before I go on to gif the video, I just wanted to come on and say that it hit me so so so fucking hard. it was like looking in a mirror, seeing my own story of struggling with acne, and especially the mental health effects of accutance, which I was also on. it takes courage to put yourself out there, especially in the public eye, and i’m so fucking proud of ethan for doing it. it’s something I never could have done. I caked myself in foundation before school, never wanted to be in pictures, never wanted to be seen by anyone. accutane wrecked my body but it gave me myself back, and I was more confident coming out of it because I had found the things that made me worthy in the meantime while I waited for my skin to figure itself out. if you’re struggling with acne, it does get better, I promise you that. the scars fade, and those who really love you don’t care about the painful spots on your face. there will be a day where you wear makeup because you want to, not because you feel like you have to. you are loved and you are worth so much more than the way your skin looks.
tell us about the boy I wanna know if I should go beat him up or not (if you want to, no pressure bby!)
hahaha okay listen I will give yall the full story buckle up its amazing and then its sad :) (this could literally be a fic it turned out so long holy shit)
so I worked at a summer camp last summer in austin texas (i’m from kentucky). which meant I moved into a lodge in the middle of the city with 25+ other young adults my age. I didn’t know anyone, had never even been to texas. but I start making friends, as I do.
one night I get back from dinner and these two boys are taking sporcle quizzes (sporcle is a website with specialized quizzes and shit). I decided to go over and help cause they didn’t know some of the answers, and we end up stayed up all night doing quizzes.
a few days from then, one of them (we’ll call him virginia boy) is like “hey, I had no idea you were that smart. do you wanna do more quizzes a shit sometime?” (nerdy as fuck, I know). so then we start doing logic puzzles, like every night, tucked away somewhere in the lodge where no one will bother us. then, we started playing cards, spades specifically, which requires a partner. we swore we were forever partners (never broke it, never teamed up with anyone other than him for the whole 3 months).
then he found out I’m decent at basketball, so I became the 8th player in the all boys four on four games, which meant we spent even more time together. we went outside every off day we had and shot around for hours. he didn’t have a car since he flew in from virginia, so at first he started just borrowing mine. but then we started doing shit together, like going to the grocery store or lunch. then we started going on adventures. hikes, museums, art galleries. got up early in the morning to spend the whole day together. and while we were working at camp we were always hanging out too. true best friends.
I had to go back home for a friends wedding for a few days, and he was texting me while I was gone, joking around saying he didn’t know what to do without me there, that he was having separation anxiety. when I got back he tackled me in the parking lot, told me I was never allowed to leave again
one day he convinced me that we should drive out to big bend national park. I expected him to suggest other people going with us, but he wanted it to be just us. so cue us, packing up the bare minimum and going on a 8 hour road trip. we got to the park at 1am, ran around the parking lot yelling about how bright the stars were.
we tried to sleep in the back of my car, but we couldn’t stop laughing. we were totally giddy, that stupid fun laughter when somebody swallows too loud or some shit. the second day we hiked 14 miles in 118 degree heat and almost DIED but when we got back we just laughed at how dumb we were, and how much fun we had. we played cards at sunset on the pavement. we laid on top of my car and watched the milkyway and the meteor shower that aligned with when we were there
the last day we hiked more, swam in our underwear in the rio grande, I had to piggyback carry him across the river cause he didn’t have the right shoes. i had never felt so free and spontaneous and fuckin seen. we had such good, deep conversations about life and trauma and emotions. I told him everything and he told me everything.
we drove back, and we were even more attached after that. I think I knew I was in love with him after we got back, and we ended up being co-counselors for the next session, meaning we had the same cabin and we were together 24/7 with our boys and it was the best week of the summer in terms of camp cause we just had so much fun.
one late night in the van he fell asleep on my shoulder, and I held his head when we went around turns or over bumps so he didn’t wake up (little did I know he was just pretending to be asleep and loved every minute of it). after that he said he was ‘claiming’ me for the night, which ended up with me sneaking down into the boys cabin where I was not supposed to be to watch a movie. and then the movie didn’t work, which turned into us cuddling and talking about everything and confessing feelings and writing words into each others skin.
I slept down there with him, and when we woke up he looked at me and said ‘kiss me, please’ so I did and he said “long overdue”. we had one last session of camp after that, so we were just anxiously awaiting the last few days off after the session ended.
we went on a few real dates in those days, tacos and ice cream and late night chats on the roof, staring at the city. two days before we had to leave I went down to his room to talk, and he had gotten into his head, decided he didn’t think long distance would be good for either of us. we had an honest conversation about it, and I managed to convince him to give it a try (or so I thought). and I promised him that if he didn’t want to do it once we gave it a shot that I would accept it.
the next day, he (unknown to me) went and tried to get advice from his friends and cried the whole time because he knew he was going to hurt me and he really didn’t want to.
later that day, he told me that it wasn’t going to work. we both sobbed for literal hours, because we both knew if we weren’t going our separate ways we would have never let it go. we ended up sort of hooking up that night (everything but actually fucking haha, first time for both of us) because that’s how we wanted our last night together to go, we’d both never been more comfortable with anyone else in our whole lives
when my alarm went off the next morning I woke up and cried, got up, packed up everything I had brought with me. he brought my car around to the front of the lodge, helped me pack.
we held each other for a minute, kissed each other goodbye, and that was the last time I saw him in person, almost a whole year ago now.
we still talk. we had to stop for a little while because it was too hard, too raw for both of us. we’re friends now. we skype every couple weeks, stay in touch. but as much as i try to convince myself that I don’t, im pretty sure I still love him, and I think that I always will.
