I owe you an apology so big that I don’t even know where to start. You deserved so much better from me, and you should be furious at me. If you are, You are allowed to tell me, regardless of how my mental health is. I made a decision to do that, and I need to face the consequences of that action.

I own my mistake.

I will do all the work to repair the damage I’ve caused between us, because I know I have caused some.

It was not hyperbole when I told people I’m never coming back to Baltimore. This recent wedding confirmed that for me. The fallout of our wedding necessitated that I leave immediately. I identify more as a refugee, now, escaping political persecution, one seeking asylum and anonymity in a new city. I’ve no real desire to live in DC; it’s just the only path to not living in Maryland at the moment.

Over the course of the last year, in talking with a lot of people about my upbringing – talking to Greg has helped the most – I realized I’ve always been in incredible amounts of physical danger because of my homosexuality and my relationships to both Harford County and Baltimore.

My parents did irreversible damage to my ability to trust when they left. They’ve always been adamant that I could depend on them for anything — which in a lot of ways was true, as fucked up as it was. I depended on them so much, until out of nowhere, I couldn’t depend on them for anything.

The first week of my unemployment from NASA, I called my parents on the way home from the family beach house to tell them about my impromptu trip for my first few days without a job, to discover, in shock, that they were not only moving to Denver but also giving the car they had gifted me for my graduation to my brother for no real reason.

They had known about the move for months, and I only found out because I caught them in a lie. They moved about two months later without making any effort to see me before they left; my lay-off and disappearing roommate did nothing to slow their roll.

They abandoned me in my time of need.

That’s what I thought happened with us, because my year only got more difficult from there.

I still don’t understand everything that happened to me and Kevin over the last couple years. We had no other gay male relationships outside you to use as a reference. But as we met more gay guys, we figured out that everyone we knew and cared about before meeting them had completely devalued and discredited us for being gay. Our rejection was community-wide.

I’m currently going over my daily journal from the past two years, so I can tell myself in my own words how things got so bad for us. I came across these entries shortly after Greg told me you had stayed over there place really late in the morning one night recently, and I thought a saw a coordinated lie playing out between the three of you — one that purposefully excluded Kevin and I.

This entry dated Jan 1

Secondly, I wrote this hypothetical letter to Greg the day after NYE, which I didn’t feel I could send – as my parents were poised to move to Denver a couple days later. That move was really traumatic for me, and I was afraid voicing my discomfort would cause both you and the guys to disappear from me when I really needed you.

When KP and I talked about my fears of a possible long-term deception and of being excluded by the three people I trust most in the world, he thought the same thing I did:

“If it’s true, we either weren’t important enough to tell by anyone involved, or it was intentionally being kept hidden from us.”

Somewhere over the course of the last year, I noticed you and I stopped feeling comfortable talking to each other. I attributed that to these fears I had, because I didn’t know what happened. I began to feel less like your friend than I did your access to a sexual conquest as these fears stayed unspoken. That has been a prominent pattern in many of my friendships throughout my life – the role of social connector who is irrelevant once the friendship they really wanted has been secured.

I thought you abandoned me when I needed you, just like my parents did. Unlike my life, theirs got so much better after they moved, and they still demand I congratulate them, smiling.

That’s why my reaction was so sharp. This was about me and my insecurities, and it had nothing to do with you.

I’m still struggling so much; the hole they left has only ever gotten deeper.

I’ve got no one here.