I was just try­ing to get away, to remove myself from the vul­ner­a­ble way I felt — the way you made me feel — among the din and the chill. That night I learned that beauty comes in many forms. I started believ­ing I could love again, and my wounds began to heal for the first time since she told me it all had to stop.

There was such a won­der­ful moment of vul­ner­a­bil­ity flick­er­ing across your eyes when you said we hooked up1, quickly as if to hide the fact, while plung­ing your fork into our slice of cake with a smirk on the side of your face. It’s moments like those that direc­tors dream off.

John wanted to know how it went. I told him not to ask, and we never spoke about it again. He thinks it’s because it went badly, but really it’s because every­thing went so well when I knew it was the last time I was going to see you.

Those were dif­fi­cult days. I always believed you could have saved me, until I real­ized that I needed to save myself. Not that it mat­ters. Things are dif­fer­ent now any­way. I have a ten­dency to say too much; all too often I mis­take open­ness for inti­macy, and it gets me in trouble.

I always imag­ine that you’ve fig­ured things out, and have been caught up in your own hap­pi­ness ever since. People like you were never meant to speak of heartbreak.

  1. Instead of the vul­gar we fucked or the pedes­trian we slept together. [↑]