Dear Wigleaf,

When I was very young, I used to fall asleep on the bus ride to school. And the bus ride home from school. There was a boy on the bus who noticed. He mocked me for years, well into high school. Remember when you used to fall asleep on the bus? That was so weird.

He never asked me why I fell asleep on the bus—so often, and so soundly, that once as we rounded the corner in the rain on the way to school and pulled up to the front entrance, the bus lurched onto the curb, rocked back onto the street, and I crimsoned the window with my nose like an abstract painting.

We're only ever one accident away from learning something new about ourselves.

After the surgeon fixed my septum years later, I never had a nosebleed again. The story I told about myself all through childhood and adolescence—don't throw me the ball, don't press your nose against my nose when we kiss—undone over the course of a few days. Days I spent half-lidded in front of an overworked humidifier, my nose dripping like a bad faucet in bed, watching movies that became visions. Delirious. Exhausted. So exhausted I could fall asleep, but I couldn't fall asleep.

I'm writing to you from my couch where, who knows, I may fall asleep. The couch is pink, velvet, and there's a dog on it. Even if we start the story alone, we don't have to end it that way.

Love,
Jiordan