When I was 14, I used to get letters in the mail every day from my boyfriend Gabe who lived in San Jose, CA. In response, I dutifully snail mailed long letters back to him, replete with professions of love and probably some immature doodles.

“I feel floaty,” he would write back.

I don’t know if this was a form of first love. I seemed to always be falling into intense passionate love scenarios, probably dating back to kindergarten if I had to guess. In any case, not to belittle it because it was real.

We talked on the phone (landline) almost daily. This was on top of our handwritten communiques, which traveled between San Jose and Massachusetts, arriving every three days. I know we would both run excitedly to the mailbox every day to see what we had written each other, the drawings and cryptic encoded love euphemisms that would be on the cover to evade parental monitoring.

I met Gabe at a summer camp called Center for Talented Youth (always referred to as CTY). The criteria was passing a certain score on the SAT. Looking back, it seems preposterous that we as 6th graders took the SAT, but that’s what happened without even my real comprehension of how or why. I remember entering that room full of big kids and sitting down in the back, filling out bubbles in number 2 pencil. Do people still do that? I’m pretty sure my brain wouldn’t be able to handle thinking electronically, so I’m glad I grew up in the age of number 2 pencils and non-adaptive test-taking.

I don’t remember the moment I met Gabe, but I remember him sitting on the ledge of the brick building we lived in. His hair was long, brown, and curly, and he was California sweet but computer science nerdy. He explained discrete math to me. Everything was interesting to me in those days, so I paid attention. These three weeks baked slowly in the summer heat and the newness of being away from home.

Then when I went to high school, the frequency of my letters started to drop off. Maybe it was one every other day. Or then every second day or third day.

I remember being in my dorm room laughing with all my newish friends, being silly in the common room of my dorm, when the phone rang.

“Hello!” I laughed.

It was Gabe. Oh. I had been avoiding this conversation, but here it was.

He was upset that I hadn’t been calling or writing. I casually but kindly explained that I didn’t think it was working out, this long-distance relationship. I don’t remember, but I think he started to cry. We said our goodbyes, and then I jumped back into the hullaballoo in the dorm room. I laughed off this conversation, but then it started to gnaw at me. A few minutes later, I decided to call back and talk it through. I didn’t feel like I had left it the right way.

“Hello?” His mom answered.
“Hello, it’s Grace. Can I speak with Gabe?”
“Oh, he just went out for a run. Do you want me to have him call you?”
“Yes, thank you.”

He never called back.

That night, deep into the night, the phone rang. Maybe it was 4 or 5am. I’m not sure.

“Hello?” I answered confused. Was someone trying to prank call me like I always prank called the universe?

The voice on the other line sounded tired.

“It’s Ezra.” His voice was shaking. He was also a friend from CTY, a poet. I was confused. Why was he calling so late? I sat out in the common area by the window illuminated by the moon.

He explained that Gabe had gone out for a run, that he had been hit by a car, that he had died. Now I was massively confused.

“What?” I couldn’t really understand what was going on. The conversation was pretty short. I think I thanked him for calling me, and then I said goodbye.

Over the next few days, I wore black. I arranged for a flight to San Jose for the funeral, but my parents wouldn’t let me go. I needed permission to leave boarding school, and I couldn’t convince them no matter how much I cried and screamed while on the phone in GW, the student center.

A few days later, it was my birthday. I was still in black. I opened my mailbox. There was a happy birthday letter from him to me from the beyond.

I could feel his spirit every day for a long time. I imagined him watching me, so I watched my thoughts and my actions.I didn’t want him to see me with another guy for a long time, so I waited. When I went to the bathroom, I took special care to cover myself in the stall because I thought he was omniscient. He was everywhere.

Sometimes I think about Gabe, in general and especially when I go on dates with guys who can’t be bothered to leave their neighborhood or buy me a drink. I remember when he traveled across the country to see me when we were just 13 or 14. We sat with his parent supervising in an Italian restaurant in the courtyard garden of a hotel. There were lights all around us, and even though his parents were there, it was incredibly romantic. I think they gave us space to walk around together.

We walked, held hands, laughed, and embraced. The purity of connecting when you’re so young. Everything is so magical. He dropped me off like a gentleman at the T stop and went back to the DoubleTree to sleep.

I think that may have been the last time I actually saw him-saw him.