I know that you love me. That you tried so hard to make me not know, but I do. I thought this place would help you understand that I loved you, too. I was so wrong. I'm so sorry.
You could have had anybody else, but you hadn't wanted anybody else, and I should have helped you more. I didn't.
Once, you told HER and I that you loved us. Said it all the time, though you started sounding less and less sure after a while.
I guess I wanted you to have something that wouldn't have to remind you of me. Something that could belong only to you and the people you chose to invite into it. I wonder if you intended for this attacker to be let in.
Maybe when I saw the letter of my name scribbled along every rock and welded into every building, every shine, you thought you could never live with the knowledge not that we would never be together, but HER and I would be together without you. Maybe you thought that.
No, here, you let me whisper your fears at you in the dark without saying anything. You allowed me to feel at home in this place with you by my side not as a lover but as a good friend who had a deep understanding of all of this. But how could you continue to love me like this? When I am so utterly lost among my thoughts and my long drives and my harsh words?
A glimpse into your eyes, an echo of what you used to be before you met me. Simple, elegant, happy. Now, knowing me and HER and wanting us to be happy even if it means without you has caused you to wither into the walls alone.
There were remnants of us, old photographs and carvings made by my own car keys, but you disappeared the moment I whispered into the dark that I kind of liked HER. It hadn't even been real at that moment, just a small inclination given to HER because of how much we both cared about HER without the messy premise of love. Promise of love. Whatever you want to call it. But I grew to love HER, not you, and though I'm not sorry for that I am sorry that you felt the need to distance yourself the moment we confessed to one another.
Through it all, I had hoped you would stay. Really.
The vastness of this world, that was supposed to be yours but turned into mine. I feel like this is less of a planet now and more of a burial site.
Nothing will ever be the same without you. The cold of this winter was unbearable, but the cold without you to shine sun on the world is vast and unthinkable, undreamable. HER and I lay in bed often, awake, and quietly acquiesce to missing you. It is almost pathetic. We almost need you to keep ourself happy. Perhaps we are simply ticking time bombs without you to defuse us.
I tried to make it clear to you, that even with HER and I together you were still YOU; instead, YOU became you, small and distant and dejected, and while part of me was disgusted by your lack of persistence another part of me was mournful to the fiery nature that I fear I killed.
I thought that YOU and HER and I would all live happily ever after somewhere, away from the hustle and bustle of our normal lives where we could swing on children's swings forever and discuss everything and nothing. But you are no longer YOU. For that, I am sorry.
