I walked back to our table with four vodka sodas in plastic cups interlaced between my fingers. I slammed them down and watched my friends reach for them as a drag queen on stage poured red wine all over themselves to a Lady Gaga song - this was before the “360” music video had come out. My phone buzzed. I swung it out of my pocket and checked and saw you had Snapchat messaged me. I ran to the bathroom. I hadn’t heard from you in over a year.
“sorry jac,” spelled without the “k” like you always did.
Through tears in the stall at Daddy’s Bar, I pleaded with you for details into your prolonged absence, receiving no details. When I first noticed that you’d disappeared, I called you incessantly and left long winded voicemails. When I still hadn’t heard back I called the school you worked at in Las Vegas. They told me you quit unexpectedly without telling anyone where you were going. But there you were in my hands, typing on Snapchat, and I felt so relieved.
“I remember hearing your voice mail and I broke down when I heard it. Jac i’m so sorry”
I texted and called you as the music rumbled in the room next door. You stopped replying and I began to panic, it felt like the window to reach you was closing. I had no choice but to rejoin my friends and pray to God that you’d tell me what had been going on. I convinced myself you’d fallen asleep, or maybe were in the middle of a game. A week later I found your obituary.
This is the story of how I met my first love. My video game lover and online boyfriend for ten years. I met Valerian over Skype when I was thirteen years old. He was introduced to me virtually by my childhood best friend Aidan who had moved to Georgia. We played video games to keep in touch, and were often accompanied by Aidan’s new classmates and friends on our late nights playing League of Legends. One night, sitting in the dining room of my mom’s house, I heard his voice for the first time.
“C’mon Valerian don’t be such a cock-sucker” someone prodded him, in-game.
I sat in silence waiting for his reply in my headphones. Curious to hear how he’d reply to such an attack, one I had been accosted with as well.
“You’d probably love for me to suck your cock, you fat virgin,” Valerian replied.
Not only was I incredibly intrigued, but I was also incredibly turned on. I had never been so close to another gay guy in my life like this, let alone one who’d so confidently clap back at a straight guy like that. Who was this person? I felt the cracks of the closet begin to open. We finished our game and ended our Skype call. I added Valerian as a friend and stared at my laptop, my heart pounding. He accepted it and we began chatting.
I didn’t waste any time. I began to drill him with questions about his gayness, something I had barely even noticed in myself at that time going into eighth grade. Have you ever kissed a boy? Do your parents know? Have you had sex? Does it hurt? I was hoping that my consecutive inquiries were coming off as genuine curiosity, instead of acquiring crucial information about what I was about to go through. He caught on quickly, and 30 minutes into our conversation, I came out to him. He was the first person I ever told.
I learned that Valerian was three years older than me and that he lived in Las Vegas with his entire extended family. Valerian was his name in Wizard101, but changed it legally to shed the name of his abusive father. Our messaging had evolved into hour-long calls late at night when I knew no one could hear me. I loved talking to Valerian in the silence of my dining room while Mexican music played loudly in his house. We both had this secret we could escape to.
I postponed the first video call for as long as I could. At 13, I absolutely despised the way I looked. I was overweight and had recently been medically diagnosed as a fatty by a dietician my parents forced me to see. I hated myself miserably, but my interest in Valerian and curiosity about his appearance overpowered my fear of being rejected, so I agreed to a video call.
Valerian was gorgeous. He had curly brown hair that fell over his face, hitting his glasses that were always greasy in the glare of his laptop. Valerian liked what he saw as well. We showed each other our rooms. His was full of posters and his juggling tools, mine was full of Walking Dead Funko Pops and crystals. We called whenever we could given the time difference, but most of our time was still spent playing video games and before I knew it, it was time to start high school.
We upgraded to the Skype app and began texting every day. My goal for freshman year was to come out to my two best friends at the time, Carrie and Ben. We sat on a corner in between all of our houses at Shafor Park. One day, I ran over to them and sat down for our usual chit chat.
“You have the gayest run I’ve ever seen,” said my friend Ben.
“That’s probably because I’m gay,” I replied, appreciating the prompt.
Carrie was elated, and shot up to jump for joy with all 5 foot 11 of her.
“I can’t believe I get to have a gay best friend!” She was right. Soon she would show me Willam’s YouTube channel and paint my nails for the first time.
Valerian was there for all of this - cheering me on from my pocket as I snuck texts to him in the bathroom. Eventually Ben caught on to the true nature of our relationship, and became our biggest supporter.
Valerian was also the first person I ever sent nudes to, and received nudes from. It was terrifying and thrilling but a key moment for my developing brain. He also taught me how to trim my pubic hair in a safe, effective way without cutting myself. As the sexual component of our relationship got more intense, albeit digital, we became increasingly attached to one another emotionally. We were talking from sunrise to sunset, playing League in between, all while sexting and having horny video calls. I’m surprised I had time for anything else.
