Dear Future Zack,

First of all, Happy 20th Birthday!!! Oh my GOD you’re not a teenager anymore. How freaking WEIRD is that? Wow.

If I’ve forgotten about this letter, you can expect a birthday present but if I haven’t, consider this your gift.

Mr. Wiedenhoft is definitely not going to send our letters. I didn't even spell his name right, but you know what? If he didn't take the time to send our letters then he doesn't get to have his name spelled right. I can't wait for five years for you to get this, so I'm making it two years.

1. If our roadtrip didn't happen, let's make it happen now.

2. If our roadtrip did happen, I'm gonna have to guarantee that after spending what at least 2 weeks together with no one else we knew around, we must have either been completely sick of each other or in love. There's just no way around it. Now knowing us, or at least me, it's the first one, so in case we haven't spoken since then- hi.

3. In case you were wondering, it's currently 5:05 am on Wednesday, August 11th, 2010, and you don't want to wake up in 5 hours to get a wart frozen off. We spent the night discussing the usual- us. It's kinda hilarious when you think about how much we say we don't like each other and yet at least half of our conversations have revolved around that topic. On TV shows the best friends who say they don't have feelings for each other tend to just scream “EW” when other people mention it and then never say anything ever again until they ultimately end up together. That's why when we make our life into a movie it will be different from the normal, and we're sure to get it filmed.

4. You know what’s really cool about this letter is that you’re not getting it for two years and by then a lot of things will have changed so I can say whatever I want, knowing that you’re not getting this for a while and by then it’ll seem less huge. Anyway, I’ve been trying to figure out why you having sex with Gloria is such a big deal and then I remembered something Megan said. When I asked you if you were a virgin, she said something like “if he’s not, I’m gonna stop shipping you guys” and when I asked why that mattered she said it would make you seem different and that she wouldn’t want me to do it with you after that. PS- right now your hands smell like tangerine. Anyways, the point to me was that on TV best friends that are of the boy/girl variety tend to get through a bunch of their “firsts” together to make things less awkward or whatever and I wouldn’t be able to do that with you after you did it with her. But eventually I’m sure I’ll realize that it would be even more awkward with you so TV is not like real life. Besides, by now I’m sure you’ve been de-virginized :P I don’t even know what I just said, I think I’m trying to say that my empty offers for sex weren’t actually empty? Blame the 5:30amness for that and for this. Confession: When people ask me if I like you or not I have an easy answer of “no” but I have a hard time answering it to myself because I honestly don’t know. See, sometimes I’m like “this is so cool, he’s like the older brother I’ve always wanted” but other times I’m like “but he’s not actually your brother so you’re allowed to like him”, and the thing is that I have a tendency to like any boy I get to know at least for some period of time, so why would it be any different with you? Maybe it’s because you liked me so the chase was over before it started or maybe it’s because I actually had to stop myself from starting because by then you were already moving on to Gloria. I guess we’ll never really know, so I don’t know what I’m admitting to here, except that sometimes I think I could like you before the whole “no you don’t want to ruin your best friendship so just wait for things to unfold on their own someday and if it’s meant to happen then it will” because I can’t for the life of me picture being your girlfriend, so I’m happy with how things have turned out. However, when I look at us, I see it like a movie where you’re screaming the whole time at the two main characters to “get the f--- together already!” but they’re too stubborn to do anything until the end of the movie. And the problem with those movies is that we never get to see what happens next- does it work out when you move from friends to dating or does it all end up ruined? Because I know I wouldn’t risk the latter. *Breathes* (I hope you read that altogether without taking a breath in between because that was the intention there.)

5. My currently favorite thing about you is that I can trust you, and that’s weird because we’ve probably been friends for the shortest amount of time of all of my friends, but somehow we can tell each other everything, and I think that’s super cool. I think that’s why I’m making sure I write this email. I definitely don’t want that to change now that we’re so far apart, and I really don’t think it will since most of our conversations occur on AIM anyway, and we’re both so good at being friends with people we never see ;)

6. Your favorite band is Paramore but you also enjoy All Time Low and some other bands, you’re in love with Hayley Williams, your favorite color is blue, you’re dating Gloria (but secretly love me), you’re about to go to Cornell, I’m your best friend but you’ll pretend it’s Gloria or Evan just like I pretend mine’s Vicki when we both know we tell each other more than we tell anyone else, Greek is one of your favorite shows including True Blood and House and other shows that I don’t know about so I don’t pay attention to, glowsticks amuse you, you believe in magic, you want to live forever, you’re fascinated by vampires but not of the Twilight variety, you hardly ever show up for class but you always manage to get good grades (especially in physics) without doing homework unless I force you to, you’re scared of sky-diving but I’m going to get you to do it one day, navyoo1 is your screenname, “look! It’s the economy” is your buddy icon thingy, I’m your favorite person to talk to (besides Gloria but I think that’ll be irrelevant by the time you get this), you’re the only person I’ve “snuck out” with, your iphone password is 2792, your regular one is ihorpwafas, you pretend to be too cool for Disney but if that’s your password then we all know you’re a sucker for kid shows, you’re pretty impatient and it gets annoying sometimes but you always win because it makes me tell you things that I probably shouldn’t, my trampoline is our favorite place because of that whole thing with Brittany including our NYC “date”, you’re lazy but if something is important enough you’ll put effort into it, and most importantly- if I bug you enough you’ll do almost anything (almost has only become the key word since Gloria entered the picture fyi). I can’t wait to see how much or how little of this has changed in 2 years.

