I miss you. And I love you. I didn’t really think holidays would hit this hard, because we didn’t usually do a lot. But Christmas had been such a nice time. My mom keeps bringing up gifts you gave her last year. And then it just hits me that you’ll stay the same age forever and you’ll never get to see any of this, with me or with anyone else. It’s weird to not have you here, for the first time in ten or so years. And I remember our New Year’s kisses too. How you’d come to me, or I’d come to you. And it was just this thing we did, this little tradition, but I’m crying anyway because I just miss you all the time.

I was just thinking about how you’d be like, I gotta go get gas! And I would start bouncing around saying car ride! Car ride!!!! Because I just loved being in the car with you. I loved. I loved it. And you would let me come, because you always did. Scamper. Scamp. Bean. Beanie baby. So many nicknames, I wish I had written them down. If I ever fall in love again, I will try to keep a list. I will try to be better. Thank you for our wedding. Thank you for the cake. Thank you for the love. Thank you for that ice cream cake that one time — I really loved that. Thank you for always taking me to Bean Town. I’m sorry for always eating so many cheese curds; I really like them. Now I haven’t had any since. Maybe someday.

If there is a heaven or whatever, I would like to think it’s dark outside and we are sitting in your car, driving forever, talking about everything and nothing. Or else I’d like to think it’s early morning and dawn is just coming up, and I hear our rabbit getting restless because he knows you’re coming home and he loves you best, and I hear your key in the door and you are here, and I pretend to be asleep on the couch but you know. You always know, and I have breakfast ready and our rabbit does zoomies and binkies and his little sniffle-snorf sounds, and we sit on the couch and watch a show, any show, before you brush my hair and we go to sleep. I don’t even live in that same place anymore but for a long time, I’m sure, I’ll be listening for your key in the door.

In a lot of ways we fit together terrifyingly well, and I think that will always be a scary thing. To be so completely raw and bare with another person is a difficult albeit beautiful thing. One of the last things you said to me was that only your love for me will remain. Did you mean that? I don’t know. Do I want it to be true? I don’t know that, either.

I’m sorry I couldn’t save you from the people who forced us to this point. I told your dad that I’d take care of you and I meant it. And I’m sorry.

There was this time at our old place where I felt so defeated after everything you’d done, and I was sitting on the floor packing. And you told me you had used me our whole relationship, that you had manipulated me into staying, so how could I even want to stay, anyone else would have left — and your voice was like nothing I’d ever heard from you before. This raw confession. And I just looked up at you and cried and I told you that I knew. I’m stupid but I knew. Of course I did. But I told you that I wanted that. I liked how we fit together. Our puzzle pieces. And you started weeping and we held each other, and you kept saying how you’d made a horrible mistake, the wrong choice, but that you were too deep into this hole. That you had hurt me too much and there was no going back. So you just kept digging and digging yourself into this hole, because you thought I was completely lost to you. But I wasn’t.

It didn’t matter that you had broken me into a million pieces. I would have come. That is the person I am, and the person you married. I think you knew that but you almost didn’t want me to be that. You were manipulative but you wanted to let me go, finally, when you were pushing me away and I couldn't wrangle you back.

Thank you for believing with your entire being that someone will love me again someday — even if that’s ridiculous, and you saying all the time that you didn’t deserve me and that you were holding me back was absurd, too. I didn’t care if there was “better.” All I wanted was you. If I could go back in time I’d make it so we never met, so maybe you would still be alive. Because that is literally all I want. I just want to live on a planet where you are alive, regardless of anything you did to me, because I feel so completely incompatible living in a world that no longer holds you. I’m sorry that I told you I wouldn’t do “this” again — the whole walking all night just to meet up with you again when you’re having bad thoughts. That was a lie. If you told me you needed me I would have dropped everything I had in the bank to Uber to you. I would have dropped everything if you told me you needed me, and that never changed.

