Bret Easton Ellis

So i want to tell you all a little story that I've never shared on here. It's about the time i met Bret Easton Ellis. It is also about love. The main thing it is about though is how life twists and turns and navigates it's way through the terrain of relationships.

It was a Friday. Interesting things always happen to me on a Friday. Life has had a full week to ripen up to bursting point and by the time i pluck it, it usually splatters laughter and a dose of the surreal all over my weekend.
When i got home, there was a hand delivered note sitting on my doorstep. I recognised his hand writing immediately. Of course i did. I'd seen it a thousand times curling it's way around shopping lists and love letters and notes on my pillow. It was from him.

We'd seen each other earlier in the week. I had been honest for the first time in months, with him. I was over it, bored of the grief, restless in the separation. I wanted to blame him, make him feel my pain, feel my hurt, feel something for fucks sake. We'd had coffee and i had sliced through our pseudo friendship with carefully chosen words about how he had changed me. I actually saw him take a gulp. He looked paler than before. I had hit the mark, finally he had heard me.

"I don't think we should hang out like this if I make you upset." He had said as i focused on a street sign behind him.
Stop, it said. Stop. Stop . Stop. Stop. Stop.
"Oh!" I half laughed and half spat "I never want to see you again after today."
And it had felt immediately fantastic and i had almost immediately regretted it.
I was bitchy enough to ask him for a lift home.

What happened next is a tidal wave and a rainbow. We are standing in the drive way. We hug. Somehow, suddenly, we are crying. The sun is in my eyes and there is mascara on his shirt. I cannot let go. I never want to let him go. His snot is in my hair. It's so gross but i don't care. I love this man. This man. The one who lets me in and doesn't shoot me as i try to scale the walls.

"I have to show you something." I tell him.

And so we go inside my apartment and i pass him my computer. He needs to see this. He needs to understand what the last six months have been for me. So he reads my story. The one that is all about him and I. The one that details all the gore but recalls all the happiness. It's a story about a girl and a boy.

"It's true." He looks confused. "It's all true."

Because it is and he had forgotten.

He leaves, of course, because this is real life and not a story. If it was story, we would have kissed and fallen giggling into each others arms. He would have looked me in the eye and apologised and i would have shushed him with nothing more than a squeeze of his hand. The pain would have melted away and all our friends would have said they were not surprised.
He leaves, of course.

So on that Friday i return home from work and find his letter. I am scared to read it. This is real life and not a story. I wait until my sister arrives because i need back up on this one. A voice of reason. Some perspective. A parallel to my life that only my sister can provide.
We sit in her car.
The letter is four pages long. I am crying by the second page. This is real life and not a story. There cannot be a happy ending to this one because she will always be dead, even if i write it a thousand different ways.
What i read is that his grief enveloped him. That he couldn't see the forest for the trees. That he couldn't have love and happiness without guilt and regret. I read his words and I understand. I finally understand why he disappeared. It had nothing to do with me. It was not my fault. There is nothing i could have done.
He asks for my forgiveness. By page four, he already has it.

i wipe my eyes and pull myself together. I sit in the audience while Bret Easton Ellis talk about life being his inspiration. That you have to have fucked up shit happen to you, to be a writer. I realise i am a writer.

I meet Bret afterwards. I have bought a new copy of American Psycho for him to sign. The one i own is a photocopied version i found in Thailand. We had both read it. He never finished it though. The print was too faint and he gave up. He gave up long before i gave up.
Suddenly i am standing before one of the greatest writers of my lifetime (big call.) He is shorter and more human looking than i had expected. I kneel next to his table for some reason, and hand him my book. What's your name? He asks. I tell him but ask him not to dedicate the book to me. I tell him my husbands name and then blurt out something about a letter, about love about a story i wrote. Bret stares through his black rimmed glasses at the crazy lady kneeling before him. He says it seems sweet. Then changes his mind and asks me if it is sweet or if it's? If it's? My sister assures him that it's sweet and helps me off the floor.

I drop the book to him a few days later. He is smiling. He finally gets to finish it. But what he really needs to read is on the title page. I watch him as he turns the pages. Notice his eyes change as he registers the words. He touches the black ink.

"To L,

She says she forgives you.

Bret Easton Ellis. "

And just like that, i really, really do.

We will never be together again, you understand. It's not about forgiving him so we can traipse off together into happily ever after. It's forgiving him so we can traipse separately. It's letting him go. And helping him let me go.

"Dear Bret,
Thank you for changing my life,
I jog therefore i blog."

The end.