my birthday, and eventually, not even then. Sometimes I was tempted to send you a Christmas or birthday card or something, just to show I remembered you. But I never did, because I always thought it would seem too odd. So, as it is, it's been seven years since Nsync broke up, six since I last saw you, five and a half since I last heard from you, and a good, round five since Joey called me up and told me you'd moved back to Pennsylvania. I guess it wasn't so bad, us being apart, when I knew you were in the same city as me, but when not only the city but the state changed, it just broke me up.

Pittsburgh's a long way from Orlando. Plane tickets would have to be reserved before we could see each other. Phone bills would be expensive to call. Mail would take longer to get there. We did none of that anyway, but the fact that it would be all that much harder to do so made all my hopes just vanish. I couldn't stand the fact that we'd never be friends again.

I remember the day I got the letter from you, postmarked October 18th, 2009. The day after your thirty-eighth birthday, as if I could forget. The way you wrote the letter, it told me that the years it had been since I last heard from you, you'd changed more than I'd ever guess, but you were still the same. You were still the fun-loving, caring, funny guy I was friends with so long ago, the same one I fell in love with. But there were people in your life that I'd never heard of, your nieces and nephews, your friends, coworkers, your family. I noticed you never mentioned a girlfriend. Or boyfriend. Everything you wrote in those four pages of cramped writing, it said your life was full, it had everything you'd ever wanted, you were happy, things were going well. You didn't say it outright, but I knew you, and I knew when you were happy.

I wrote you back, because I was happy your life was so wonderful. I wrote about how I went to college, because I knew you'd be proud, how I studied music history and how I was teaching vocals privately. I wrote about things that had happened in the past few years. I wrote about silly things I thought you might find funny, because I wanted you to laugh, and I wanted to be the cause. I wanted to be the reason you were happy, so I tried damn hard to give you a reason to keep in contact with me. I left my home, cell and pager numbers, and I silently hoped you'd call. I signed the letter, 'All my love, Justin' and I hoped, perhaps, you would understand.

I didn't mail it until November 23rd, and I hoped to God it wouldn't have been too late for you to remember. And then I waited. I waited two months for a reply, and I was patient. I knew the mail could have taken a while in coming, you could have taken a while in replying, the mail could have taken even longer coming back. Maybe I got the address wrong. You never called, either, so I thought it was maybe the latter.

All those doubts were annulled when I got your reply, postmarked January 3rd, 2010, that didn't arrive until January 21st. I didn't really know what to expect, so my hands were shaking when I opened the letter. Any possibility of a future with you lay in what was written in that letter, and I didn't want to have any expectations, in case I was shot down again. I wanted so badly for you to tell me to come visit, for you to say to call, to say you were going to visit me, to say you wanted us to be friends again, to say you were organizing some kind of Nsync reunion - anything.

Except, all there was inside the envelope was a street address that didn't match the return on the outside, and I hadn't really wanted that. It was an address for somewhere just outside Pittsburgh, and though I didn't know what I was supposed to find there, I called the airport anyway and booked a flight. Flying to Pittsburgh wasn't a difficult or expensive thing, since I was still well off from Nsync, and I had a respectable job, but it had never seemed right without an invitation. And an address, and nothing more, seemed a good enough invitation as any.

I got a flight for the 23rd, but I couldn't tell you that, because I didn't have your phone number. I landed mid-afternoon, and instead of checking into a hotel, or maybe looking you up, I rented a car, found a map, and headed for that address. It seemed a better idea than all of the alternatives. I drove for a good forty-five minutes, before I came upon a suburb of picket fences and strip malls and churches. I didn't know what I was looking for, so I pulled into a strip mall lot, and asked a woman where the address was.

Turn left down the next street, just past the church. She didn't tell me what it was, but I was close enough that I didn't care.

But the street turned into empty highway just past the church, and the church's cemetery turned into open field, with nothing for miles. It was nothing. Why was I there? You weren't there. I didn't know why I'd come; I was following the directions in an envelope that had only your initials on the outside, and an address that didn't exist on the inside. I didn't know what to do.

Instead of doing what rational thought called for, I parked on the side of the road and went into the church. A janitor was there, and when I asked what was supposed to be at the address, he said it was the lot the cemetery occupied.

You asked me to go to a cemetery? It made no sense. I shouldn't have come, I should have gone straight to your house, I should have looked you up in the phone book, called you, I shouldn't have gone looking for something, for this, when I didn't even know what I was getting into. But instead of turning around and going home, I thanked him and wandered into the cemetery.

I walked through rows upon rows of headstones, crosses, crypts, the mausoleum, but none of those caught my eye. There was one, though, just before the cemetery gave way to field, a gray granite headstone, overgrown with weeds, forgotten by family, friends, anyone who would have mourned. I was drawn to it, and when I drew back the tall grasses, I knew why I was supposed to be there.

'Christopher A. Kirkpatrick,' it said. 'October 17, 1971 - October 19th, 2009. Forget me,' the epitaph read, 'for I am yesterday's breeze.'

I turned on my heel and went back to the car. I drove back to the airport, and I got the first flight back to Orlando, which left in six hours. I slept in the terminal, because suddenly I was exhausted, even though it was only late afternoon, by then. I didn't think about you while I waited. I didn't think about you on the plane. I didn't think about you picking up my luggage. I didn't think about you checking out of the terminal. I didn't think about you on my way home.

But the second I stepped in my front door, into a very empty house, I thought about you: your eyes, your smile, your laugh, your voice, your hands, your hair, your touch, your smell, you. And I cried, unlike I've ever cried before. I cried because I lost my love, and you never knew. I cried because I never knew were gone. I cried because no one had cared about you. I cried because you'd lied to me in that letter, the letter you'd written the day before you died. I cried because you weren't happy. I cried because you must have been so alone in the world. I cried because I wished I could have been there for you. I cried because I love you, so much it's crippling. I cried because the world is a horrible, dark, frightening place without you in it.

And I cried because I won't forget you, because even yesterday's breeze touched me, once.

 

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