I feel stupid. And, of course, I still love you. (I still love you. And, of course, I feel stupid.)

(Ex-best friends, that is.)

What do I really want from this? The amount of pros and cons lists my leftover high school spanish class notebooks have been through should be considered abuse. Shouldn’t I be fine? I said my piece. Which, just so you know, that was my intention– to say it and move on. Because I don’t want to hurt you again. And if I don’t want to hurt you, I shouldn’t talk to you. And if I shouldn’t talk to you, I need to get over you. So, anyway, I finally got it all out there. And, I got an answer, too. A “rejection,” for lack of a better term. But, somehow, I have infinitely more to say now. I’m not going to bother you with all that, though. I’m not that entitled. 

It’s so frustrating, though. What I already said doesn’t seem to fully account for itself. It keeps extending, conceptually, like an argument that wasn’t actually finished, just paused at a point that looked sufficient at the time. I’m never going to send this to you, because I’m aware that would be indistinguishable from trying to reopen something you already answered. I’m not super interested in getting “rejected” a second time. 

Theoretically, the purpose of this letter is seeking an answer to only one question. In January, you wrote to me, saying that you still see me “even in the fucking stars sometimes,” and I find myself thinking of that line some days. Most days. All days.

Did you mean that, sometimes when you look up to the stars, memories of me resurface? Or rather, when you look up to the stars, sometimes you’ll catch a glimpse of me? Maybe not in the most literal sense, but almost as if my essence was there, taking shape in the constellations for a moment. 

I keep trying to understand what you meant, what you felt in that moment when you looked up and found me there. Because it reminds me of something I never told you, like most things. I was 15, that guarded but tender age, when love first announced itself to me. That summer, I used to bike to work before the sun was fully awake, the air still cool and forgiving. I’d stop at the Walgreens near the intersection around 6:30 each morning to buy some small, unnecessary snack, and sit on the bench outside the neighboring park while I waited for my shift to start. The sunlight would come through the trees barrier to the residential houses in thin golden ribbons, moving slowly with the breeze, and I would just watch it. And then one morning, it changed. The light stopped being light. The branches stopped being branches. I couldn’t tell the difference anymore between the sunlight and you. I didn’t care to. It was as if your presence was there, in the warmth of the light, as if the world had briefly decided to take your shape. And it confirmed something for me, a sin that filled me with so much guilt and sorrow, that I was most certainly in love with you. I don’t remember if I thought the actual word “love” in language, if my inner monologue said “shit, you’re in love with her,” but that moment is certainly when I first Knew. 

So when you tell me now that you see me in the stars, I can’t help wondering what that means to you. Do the stars simply remind you of me, the way certain songs or places remind us of people we once knew? Do they simply carry the weight of memory, of what we were to each other? Is it just another piece of nostalgia, another relic of mine you carry around in your wallet? Or is it something stranger than that, something closer to what I felt all those years ago, where the sky itself briefly rearranges and you see me there, unmistakably, as if the universe borrowed my outline just for a moment? 

I’m horrifically aware that every time I contact you I put pressure on you, and I don’t take that lightly. I would rather do a lot of things before hurting you more than I already have. That’s why I’m never going to ask you this. We’re never going to talk again. I’m never going to reach out again and God knows you won’t. You’re never going to know this horrifically embarrassing admission. Which, most likely, is fine. Most likely, it’s the first option. Just another memory of us. Stargazing like we used to. Not whatever fucking mystical bullshit my damaged, idiotic brain was fabricating. I still feel this urge, though, that I have to tell you, on this 0.00000001% chance that something will click for you, and it’ll finally make sense to both of us at the same time for once. But, even if that were the reality, which it’s not, I don’t think I want to be the catalyst for this realization. I don’t think it’s time yet, and, I think, if you ever were to choose me, which, I said, will never happen, but if you were, it would have to come completely from you, undeniable and unborrowed. 

Anyway,
My love for you is undeniable and unborrowed. 

Anyway,
Very Truly Yours,