Chapter 4: The Confession Continued

Darryl confesses his love to Tegan.

Darryl’s hands shake as he holds his mail. There it is. It had taken two weeks but the reply from Charles is finally here. He can’t bring himself to open it though.  Not yet.  He holds it in his hands and stares at the familiar handwriting of his own name and address. 

Back in his apartment, Darryl feels his heart thud as he tears the envelope, pulls out and unfolds the single sheet of paper. In an almost illegible printed scrawl, Darryl reads: 

Nov 4

Darryl,

First of all, I am NOT mad at you my friend. I appreciate your honesty but I feel maybe you should tell Tegan. It’s best not to hide these things. 

I hope everything else is going well for you. If you need me to, I can fly out to you. But it would have to wait till winter break which is still a month away.  

We’re starting to enter crunch time. Tegan’s prof was mad at her I guess because she didn’t apply for some Student Juried Show. She said it wasn’t worth it. I wish she’d show her art more but she doesn’t think she’s any good. I can’t even draw a stick figure.  (There is a drawing of a sad looking stick figure in the corner with a note pointing to it: my stick figure.) Hopefully a few more years of college should help her. 

Anyway, buddy, let me know if I should start looking for tickets. I don’t mind honestly. I can find the money and like I said I will have a month off mid December through mid January. 

Take care my friend,

Charles, The “Goat”

Darryl breathes out a sigh of relief. Only then does he realize he has been holding his breath.

Surprisingly Charles is not mad. Darryl doesn’t know how he’d feel if roles were reversed. But luckily he had not just lost the one true friend he had. 

But… tell Tegan?  Really? Well he has no choice. He’d do nearly anything Charles asks of him.

……….

The next evening Darryl knows he can no longer put it off. To prepare, he dons his headphones and coat and heads out into the bitter cold. As he slowly makes his way around the base, he thinks about what he will say. God enters his head again.

“Be honest.”

“What if I anger her?”

“Then you anger her. Then you move on.”

“I don’t want to hurt Charles any more than I have. What if this becomes the final straw?”

“What if this and what if that.  There is no point in worrying about situations that have yet to happen. Charles asked you to write. You must obey.”

Just then a single raven lands on the sidewalk 20 feet ahead of him, its thick feathers majestic and shiny.  It looks up at him. Darryl stops and stares. Was this a sign? Is that God taking on the form of a black bird? 

The raven takes a few hops towards him. Then bobs its head as if to say yes or it could have just been quickly looking at something on the ground. Darryl goes with the former. The raven then spreads its wings and takes off, flying over Darryl’s head. 

Darryl has seen many ravens since his arrival. They’ll typically perch above him on a telephone poll and caw and caw and caw. Never more?

Darryl sees them as powerful and calm, dark symbols of the north. He often wonders: are they omens of evil or of light?

On his way back to his apartment, Darryl decides this particular raven represents survival in the coldest, darkest, loneliest of places. It means he will survive. He will survive and thrive. 

Back in his apartment, Darryl sits down at the small table and begins to write. 

Tegan,

I received a letter from Charles today.  He told me that I should tell you what I had told him.  I’m not sure I should but I would do nearly anything he asked of me.  He may have already told you; if so, I would like to clarify.  I thought a great deal about how to say this.  There’s nothing like putting Mozart’s Requiem on headphones and walking out in -20 degree F weather at night with a big old coat on to cheer a person up and clear the brain… Slipping on ice-covered sidewalks.  

Darryl stops. How can he continue? He stares at what he’d written for some time, at times the writing blurring and running together. Finally he refocuses his eyes and writes without stopping.

I guess I should get to it, eh?  It hurts me to write this because it feels like I’m hurting Charles.  Already I’ve stared at this page for 5 or 10 minutes.

Tegan, from the very first time I met you I have been greatly attracted to you.  At first, I did not think much of it because I’ve been attracted to many women.  Just before going to basic, I realized that my attraction was much deeper than I thought; I saw in you the qualities, the personality, the emotion, and insight I had always longed to see in a woman.  You were the truest person I had ever known.  I treasured every letter I got from you in basic and tech.  Finally, I told Charles.  

