I just keep replaying that semi-conversation in my head. How could anyone possibly want to walk away from something like that? Someone like you. I cannot measure the good against the bad - there’s no scale, for one. I can hardly imagine what I would have done. I can hardly stray now. In the innumerable silent moments that pass me, here, at home, I think of you, and you and I, and how these last months have shaped us, changed us. I’m stronger, more level-headed. Less innocent, for sure, but not in a way that makes me wish anything different.

I fell because of who you are. That’s what keeps me going. That’s the ridiculous truth of it. I couldn’t ask you to be any different because I don’t want anything of you but who you are, what you stand for. The words I couldn’t find? I had them, of course. I just couldn’t say them. You’re passionate, strong-minded, intelligent to a degree I cannot even imagine. Curiosity rules you - you learn because you want to, not because it’s what is expected of you. You fight for what you want and continue to fight for it, even after you have it. The love with which you live is astounding - you’re courageous and stubborn, creative. It all boils down to the one word I could say: wonderful. I couldn’t ask you to be anything other than those things. I couldn’t want anything more than that. And while it is completely ridiculous for me to stick this out, I’m going to, because you mean the world to me. Like you said, you became the world.

The tough truth of it is that you’re worth it. All the would-be fights that are never vocalized, all the heart-wrenching pain, all the sleepless nights in which I tell myself this is worthless? They gather in a frothing furious frenzy, swirling, ready to combust at any moment. But, you’re worth it. That’s it. That’s all there is, the worth of you and the total joy I feel in waking up next to you, in the complete safety that is your fingers twirling around mine, even when the doubt is chipping my shoulder. And that is what keeps me going, even when it feels as though I’m damning myself.

I had envisioned you

 before

in every line I wrote,

 the scratches of the pen on the page

as each shadow of emotion blossomed in the inarticulate ramblings bursting into being against their will -

You were always there,

taller, than you are in life,

easier to talk to,

more affected by my emotion.

But your heart was there,

drifting in and out of words I never should have written.

Angry barking screams of pain stride - with petulant nonchalance - up and down, left and right, in desperate aching squares, just separating you from me. Their voices rise and fall in waves, lapping the shores of our bodies and soaking us through, to the bone, ridged and wrong.

I stand on the edge, straining and staring across, searching in an endless fucking stupor for the flash of warm recognition in the swimming mossy green. Despite the still growing disappointment blooming between us - screaming in its stupid fucking barking square - I remain, toes skittering along the precipice, fingers outstretched. I don’t think I want to give up, should this endless screeching noise be the most obviously relevant result. It will drive me crazy. Assuming I’m not already, that is.

“I wasn’t going to call - especially not at 7:03. Weird. I just - well - missed the sound. Of your voice. Your laugh. And I thought - but, no, you were right. To send me to voicemail, I mean. I’m not offended. Hell, I would, honestly, probably do the same. It’s just, fuck, I don’t know, I thought…

“And there’s the crux of it, I guess. I think. Too much. All the time. It’s incessant, really, and I get stuck, in this blank buzzing madness, and sometimes I think I can’t breathe. Whether or not that has any direct correlation, I guess I don’t know. I wonder if you can see it, on my face, when I fade out, or, actually, if you could, I suppose. Had you seen me.

“I saw you, today. Walking. Bobbing along, as you tend to do, with that beautiful bounce in your step that is so deliciously deceiving. I went to call out, your name, because I am not much of a wit, and can’t, really, come up with things on the spot - but I didn’t. And it’s been in my head, all the while since, because, well, I don’t know if I should have, despite everything. You’re kind of just everywhere, all the time, physically or non, and no matter how I try or what I do to escape you, there you are. Around.

“I have this wicked image, in my head, of you. It’s plaguing. Just your face, close to mine, as we said silently all the things we never manage to say aloud. It’s awful. Your eyes are flickering, in the dim light, and your lips are curved in a smile, and, even now, I can feel the curve of your arm on my waist, the most delicate preserved pressure. It flashes, this snapshot, behind my eyes, all the time. Absolutely taunting.

“And I just wi -“

It’s not like this isn’t familiar.

