✎
✎: you miss me
Dear Molly,
Sentiment has never been a strong suit of mine, as you perfectly well know. When I began writing you these letters, I had framed it in my mind as a logical task. Attempted to separate the calculated move with the emotional response. In truth, this letter wasn’t part of the plan. I feared that if I allowed myself to think feel deeply at a time like this, that I would be vulnerable. Susceptible to failure due to a chemical defect known as love.
I do, Molly. I do love, even if it’s not in the romantisied way you wish for and deserve. I also know that I don’t deserve to do so. I know you must have a lot going mixed feelings about what I have done and what I might be up to. There is a good chance that you might never want to open to this one; perhaps you’ll never reach that state.
However, if you ever do — I hope perhaps this can make up a little for the anger you felt by my disappearance. I cannot tell you where I went or why; in truth I don’t know if I will ever come back. I just want you to know that, despite anything that might lead you to believe the contrary --- I did care about you Molly. I trusted you and you mattered. Our friendship, even if you might not have categorized it as such, was important and perhaps I should have tended to it more.
The point I am trying to make, is that I want you to believe me in my next statement, because if you are reading this letter than it means that you miss me: I just want you to know that I miss you too. I miss the morgue, the ginger cat hairs that lightly coated everything. Even at my worst and blackest of moods; you were always eager to help me. Even as I took advantage of your kindness, something I do hold guilt over, I was grateful for it. Perhaps, these letters are more sentimental that I thought. Perhaps I wished to make it up to you someway.
I should have been better, I just was never very good at knowing how. I wish you were here, sometimes you appear as the voice of reason in my mind. That’s not the kind of thing you can casually say to a person --- but it doesn’t feel so strange to enclose it in a letter. This is what I mean, you matter to me. When I’m stuck or in trouble, your voice is in my mind. It helps me think. Helps me focus. When I was shot, it was you who appeared to me and helped me save my own life. I owe my life to you because you’ve always held it at a higher value than I do.
I hope one day you can forgive me, I don’t know anymore if this letter will bring comfort or cause you more distress. Maybe it’s unavoidable to have both.
SH.
