Lee wrote a letter, addressed to nobody.
Ruanne,
Imagine we’re in a world where everyone can say what they mean. In such a world, the burdensome thing I might say to you is this:
I had another dream about you last night, and woke up missing you terribly. I mean, you’re quite literally on my mind every day. Every spare moment is devoted to you, your friendship to me, the vibrance of your being. I suppose this means I’ve been in love with you. I suspect you’ve always known.
It all began five years ago, when we first met. Back then, I was twenty seven. You were seventeen. I never really thought of you more than a friend in those days. I guess our age difference excluded us from being more than friends–perhaps it still does, I’m not sure. But as we grew to be close friends these last few years I began to love you, your youthfulness, your beauty, and your energy.
Now that you’ve gotten engaged and moved away to Texas, perhaps for good, I’ve come to realize more and more that we can never be together. Now it’s official. It’s not like you could change your mind now; previously I could delude myself into thinking such a posibility for us existed; now it really is all fantasy and none of it possibility, let alone reality.
It’s been nearly a year and a half since I’ve last seen you, and you’ve haunted me nearly every waking moment since then. Now, your letters are starting to come less frequently. I’m starting to forget what you look like. Even that seemingly permanent image of you in the snow, looking like a pixie, is beginning to fade from memory. It seems every bit of you is trying to erase itself from me.
Until that happens, I live with the warmth, pain, and light your beauty brings to me everytime I think about you. You’re free in my mind to become what ever you want to be. You can be even more beautiful than before. Your smile can become brighter and your laugh more musical. You could very well become the perfect woman.
I don’t want it that way thought. I want the impossible–I want my memory of you to change as you change, and this I can only have if you stay in my life. I think of this as an unfair wish, to both of us actually. I’m wishing upon myself more heartbreak, and wishing upon you love you can never accept or provide for.
But I’ll fight every urge in my mind to perfect you.
I only have to ask, how do I stop this?
Lee
Toast is Yummy 