On some level, it’s basic. Base, even. Prompting images of Edmund, sweating in the shadows, deciding that he will do whatever he needs to, in order to ensure survival. He doesn’t know what else to do, and it has him reaching out - in the wrong way. Of course he goes about it in the wrong way, look at how he ends up. But Shakespeare makes you feel for him, on purpose, with the deliberate intention of making the reader realize that they are no better than Edmund. Because everyone feels it. Base, right?

Which makes me wish it weren’t something I had experienced before. I don’t remember reading Edmund’s “Thou, Nature, art my goddess,” for the first time, in the same way I don’t remember slipping into this, now familiar, swooping sensation for the first time. Low in my stomach, it tingles, and burns, and - whatever - it does what it does and I’m left standing here wondering how on earth I let this happen, again.

And then I feel those eyes my face. Watching. Observing. Soaking up. And I fall all over again. Let’s face it, I’m a sucker for sweet eyes, and, well, you’ve got them. I don’t know how to talk about it - or if talking will even be an option. But I feel it, this familiar swoop, and I see a smile I wish I could forget, and hear the laugh I wish, on some level, that I had never heard. It’s been a long time. It’s distant, barely grappling at my fingertips.

But it’s there, and it’s base. Familiar.

I’m waiting by the mailbox. The scene is bright, with delicate flakes of snow falling in haphazard patterns, twiddling down upon my hat and scarf as I stand in the drive way, hands deep in pockets and teeth claclaclattering against the sharp breeze. I try to stay still but my heels tip and my weight shifts and my fingers clench and unclench, unsteady, unsure. With every rumble of an engine my head snaps up, attention wide but eyes wider, hopeful smiles jumping to and jumping from my lips with each car that zips by. The sun shines down and it’s unfiltered light shines deep into my soul. I sigh, and watch, and wait. God, the waiting is always the worst thing, isn’t it?

The mailbox stares, harsh eyes rolling with each sharp exhale I send in its direction. It has never been something of much relevance, to me, this mailbox. One time, when I was not much younger than I am now, standing here next to it, I hit it with my car. It tipped but didn’t quite topple. It was raining and I was rushing to pick my brother up from some kind of practice and I didn’t look closely enough before I started to cut the wheel. When we got back and I told my dad, he rolled his eyes and said, “Better the mailbox than the house, I guess.” Which wasn’t that far-fetched, because I had done before. Other than that day, though, the mailbox has been nothing but a receptacle, a witness to my various failures and successes, a silent, ever-present force. I accept it’s stare but try not to look at it as I jump from foot to foot, breath streaking out in sharp, cloudily gasps in front of us.

Finally, after what seems like forever, her car is there, an indistinct thing, rumbling noisily and smoothly pulling into the driveway beside me. I can’t help but grin as the ignition is cut and the car click click clicks the heat away. there’s a pause between the car sliding into the driveway and the driver’s side door opening, and that seems like forever, too, and I briefly wonder if my mind is playing tricks and forcing these delays, tempting me every further, dangling those very things I want more than anything before me only to rip them away.

And then she’s getting out of the car and I have to lean on the mailbox for support as she slams the door and strides, with small, assured steps, to me. Dimples flash and I think, in a very childish moment, which I actually have kind of often, that I may just die. She may just kill me.

What I like most about the sunlight is the way it dances upon her face.

 “I don’t want to overstep my bounds,” I say, sighing into her hair as she wraps her arms around me and our checks brush, “but I missed you.”

I feel her smile against mine.

And then I wake up, and I’m nowhere near the mailbox.

This breath is hot, pouring out of her mouth in a jumbled mass of wistful mist, curling around the empty air, a caress. Clenched fists are shoved deeper into the pockets of the bright red coat - a trademark, a brand - and she hesitates, anticipation rolling off her shoulders in the wave of a shrug, clenching and unclenching with each loaded glance.

There is no real justification as to why she leans closer, why she lest the smile dance across her trembling lips, but it happens anyway. The flame crackles and ignites, bursting into brilliant flame, placing, on that dirty concrete porch, the same heat that stroked her breath between the two voices.

“We’ll see each other.”