Thank you for cooking for me, and letting me cook for you — I never cook proper meals anymore; that was all for you, for us. Thank you for making me feel safe. Thank you for loving me so hard for ten years, and for being the only person in the world who could ever want to marry me and actually go through with it. Thank you for believing in me, believing in us, for so long — despite the fact that you hated the world and everyone in it except for me and like, two people. Thank you for living for me. Thank you for thinking I was the most beautiful person in the world even though that’s absolute nonsense. Thank you for loving every inch of me as if I’m not an absolute gremlin; to you, I was something magical, something holy, from my “cute feet” to my “cute hands,” and everything else.

Thank you for getting me our rabbit as a gift, because you knew I loved rabbits, and thank you for chasing him around — he loved that so, so much. Thank you for taking care of him and getting him treats. Thank you for pouring your love into him. Thank you for breakfast burritos and horchata, and all the other foods you introduced me to. Thank you for giving me so many opportunities to learn and love myself. Thank you for making my world brighter, for giving me someone to fight for, someone to wake up in the morning for. Thank you for bringing me breakfast in bed, for bringing me medicine when I was sick, for going out to the store when I needed something urgently like medicine.

Thank you for making phone calls and ordering food for me because you knew it scared me, and you said you didn’t understand the cruelty in others not helping me with these things — “unnecessarily cruel,” you said. Thank you for brushing my hair as a form of intimacy, even when it didn’t need to be brushed. Thank you for helping me take stuff out of the oven because I hate touching hot stuff. Thank you for opening containers and bottles for me because my hands are so soft. Thank you for letting me teach you how to put on makeup, even though I suck at it. Thank you for wearing my clothes, and letting me wear yours. Thank you for laughing with me every day — this was our love language. Thank you for trying to get me to write and draw. Thank you for being the only person I wanted to show my drawings to.

Thank you for letting me draw your beautiful hands. Thank you for buying me goofy presents. Thank you for remembering all my favorite foods, even the stuff that never occurred to me. Thank you for getting me treats at the grocery store. Thank you for being terrible with directions and not listening to me when I told you where we were, so it’d be like midnight and we’d be driving around and I loved it so much, this aimless wandering, because it was with you. Thank you for bringing me home little erasers — I don’t remember if I told you that I liked erasers, but they were cute and made you think of me.

I wrote this for you a few days after... y’know. I would have walked to the ends of the earth for you, I had done it before, and yet here we are. Thank you for letting me hold you after you had nightmares, for coming to me in your distress — I always put down any and everything to come hold you after you had a nightmare. Thank you for taking me to the hospital when I cut off the tip of my finger. Thank you for so many nicknames and pet names that I barely ever heard my actual name out of your mouth — my real name always meant something was serious, like when you were telling me you loved me. Thank you for reaching for my hand to hold when we left the house, even just out to the car.

I know you stopped listening to me, and we joked about how I’m “right all the time,” and you would insist that I’m not — but then you would be like, wait. But you kind of are?? And I hate now how close I was all those times to breaking through to you, but I just couldn’t, and if I couldn’t... I’m just sorry. I love you so much. I cry every day and someday that might change, but please don’t think that means I love you any less. You wouldn’t want me to cry. Me crying devastated you. I cried so little with you. You cried so little with me. It was good, until it wasn’t. Until I couldn’t protect you. And now it’s like the tear tax collector is coming to take what’s owed. I’m sorry I couldn't protect you.

I got your phone yesterday. It was in this sealed plastic bag, and I thought I could just keep it sealed forever with the other things in there, as if that might somehow hold a peace of you inside forever. Because these were your last things. They were with you. On you. And I knew you, I remember the things you said about this sort of thing. If there was a message for us, it would have been on your computer or phone. You would have unlocked your phone for us, for me. And you didn’t. And that tells me that your hurt was so suddenly insurmountable. I don’t know if there’s comfort in that, in the suddenness, in the fact that you didn’t want to die, if you didn’t feel like you had to. I don’t want to say impulsive, but I guess that’s the word. You were doing so good. You were doing so good and I am so proud of you for trying so hard, and for fighting for so long. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you from the people that wanted to hurt you.