7. Seven is my lucky number so seven gets to be a secret. Hey- do you remember Secret Sevens, that game we played on the trampoline that you never looked up if it was real? Well I’m googling it right now. HEY GUESS WHAT! WE ACTUALLY MADE IT UP! That’s so cool!! I have to tell Vicki. Where was I? Oh yeah, secret time. You’re probably going to be mad about this one, actually, but when I told you about Megan and Rachel, there was a tiny white lie in there, which is the real reason I don’t go around telling people. My parents know the Wildwood story that you know, but only Anthony knows the truth. Weird, I know, that I’d trust my brother, right? We have a weird sibling relationship, but I don’t know somehow because we’ve had mutual dislikes for a lot of things that our mom does, we’ve been able to bond and I’m pretty sure he feels like he can come to me with anything just like I can with him. Anyway, enough about how much my brother and I are friends… truth be told I didn’t actually meet them in Wildwood. In fact, as of this moment I haven’t met either of them in person. We met on *gasps* a website. I know, shocking. It’s called fanfiction, and people can post stories or read stories and write comments and Megan and I both read a story by Rachel and she liked my comments on it so much that she messaged me on the site and asked for advice on a future story and somehow we all became friends. It’s a complicated story that I honestly don’t remember the beginning of, but Megan and Rachel are the best friends I’ve made from that site and to be honest there are a few more people but they’re not as fun and we’re already losing contact so I’m sure by the time you’re reading this, I won’t talk to them. Rachel thinks I will have already told you this by now so it’s no big deal and there’s no need to explain anything else now, so if I haven’t, you may ask questions after reading this.

8. How awesome of a rambler am I? I’m also half delirious right now so I’m really hoping this all makes sense since you’re not letting me proofread it in the morning when I’ll have enough common sense to erase numbers 4 and 7. It’s for the best though; this is probably your favorite birthday present. Ickk things could get so awkward if by the time you read this everything has changed. Let’s promise that if it has, you’ll call me right when you finish reading and we’ll go back to how things were when I wrote this letter.

9. You’re struggling to stay awake right now. It’s currently 6:11 am, and this isn’t even close to the first time we’ve been up this late talking. That’s another thing I have to hope doesn’t change because you’re kinda the only person who will stay up this late when I can’t sleep. I hate sleep. A lot. In fact, I kinda feel like going into an insanely long rant about how much I hate sleep, which I’m probably going to do if that flashing orange light at the bottom of the screen is you saying good-night. It wasn’t. You wanted to know what to do with Gloria tomorrow. But for some reason I’m wide awake right now so I’m gonna rant about sleep just to show you how amazing of a rambler I really am. Oh good you’re sleeping now so my rant is justified! Here goes: If it was up to me, we’d never have to sleep. I hate it. I get the horrible feeling that I’m missing out on something, wasting time, and not fully enjoying the night (my favorite time of day). If we waste 4 to 10 hours every night, we’re losing years in the course if a lifetime. Sleep is supposed to keep our bodies healthy and energized. So why do I feel like I’m giving in to sleep as if it’s a drug addiction? Because it doesn’t make me feel good. When I wake up at noon I’m disappointed that I missed watching the sun rise, another morning, time I could spend doing something, doing anything just to do it. When you’re asleep you can only dream. You feel but it’s not real and when you wake up, you’re left with the same mess as when you crashed. So I know- wake up before noon, set an alarm, enjoy your mornings and do something productive. But then I wake up irritated that sleep consumes me even when I’m awake because I’ll be so tired since there’s no way I’d be able to go to bed before midnight. I haven’t done that since the beginning of middle school, if even then. My curiosity sucks. You know that better than anyone. When I want to know something, I don’t stop until I know it. It makes me want to know what happens at night when everyone else is asleep and it will continue to taunt for probably ever but I will learn to embrace it because I intend to use the knowledge I accumulate to learn something powerful enough to change the world (and hopefully find a way to avoid sleeping for longer periods of time. Go science! :P).

Yeah. I can talk.

10. Ten seems like the appropriate number to stop at, so what shall I talk about for my last bullet? Here’s something we don’t say every three seconds [sarcasm is noted], let’s talk about us. Not the us that everyone else sees, the us that we see. I’m going to take this final bullet to tell you that we have to still be friends. I’m not going to start rambling off why because chances are, we’re still friends anyway, but in the off chance that we’re not- pick up the phone and make a call. I’ll be sure to pick up because I’ll know that if Zack is using a phone it must be something big. So think about everything I’ve said (the important stuff anyway), pick up the phone, and tell me that our friendship is just as important to you as it is to me. :)

6:31 am (I know you’re quite enjoying the random time stamps. It makes you feel like it’s an IM, huh?)

Things will most likely have changed to some degree between us because not only is 2 years a long time, but we’re also going to college and being in a new setting means making changes to our old lifestyles. I hope we’re just as close as ever and that you’re still just as annoying (yes that says annoying, not amazing, you didn’t’ read it wrong).

Love youuuuuu,

Alyssa

P.S. Not including this ps, this was 2,451 words in case you were wondering. I know I was. HEY BOY MEETS WORLD COMES ON IN 15 MINUTES!! YES! IM NEVER AWAKE AT 7 TO WATCH REAL TIME- wait why would I want to do that when I can watch it tivoed and fast foward commercials?? Sheesh. It's bed time. (2,510)