And, for whatever reason, she looks into those eyes (green, always green, forever green, but this time a muted green, a mossy, lovely, understated green that makes her stomach leap and her gaze fidget) and replies, “I believe you.”

“Good.”

The flames dance and spit and leave her breathless. They flicker just beneath her heart and flutter through her whole body, flouncing against her fingertips. Give her a reason.

You are fat.

It was a tiny voice, soft and small and full of loathing. She never doubted it’s honesty, though, as she stared into the mirror, nodding slow. The hatred dripped in overpowering waves and sent her spine shaking, and no matter how hard she fought it, it was always there, negating everything rationality fought for. That voice, so devilishly close to her own, ran circles around her heart, gripping it tight and grasping at each delicate string holding it in place, threatening to send them snapping. 

Sometimes she can’t stand it; sometimes she wishes she would just bend to it’s will, and fall under it, and become yet another statistic. She saw the disease, what it did, who it destroyed, but, sometimes, she ached so hard for perfection that it became a goal, the only goal, the one thing that was completely inconceivable, unachievable. 

It was those fucking eyes, man, green and aching and overflowing and always in the back of her head, even now, even after all this time. Always. They stripped her down, unravelled her, destroyed all that progress. Finding themselves in the foreground, they rioted, razed the city, burned it all. She wanted to be perfect for those eyes, those eyes that were gone, today, even after all this time, tomorrow, always. 

It was the idea of them, watching her, narrowing and observing her every move. It was the idea that you were seeing her fall apart, at the very seams.

You are fat, and ugly, and completely unloveable. You will be alone.

And that was the frightening fact, wasn’t it? The idea of solitude. The idea of being old, and lonely, and one of those despicable people that people don’t talk about. It was that that sent her down this path. Her heart was made to love. Why couldn’t someone just let her do what it was made for?

Green eyes flash. 

I kept the letters, you know. Tiny, crumpled, frozen. Time was better in these letters, slower, languid and lazy; time was happier, here, a mark of the beginning of what I thought was going to be forever. A mark not only of love, but of the explosion within me, a mark of not only love but of the glittering lights that danced before me. Tears stain them, now, a mixture, sending ink running and hearts thumping as my fingertips trace over them, no longer aware if they are yours or if they are mine.

The page is rough between my fingers, despite how very many times I have held it, in this same position, head bowed, heart clenched, hands jumping. It does not move, never morphs into the beast I know it, now, to be. The monster never comes and claims the letters, though I do not hide them from the rouge. It never comes calling and so they sit, in plain view, always, taunting and tempting. 

Your eyes shine out of them, you know, the letters, bright and laughing and green, happier than I have ever seen them, alive and dancing across the page, blinking up at me from the curve of an “l” or the angry roundness of the “g.” They follow me as I trace the words, like a fish in a current, and mark me, appraise me, mocking my weariness and my wishes. So beautiful, sparkling, always watching. 

I feel your breath on me often, huffing it’s warm mist onto my shoulder, keeping me sane, despite the insanity of it all. It spreads through me like wildfire, faster than even the fastest of racers, and settles over me, anchoring me, eliciting a sigh of equal parts shame and relief, equal parts pain and peace. The ghost of your arm insnares my waist and even though it is wrong, it is so, so right, and everything floods over me, so positive and sure, knowledge that it was the right thing, then, no matter what is happening, here, now. 

I kept the letters, you know, and I read them often, when I miss the way your smile sent sparks through me, when the smattering of your freckles haunts me, when I can’t help but close my eyes and see you swimming before them, happy, the girl you were when you were here, with me, swallowing the space between my fingers so it would settle by your heart and I would never be alone. I kept the letters and I think of you, even now, when all I’ve done to you is crashing over me in waves, sending rage and grief rolling, crashing, rioting through me.

She was always distracted by the very mention of an open door. Escape is impossible, but that doesn’t stop her looking, searching, tearing the house apart in some fumbling attempt at becoming suddenly whole. Complete. She’d never admit it but she misses the warmth of a body next to her, the hum of arms around her waist, the whoosh of breath against her ear. It’s not so much that she misses someone so much as she misses the idea of not feeling so alone all the time.

She’s waiting for that sense of relief - but she’s not holding her breath.