I have chronically been obsessed with the TV show “You” on Netflix. It has invaded my mind. My friends and my brother told me to watch it, and not to mention, it was trending when every new season was dropped.

Since then, it has opened my eyes onto what “you” really means. We talk in second person in poems, writings, paintings, fictions, etc. — everything is “you.” The narrator, in a sense, is afraid to let you know who they are. It is exposing their muse.

When I say “you,” do you picture someone? Because as a writer, I do.

I am afraid to let the audience know who you are. Valery, my character, I have known you since third grade and I know everything about you. You do not know who you are, you love to be loved, you have superpowers and you are afraid of your own skin. I am afraid of my own skin. You are the hardest (yet easiest) to write because, Valery, you will always belong to me.

I remember playing on my dad’s trailer when I was 10 years old, and all I could think about was you. I lived inside my mind and would act out scenes from your life that I have written. Every bonfire your name crossed my mind. Paying off car registration, during every boring lecture, applying for a new job, 8 a.m. in the morning and minutes before I fell asleep — you were there. 

I had that escape because of you. I love you. You are not real, and that is OK. But I could make you real one day. No one will ever fully understand you, but I do.

Some might say that you were like an imaginary friend, but I do not believe that is true. I knew I liked writing, and I had this story in mind to create and there you were. 

The most beautiful and unique thing I love about writing are the characters. I strongly believe that they are the most important element to storytelling.

Valery, you drive my story, and sometimes, it feels like I am only the passenger who occasionally takes the wheel because I do not exactly know where the end destination is. I once heard somewhere that they are lost souls you were meant to find. I was meant to find you.

Valery, I found you in a sci-fi dystopian world where you are one of the “chosen ones.” You have purple eyes when you activate your powers, and you are madly in love with Killian Wood. You are placed in a world that is much more dangerous than the world I live in, but you are embodied with more strength than I could ever possess. In a way, you are my idol.

I originally wrote your manuscript in sixth grade called “Midnight Dawn.” I typed over 100 single-spaced pages, laminated every page, put them neatly into a white binder and it sat in my closet. I cannot read the manuscript today without hysterically laughing or violently cringing — there is no in between. There is even an earlier version of the story that exists somewhere that had something to do with a team that could shapeshift into animals. It is OK, you can laugh.

I know every writer experiences this, but it never fails to amaze me that when we mature, so do our stories. As I grow, Valery, you grow. I can only imagine what the final manuscript will be like and even how it will be different than the one I have that is currently called “The Imperials,” but I know I envy dying without this story being told.

Every story has a purpose, even yours.

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