Bryce is Nice and Will Suffice

Dear Bryce Davison,

I'm really good under pressure.

I just thought you might like to know this, because. . . Well. You and Jessica skated so beautifully together. You made me. . . feel things. It was weird. I'm not English, or particularly cold, but my sentimentality fires tend to stay at a low burn. Embers, really. I rarely blaze, ok?

But you and Jessica, out there. It was so bizarre. It was like. . . emotion? Is that what one calls it? The way you gazed at her. They way your bodies longed for one another. The intense heightened awareness of each other's physicality. I think I love pairs skating--I think I find it so romantic--because it is a celebration of the strength and athleticism of both the female and the male body in equal measure. And it's wonderful to see the male body used to create beauty rather than--let's face it, Bryce, ok?--brutality.

And you and Jessica, I don't know what you're thinking when you're out there on the ice, but to us watching, it doesn't look just like skating.

It looks like passion. Like exquisite yearning. It looks like a tender union of body with soul. (Which maybe is what making art with one's body is). It looks like something rather Divine.

But, um, I don't know if you noticed that Jessica. . . well. Look, she fell, ok? I don't think I'm the only one that noticed.

So Bryce, listen, because it's true: The only two times in my entire life that I have ever been good at sports were under extreme pressure. Once in basketball, 7th or 8th grade, and once in High School volleyball, I--yes, me--won the game for us at the last minute. Because you know what, Bryce Davison? I arose to it like a winged goddess. Maybe it is the theater blood. I sense a moment in the making, and I am no longer playing sports.

I am performing.

(So, you might want to start lifting some weights? Because it's a safe bet that I weigh more than Jessica Dube? But trust me. This is going to pay off in the long run)

(In case you don't know, Bryce Davison: ending sentences in question marks is the type-print equivalent of tossing my hair.) (Look, I've always been bad at flirting, ok? I only ever do it unintentionally. Which has lead to some very uncomfortable situations.)

Also, you look like Simon from Firefly. And I've never really had a thing for Simon. But Simon never-- well:



Or this:



So here's the thing, Bryce Davison. The absolute truth: If I am every going to land a triple-toe loop sow cal quadruple axle with cheese what-have you? It's going to be at the Olympics. Pressure is what makes me shine.

Really. If there was an Olympics for writing, I'd make the other wordsmiths cry. There would be Neil Gaiman, over at desk one, unable to come up with anything other than "One grey morning Cthulhu woke up and decided to eat tea and toast". And Jane Austen would be stuck after "It's a truth some people agree on. . . ". And Melville would be like, "My name is Fitzeroy". Nabokov would be thinking about a pretty girl and decide to call her Lurlene. And Margaret Mitchell would be making Scarlett O'Hara say how she really hopes, god willing,she can find something good to eat later because she's a mite peckish now. And me?

I would be making the muses weep, Bryce Davison. Weep, I tell you. I would be setting the page to flames.

So. I just thought you might want to consider. Make use of this information. There is no way in heaven or hell I could ever do this:



Unless we were in the moment when it really counted. And then? I'm your woman.