Every wednesday at exactly six-thirty, he could be found slipping a small envelope into the post box. It was unmarked asides from her name and address.

Every friday at noon, his envelope would find its way from the hands of the routes mailman and into her mailbox, and every friday around five-thirty she can be found eagerly searching through the metal box in search of the familiar scrawl that she’s grown to love. Although, it wasn’t the way that his e’s blended into the next letter, or how his g’s curved downwards to cover the next line that made her fall in love with the mystery man sending her letters, but his words.

She fell in love with his words, with how he could seemingly write something out of nothing. She fell in love with how he would change what paper he used each week in accordance with how he was feeling and how he never used the same stationary twice. She fell in love with his awful jokes and even worst attempts at making conversation despite never writing a return address on the pure white of the envelope.

She fell in love with him, despite not knowing who ‘him’ was.

Everyone fell in love with her from afar, with her eyes, her smile, her hair, with everything about her. They fell in love with how perfect she was. Proper, but would still laugh at their jokes. Loud, but not loud enough to cause them to worry. She was the perfect wife that all of them seeked, but they only saw the mask that she’d put on after getting dressed and before doing her hair.

He, however, fell in love with her up close, with how her eyes would brighten whenever she’d talk about the newest episode of her favourite anime or how she beat a boss in the new RPG that just had been released. He fell in love with her everytime she slept over and the way that she looked after waking up, frizzy hair and drool coating her chin. He fell in love with her laugh, the one that she reserved for him alone in all of its obnoxious glory. He fell in love with the girl under the mask; loud with a twisted humour who he had to comfort after her favourite anime character died or sing along with on car rides to school.

He was in love with his best friend and she was in love with the man who wrote her letters every week.

She would call him over every week in excitement, hanging out her window as he walked up to her porch all while waving the newest letter. It was routine; he’d bring along snacks and she’d read out his letter to her. He knew all the best times to roll his eyes at the jokes he made sure to include or laugh at her expression whenever she turned into a squealing ball of energy despite internally wanting to cry out with joy that she was in love with him.

But that isn’t reality.

Love stories end in a flourish of rose petals and the two lead characters holding each other in their arms while ‘Happy Ever After’ scrolls across the screen.

Reality ends with gradual falling out of love.

And this is reality.

Slowly, she began to forget her friday night routine, exchanging bright eyes pouring over every line that was filled with pure love with dead eyes struggling to stay away as they try to absorb all of the information in her textbook.

She began to forget the day that he mustered up enough courage to write his address on the return portion of the envelope. She knew the address well. After all, it was the house next to her own and belonged to the very same boy who she reserved her laugh with.

Excitement fled from her eyes and lips as her eyes danced over his address, pure joy exchanged with grief. Taken over in a wave of anger and fury as she marched over to his door, the one just a few steps away from her own. Fury blazed in her eyes as he swung his door open, expecting her to fling herself into his arms and for him to apologize for not telling her sooner how he felt, only to find the letter that he poured over since the day he began writing to her shoved into his chest. “Next time you want to support a charity case,” she spat out, “go donate to the damn animal shelter.”

With those words, she turned quickly on her heel and away from him to conceal the sobs that threatened to spill out of her, and he was left alone on his porch with the unopened letter that held only three words; ‘I love you’.

She never noticed how the letters began to die out, and how he seemed to die out with them.

She never noticed how his eyes began to dull, nor how his hands once never not covered in paint began to lose the colour that she held dearly.

She never noticed how with each unopened text he sent apologising over and over and begging for her to look his way just for a second so he could explain himself brought out a new colour that stained his skin: crimson red.

She never noticed how he was dying, until he was gone.

She noticed when she woke up to the gunshot at three in the morning, a crack in the air so sudden that she thought that she had just been dreaming, until it was followed moments later by the blood-curdling scream that pierced her soul.

She noticed when he wasn’t on the porch just a few steps from her house the next morning, instead he was cold and unmoving and covered by a sheet that was stained with his crimson red.

She noticed when his parents invited her into his room, still the same as she remembered yet emptier.

She noticed when they led her to the box sitting perfectly on his bed, sheets stripped and cleaned over and over until the stains finally came out.

She noticed when she read the note on the top of the box that caused her to stumble backwards with a hand clasped to her mouth and tears threatening to pour, the note simply starting with the same words that he used at the start of every letter; ‘Dear you,’.

If only she would have sent him the letter she had been dying to send before that morning. If only she had reached across the small gap between their houses and knocked on his window, handing off her own letter to the boy she loved that explained her emotions better than she could’ve done herself.

Instead, here she was reading through that letter, the one that she wrote that was stained with tears of regret while the ones of his that were still in the box on his pristine bed were flecked with crimson red of agony.

 

–
Dear you,

words are incapable of conveying the emotions that swirl inside me. i feel trapped inside a hurricane and you were the only one who helped me get out

but i pushed you away

–
Dear you,

regret tugs at every part of my being
why can’t i look you in the eye anymore
i’m so sorry
–
Dear you,

please come back to me
why can’t i go back to you
damnit i miss you so much please don’t let me be alone anymore

–
Dear you,

i’m sorry that i did this to you

–
Dear you,

i love you

–

 

so uh, hi! I should probably write a note saying that this piece was a plot twist for me as well lol. It was supposed to be a happy love story based on letters, but I guess I had other plans? In all honesty, I was working on about three other fiction pieces that I couldn’t get to work (honestly! no matter how hard I tried, nothing worked out the way that I wanted!) so I just tried to write without thinking, and this was what came out. All that I remember from writing it was having to pause and think ‘did I actually just write this??’ 

Anyways, I hope that you enjoyed it.. even though it got rather depressing at the end!

c.m

image

‘motorcycle in twilight’, retroapollo, tumblr.com