Daniel

I wrote a love letter of sorts almost 7 years ago. My younger self was a bit wise and entirely self aware. I miss her but I’m not ashamed or afraid of her and the things she did. The person for whom I wrote this, Daniel, was the first person I’d been intimate with in my adult life and I use the term ‘adult’ here loosely. Several months ago, we spoke for the first time since I had sent him that letter. I had forgotten all about it.

Here it is, unedited:

” I didn’t think saying goodbye to you would hurt as much as it did. I didn’t thinking saying the hurtful things I said to you would hurt me as much as they did. In fact I didn’t think very much at all. 

And I know you don’t care and I know you won’t forgive me and you probably won’t read this.

And you will never feel the same way about me.

But if there is a chance that you might read this, I have to explain myself.

I wish I could take back what I said, but more than that I wish I could go back to that first night when you kissed me. Because I knew you were still in the thick of things with your ex and I knew you meant it when you said you couldn’t feel anything for anyone and that anything that happened between you and me had to be free of feelings. And that was impossible for me. Because I saw you clearly and it was impossible for me to be in the same space as you and not feel anything. And I thought if I lied to myself about it for long enough I’d just get over it and you and I would just be friends and that that would be fine.  But you kept opening up to me and you kept showing me affection that kept blurring the lines for me and I wanted to do the same with you. I wanted to trust you and I wanted to tell you everything. I wanted you to understand why I was the way I was. That I was damaged beyond repair and that the people closest to me had done some pretty unspeakable things to me. And I got scared that you would see how ugly all of that had made me. I was afraid you’d see that I had already broken the rules and that I had let myself start to feel something very real for you. That last night when we were together and I told you to stop, it wasn’t because I wanted you to, it was because I was choking on the words. Between every moan, I was terrified I would say something I actually meant and that I couldn’t take back, something you could never feel in return for me.

You loved Angie through and through. You still wear her on you. I could still smell her and taste her and feel her on you. And if she saw you at all, if she had seen you clearly then she would have never pushed you away or let you go. I bet she feels a certain kind of madness whenever her mistake dawns on her, something I’ll come to know a thing or two about considering what I did. 

And you gave her all that love. And that left me nowhere. And yes I know that was not your problem and I had no right to expect anything of you and you were explicit about what you and I were. And you couldn’t have known because I never told you. But that first night when we sat in your car in the rain, you put your hand on my thigh and something very real and very sobering crept up my spine and I was never able to shake it off. And sometimes I swear I caught you looking right at me, like you were actually seeing me and it put the fear of God in me.

And I wanted to tell you so badly but I knew what you would say. And I started to tell you but then you told me that I was wrong, that I shouldn’t trust anyone. And I realized you were right. I was hoping you would have told me that I could trust you, instead you called me a weirdo. You didn’t mean it. It was a joke, but I was hurting and the rest is something I don’t want to relive because I’m not proud of it.

A part of me wants to beg you to forgive me. I want to go back to when we first kissed and tell you that no matter what this ends badly and we shouldn’t ruin what meager friendship we had. But I know you meant it when you said you’d never forgive me. And I know I can’t take it back. In a perfect world human beings would never hurt one another. I wanted to hurt myself that day. I couldn’t bring myself to do it, so I hurt you instead and you didn’t deserve it. My problems are my own. You just have bad luck with the people you trust. I’m certain you’ll have better luck in the future. Don’t let my poor judgment skew your opinion of others.

Again I’m sorry.

And even though it means nothing now, I love you.

It was impossible not to.”