Dear Connell,
It’s been a while. I heard an overwrought indie song and thought about you. How are you holding up during the quarantine in New York? Is everything alright?
x
Dear Marianne,
Yeah, no, things are alright. I’m quarantining in my apartment. I share a room with two other guys. One of them is an actor and the other does improv. They’re alright.
How are you getting on? Are you seeing anyone?
C
Dear Connell,
I’ve never heard you express this much emotion, I’m worried about you.
I’m dating this guy, Aiden. He doesn’t like immigrants and disappears for weeks at a time without notice. Last week he stole my blender and left a note saying he hated me. He’s great and my friends tell me how much he adores me. But when I’m with him, it’s not like with you.
We were planning a trip to Napa Valley before this all happened, I think he was going to propose. I was going to tell you to come stay with us.
I see Matt Damon at the grocery store every week now. I told him I liked some of his work, and everyone is talking about how I annihilated him.
I cut my own bangs. They’re a little too short, like at school, and I’m ugly and pathetic again.
How is the writing?
x
Dear Marianne,
Please, don’t remind me of you at school. You had a French braid and a jumper as well. It was brutal.
Yeah, writing is alright. I’ve had loads of agents interested in my book, Sad, about a jock with a soft side who moves to America. It’s rubbish. I reckon no one will read it. People keep telling me I’m a genius though. I’ll probably just delete it all. I dunno. Sometimes I wish you didn’t tell me to become a writer.
I got laid off from my job creating memes for a bank. It’s alright, although I’ll need to get another proper job soon.
I’m miserable whenever I am without you. If only I knew how to be happy.
C
Dear Connell,
It’s New York! It’s writing! You are doing it — you are living the dream!
It’s been fine in Dublin. I‘ve been staring out of windows on rainy days and going for windswept walks alone. I didn’t even realize there was a pandemic for weeks until people started wearing masks. It made me think, have I always been wearing a mask? Sometimes, someone will look at me, but do they even see me? I never wore a mask with you, although I would now because of the pandemic. Unless you didn’t want me to.
Oh feck, I just found another melted ice lolly on the floor.
Are you seeing anyone?
x
Dear Marianne,
Yeah, I was seeing this girl, Aimee. We met at a university in New York. I’ve been too afraid to leave the apartment and barely been eating. She would cycle 15 miles from Queens every day to leave food outside my door for me. She edited four drafts of my manuscript. I really opened up to her about all the things I like about you. She was alright, I guess. I ended it.
The bodega guy heard about the breakup and brings me up a sandwich every day for free.
I’m so alone.
C
Dear Connell,
I love the emails you send, you write so beautifully.
I feel like I’ve lived my whole life in quarantine and I was just starting to come out of it before you left. Now everyone knows what it’s like to be me, and I just wanted to be like them.
This is the longest I’ve ever communicated with you without taking our clothes off. Does that make you feel weird?
x
Dear Marianne,
What are you playing at?
Do you think maybe after all of this is over you would want to… I dunno, forget it.
C
Dear Connell,
Yeah…
x
Dear Marianne,
Yeah…
C
Dear Connell,
Right.
x
Dear Marianne,
Right, yeah.
C
Dear Connell,
No one understands me like you.
x