He used to call me Bean

I stole an undershirt at his house, thin soft cotton with tiny fraying holes. It fit so well and it was another little piece of him. He lent it me the last time he let me sleep over. Now I think I might sleep in it every night, and I wonder how I will continue to go on like this, feeling so much. Such a wonderful rush of warmth and then a dull cold bitterness. So swift and so sharp. It's got pincers, Mummy, and it reeks of madness.

I gave him a nickname another boy once gave me. This was a boy I met on the nets, who mailed me paintings of blank-faced teddy bears committing seppuku and texted me sweet nothings like, "I'm outside looking at the stars, wondering what it would be like to hold your face in my hands." He was stuck at his parents' house in New Jersey, having just had a nervous breakdown. We'd spend hours talking online and texting each other. It was almost like not being alone.