I was in health class one day, texting Valerian under the table when he sent me a picture of a gun. I ran to the bathroom and began to talk him out of shooting himself in the head. In hindsight, I’ve realized that this is unfortunately a shared experience for people of my generation. Thank God he didn’t do anything stupid, but he’d do this again a few more times throughout high school and it had me in a complete chokehold. Something had to change.
The change was high school theatre, which I joined my sophomore year. And if that wasn’t embarrassing enough, I also started playing the flute in marching band and took lessons and became first chair. Valerian and I still talked but I was getting older and eventually even got a real high school boyfriend that I met in a production of Hairspray! Valerian and I started to act less like lovers and more like friends.
In 2017, The Mandalay Bay shooting happened in Las Vegas, killing sixty people. Valerian already hated Las Vegas, but this was his last straw and he decided to leave. He sold all his belongings, including his computer, and bought an expensive neon green motorcycle. He started his journey driving it to everywhere in the country he had online friends. His first stop was Utah.
In Utah, Valerian told me he was staying with his friend who was a drug dealer that was around my age. He looked like a Mormon Yung Lean. We kept in touch a lot less since I was now in college at Ohio State smoking weed and writing poetry in the woods, but eventually I’d open Snapchats from him hooking up with this drug dealer. Valerian tended to be braggadocious about who he was banging, but I enjoyed seeing the photos and videos so maybe that makes me the pervert.
A year later, In Iowa, Valerian stayed with a friend and soon became the manager at a McDonalds off of the highway. He told me that he loved it, and that it worked for him, since his friends were making him pay rent. I figured he had finally landed on his feet and would stay there for a while. My freshman year of college was ending, and I’d soon be back in Dayton working at the grocery store for the summer. I realized how close Iowa was to Ohio, and I proposed that Valerian come visit me.
As it happens, Valerian had already quit his job and was now planning on driving to Maine to stay with some other online friends of his and would totally be passing through Dayton on I-70. We arranged the day and I told Valerian to meet me in the Burger King parking lot on Brown Street. I couldn’t exactly host him at my house since my parents had no idea who this guy was.
I reconnected with my friend Ben and told him that Valerian was coming to town. Ben offered to go with me, since Ben also knew him, but to keep me safe if anything happened. I was kind of offended that Ben thought Valerian, my longtime friend and sort-of boyfriend of six years, would pose any threat to me directly. But I agreed and Ben sat in the passenger’s seat as I drove us downtown to Burger King.
I parked my blue 2014 Volkswagen Tiguan and waited anxiously, tracking Valerian on Snap Map. I heard the revving of a motorcycle and looked in my rear view mirror, and there he was. Ben and I got out of the car and waited as Valerian pulled into the parking lot and parked his bike. He was wearing full motorcycle gear with the helmet and the padded jacket and everything. I was happy that he was being safe on the road, and so turned on.
I walked up to him and waited for him to take off his helmet, standing there like a princess with rosy cheeks waiting for my handsome night rider to reveal his true identity. He looked the same as when we met on Skype: curly brown hair, and greasy glasses. He unzipped his jacket and pulled me into a long hug - noticing for the first time that he was a lot taller than me, and smelling for the first time his pheromones which were emanating from his wife beater from driving in the July heat all day.
Ben was standing right there, all 6 foot 4 of him, lurking over us like Slenderman. They hugged as well but I began to regret inviting him. Naturally, we all went inside Burger King and ordered food before I drove us all to the pond in the woods in my hometown that you go to when situations like these are occurring. The three of us sat on logs and talked as the night fell. Valerian talking about his journey ahead, me talking about school, and Ben talking about something that I don’t remember.
The whole meeting barely lasted three hours, and I soon drove him back to his motorcycle at Burger King. When we were all together, I looked into Valerian’s eyes and searched for the feeling of being reunited with your soulmate – like a wife running into her husband’s arms returning from war, but I didn’t find it. The sexual feelings were there, sure, and to this day I regret not fucking the shit out of him in my car, but I realized that I had come a long way since I was 13. And so had Valerian.
Ben and I watched Valerian drive away into the Dayton skyline. I knew I wouldn’t be seeing him for a long time, but I had no idea it would be my last time ever seeing him. Valerian arrived safely and a few months later on a February morning Columbus, I opened my mailbox to receive a package from my parents but instead found an envelope with “Jac” (no “k”) on it. Inside there was a golden poker chip and a postcard from Las Vegas that read:
Happy Valentines, I love you. You’re such a good friend and I’m happy I met you.
-Valerian
❤️
🧡🧡