When I came home I couldn’t wait to see you. [I’m not as open around you as I’d like because of that attraction.  I’ve rarely loosened up around you for fear that it would become evident that I liked you.]  The last night we were all together when we were all saying goodbye, I wanted to hug you, to show you some sign of compassion but all I could bring myself to do was look into your eyes. What I saw in you will stay with me forever.  I fell in love with you that night, my friend, forgive me.  No woman has ever loved me, no woman probably ever will. But that night, looking into your eyes, the compassion in you told me that was okay. You let me know that there's something here on earth greater than the average woman… compassion exists.  You remind me of the type of person that, if you believed in God, would become a nun or a missionary to help poor children survive.  I tell you that because though you do not believe in a God, you hold many of the characteristics I have always believed God had, like staying with those you love even though they hurt you.

Your friend,

Darryl

Next he writes a letter to Charles.

 

15 Nov

Charles,

I thank God that you are my friend.  I received your letter yesterday; I was so afraid to open it.  Had I been in your position I don’t know how I’d feel.  Then again I’m a little emotionally confused right now anyway.  Thank you for understanding.  I wasn’t sure if telling Tegan how I felt was a good idea; however, I attempted to write a letter to see how it would make me feel.  It hurt to write, but when I was through, I felt very relieved.  She should get it the same day you get this.  I hope it does not anger her or something.  

I am going to apply for Officer Training School.  I’ll do that in 8 1/2 months.  About 9 months after that I’ll leave here - if I get accepted - and go to OTS for 3 1/2 months.  Then I’ll have 4 years as a Lieutenant.  I talked to a former officer here and he said a foreign language degree is good for getting into OTS.  Go figure.  I’ll get paid about 3X as much or so I heard.

You said you thought that a few more years of college would “help” Tegan.  From what you told me, Charles, college more or less was a catalyst for your own emotional problems.  The only things which helped you were God and Tegan… mostly Tegan, though undoubtedly a direct tool used by God, who was indirectly your relief.  Anyway, she eased you; what’s going to help her?  College?  My goodness, man, college is hell on a person’s emotions!  It worsened me; it didn’t harden or strengthen me; it tore me down and left a little puddle of tears.  Don’t hope that she will change in a mere few years.  Don’t even hope she’ll change at all.  God will take her as He takes her.  Her, at least mine is to me, emotional instability is integral with her being.  Change that and Tegan is gone.  It is a cross to bear for someone who “sees”… or, an artist.  Mozart, Poe, Beethoven, many painters whose names I can’t spell like Michelangelo, were all unstable.  Even one of those English Prime Ministers (Churchill?) during one of those world wars had it.  Lincoln had it.  I told you I saw the Divine in her eyes.  Part of what I saw was her emotional state, her self-destructive nature.  I saw a certain loneliness there that may never go away, might never be filled.  All who have touched God have touched loneliness.  You know holy means separated.  A separated man is alone.  Loneliness breeds a certain despair, which can somewhat be coped with, but never destroyed.  Walking with God, you share His pain, and He yours.  Pain does not go away.  The artists of the world share a certain, special pain of God… the pain of creation… a constant birth of Beauty.  I may be wrong, but please be aware that it might be God’s will that she doesn’t change all that much.   At least not in the way you think or hope.

One last note: my love for Tegan is purely spiritual.  But, yes, I am attracted to her physically.  That was obvious, I thought.  I’m attracted to many girls physically; that’s easy for me to control and it never bothered me.  If I’d been obsessed with her body, then yes, that’d be really wrong.  But it’s not just agape love.  Yet it wasn’t lust.  I have no idea what it is I feel.  I humbly guess - and am probably wrong - I sense a Kindred Spirit in her.  In all honesty, looking in her eyes those brief seconds, I thought I saw… my own soul.  Not reflected, but her.  I never experienced that before with anyone.  I must admit, and this is why I feel so bad, that a part of me is jealous that she loves you.  But mostly I am happy for both of you and know that I could never handle a relationship anyway.  It feels good to get that off my chest.  I probably sound insane and am just as probably am.  I no longer know, yet I no longer care.  I still feel like I’m slipping, yet I’m not as worried about it.  Mozart said that the key to joy is death.  Don’t long for it, but don’t fear it: accept it.