Your life was proof of our love. Proof that I had been loved. Adored. Proof that I could be loved at all. And I found comfort in that. And now that you’re gone, there’s no proof of that, no proof of anything. Now it’s just me, and I carry you with me.

I wish I could go back to when we first met. And I wish Erika had pulled different cards. Or I wish I hadn’t got on the bus with you, or I hadn’t given you my number. Maybe you would still be gone now. Maybe you’d have left even earlier. But I don’t know. I wish you were alive. Even if you were angry with me, or hated me — that wouldn’t matter. As long as you were alive. Your life is the most important thing. I’m sorry you didn’t understand that. And I know I couldn't fight your demons for you, but I wish you knew that. Your life is the most important thing.

I will try to live for the both of us, even though it’s hard. Even though I don’t really know what that looks like. I’ll keep going to the doctor. I’ll start getting check-ups. I’ll start going to the dentist. I’ll try to start therapy again. I will try to love life. I will seek passion via my hobbies. I will try to eat. I’m so sorry I’ve been bad about eating. Especially now, but even before. I miss cooking for you. It’s not the same. Food isn’t even energy anymore, it’s just getting my stomach to stop hurting. I know you would want me to eat well and be healthy and find love. But it’s such a high bar you’ve set. How is anyone supposed to love me as well as you did? How is anyone supposed to compare?

I have so much love to give and there is nowhere to put it. You left a you-sized hole. I try to put love everywhere I can, but there’s just so much. It’s like a fountain. And nobody wants to love me back. Nobody even wants to be my friend, no matter how hard I try. You were special. Sometimes I hope that you regret leaving this world — not necessarily me, just giving up on life and happiness in general. But that’s just me trying to cope when really I hope you have found the peace that I always wanted for you. I hope you have found clarity. And maybe think of me sometimes, of us, but don’t be sad. That’s my job.

You always said you weren’t good enough for me and that you were holding me back, but I always told you that wasn’t true. And I guess it’s like me right now and having trouble believing you loved me, you know? You had trouble believing you were good enough for me. I wish I could have made you understand that all I wanted was you. I didn’t care about money. I didn’t care about anything. We could have lived on peanuts and it would have been stressful, but with you by my side I lived. And you always said that someone else, someone better will come along, and I hate that I could never make you understand that all I wanted was you. Nobody else wanted me. Nobody else will want me. You were special. You loved me so hard, you were so good at that, and no matter what I told you, you thought I was this holy sort of being, when in reality loving me was your superpower. That isn’t a thing that anyone else will ever be able to do, and in this way. Your love for me was so special.

But now that you’re gone I can’t help those insecurities that fester and I wonder: did you love me? Did you ever love me? In the end, did you love me? You said “I love you,” but without you here as proof, it’s just hard to wrap my head around. It’s so hard. I wish I had something to touch or hold or listen to that made me feel the certainty of your love, but I don’t. And I’m sorry for that doubt. I just feel completely and utterly incompatible living in a world without you in it. I want you happy. I want you alive.

I love you so much it’s honestly bonkers. You are my bonkers girl and I will always love you so much. I’m sorry I wasn’t enough for you. I’m sorry I told you I wouldn’t come for you again if you asked — that was a lie. I needed to protect myself and now that you’re gone, that’s so irrelevant. And I know I had to leave, for me, but I wish I was magical, I wish I could have pulled you out. I wish I could have saved you. I wish my love could have been enough. And I keep waffling, you know? We were both such jealous, insecure people, and it amazed me every day that you loved me, and you loved me so hard it left me breathless.

RATS

Lol ty ty

good Achievement Showcase

>:3c

same

74% achievments in 51 game... You sir are a god