Dear Violet,

This isn’t what you want from me, and we both **** well know that, so
I’m sorry.

For making you the true victim of unrequited love, because altruism comes at a high price, something we both know too well, and this kind of behavior simply won’t do. For once in my life, I must try and put these feelings behind me. Because I cannot express, what I cannot understand, especially towards you, Violet, considering your own sense of confusion. This was a world I never expected to find myself in with you. I’ve sat through dozens of your accounts of exactly what I’m becoming, and I’m well aware of what becomes of them. You’re a rare Violet rose weathering a storm, and all I can do is offer you shelter. But in no way shall I pick you, for if that were to ever happen, I’m afraid you’d instinctively wither away and die between my fingers, and I couldn’t stand to let that happen. I wouldn’t put you through that. But the heart is an animal solely restrained by the rib cage, unbound by the mind, and my bones are rather weak. My ribs would be worth breaking. My heart would, could be yours for the taking. But I need to make do, for this is the exact thing I just swore I simply wouldn’t do.