Love,

Darryl

…….

When Tegan receives her letter she is stunned. Darryl is in love with her?  No! No he couldn’t be. They hardly know each other! It’s only been a bit over a year since they met and most of that time he’s been gone. And when they do spend time together it is always with Charles and Dave too and often he remains silent. 

And she loves Charles. 

She knows Darryl struggles with depression and self-loathing, same as her and that did intrigue her.  Maybe he is someone who could better understand what she is going through since she feels mostly misunderstood by Charles. But beyond that, she doesn’t know him. And he can’t possibly know her, Not enough to love her.  Not genuine love at any rate.  He must just be, as her friend would say, obsessed, with her.  Right?  Like she had been with her first high school crush.  Right?  Yeah, that must be it.  

Tegan sits down to write:

Nov 19

Darryl,

There is nothing to forgive. I am not offended but rather greatly flattered! Thank you. But maybe you are confusing lust and love? When I was 18 I became obsessed with a boy during my last year in high school. I thought of him all the time, dreamed of a life together, and was thrilled every time she showed me the tiniest bit of attention. But I forgot about him as soon as I met Charles. It was merely a crush, an obsession. Someday you will find someone who makes you forget about me. I wish this for you, because you deserve to be happy. 

Tegan

A week later, Darryl’s final letter reads as follows:

20 Nov

Tegan,

Charles just called and read me the letter you wrote me concerning my feelings.  Thank you for taking the time to respond.  I realize now, after many months and even years of contemplation, that I really do not wish to get married nor have a relationship.  I believe, now that I have finally accepted that desire, that this understanding was what I saw in you: the Absolute Beauty of Friendship.  That began the conclusion to which I have come concerning my romantic future: None. I do doubt that I could ever find anyone to love me romantically but more I doubt my capacity to be romantic.  Sex disgusts me.  I have never seen anything more in Romance than the sexual courtship of humans.  I no longer have the desire of a female companion and in all truth, feel that a relationship would only get in the way of my devotion to God and my fellow Man.  What I see in you and what I see in Charles has led me to this final understanding.  I long to be alone because only while being alone am I not lonely.  I relied so much on God as a child to save me from the Hells through which I traveled, that to replace my affection for Him with anyone else would be the destruction of my being -- who I am.  Though I have compassion for all and dearly love my friends, inside, I am and always will be alone… But not lonely, not always, sometimes.  Loneliness is important to me, as is depression as is being suicidal.  Only in those states do I grow spiritually, in Love, and in Wisdom.

Thank you for your letter; I will read it again when I receive it here.  The love you and Charles share is a love I will never share with anyone.  I cannot because I do not understand it nor want it… but know that it is good. I desired it when I was younger but realize now that I could never handle it.  I know no one who can. I experienced God quite a few times in prayer.  It was a mystical experience which most now would call psychotic episodes.  But the Love was so pure and real that I could do nothing but weep.

Your friend,

Darryl

P.S.

What you went through with that guy when you were 18 I went through when I was 18 as well.  I know that feeling of obsession and depression and rejection and utter dejection back to obsession all too well.  Please do not think I am obsessed with you, that is a dark feeling.  It scares the Hell out of me more than Death itself.  I would throw myself off a cliff before I’d face it again.  Perhaps what I saw in you was only what I wanted or needed to see - my own loneliness.  The closest person to me - Charles - has found love.  I never will. That led me to realize I never wanted to, and have fought with my sexual desires all my life.  Your love you two share brought my reality into a new light… one of acceptance.  I guess I saw nothing in you but what you represented: my one loneliness, by contrasting Charles’s love.  I love you and Charles and wish never again to speak on this matter.  I will never again jeopardize my friendships.  Much of what I said here has evolved from my last letter to Charles.

Happy Thanksgiving