That lit­tle fur­row was there because you weren’t. That’s why you nev­er saw it, of course. You must think I hate you cause it was the only thing I could­n’t help her with myself. But I could nev­er hate you. You gave her what she want­ed. In the end, that’s all I real­ly want­ed too.

I knew it was seri­ous when I saw your umbrel­la under her bed, back when she hid those kinds of things for my sake. You nev­er real­ized she only took it as an excuse to see you again (not because she was par­tic­u­lar­ly scared of get­ting her meri­no socks wet), the same way you nev­er real­ized how easy it all was for you. That was a sign that you were the right one. I knew it before she did.

If only there was a bit of mys­tery left in you. Instead, I had you pegged by the sec­ond night, and all I can tell peo­ple is that you’re a nice guy, when I want to say you’re an artist, a lover, a fight­er, a wor­thy rival, a slay­er of inse­cu­ri­ties, a break­er of bar­ri­ers, a tes­ta­ment to testos­terone, a hero among men. She deserves more than the painful­ly pedes­tri­an life you’ve giv­en her, but I know she’s had enough of heart­break to think that nor­mal is hard enough to come by. And so I’ve learned that a per­son­’s hap­pi­ness is all that mat­ters, not the dreams you have for them. I guess it’s hard to give up those dreams when you’re part of them your­self.

I want to say I’m leav­ing for some noble rea­son of great impor­tance, but it’s real­ly because there’s noth­ing left for me in this lit­tle town. I used to believe I could escape; even­tu­al­ly I real­ized you can’t out­run your mem­o­ries. Now I’m just try­ing to fig­ure out where I belong. She was all I knew for so long, and now that life is gone.

And so I must tread care­ful­ly with new lovers; it’s impos­si­ble for me to tell my sto­ry with­out that part of my past. That’s why I won­der what she told you about me, about us. About los­ing feel­ing in her face and let­ters you would­n’t know how to write. If she inten­tion­al­ly left any­thing out, or whether our time was even worth men­tion­ing. But the past is still the past, and that’s the only rea­son I can write a let­ter now to the man who saved her with­out ever know­ing it.