Dear Unsparing Lover

Dear Unsparing Lover,

Sometimes my brain does this silly little thing, Love. It brings me memories in the form of a dream. Strings and strings of these memories, like a movie running on the back of my eyelids. Tonight, the movie was made of our moments. Like the first drunken night where we ended up at the hospital. You rested your head on my thigh and requested “Play with my hair…” as you drifted to sleep, waiting for the doctor to see me.

The next scenes were equally as beautiful. The one of us in your bed, high out my mind, your arm around my shoulders as we stared up at the ceiling. I thought to myself, “I’d be happy to do this forever, to die this way.”. Then the late-night walk to the library, rain softly kissing the earth as we walked hand-in-hand. You tried that night to get us into the art building for one reason or another. As we left the library, you stalled at the top of the steps just to stand there and hold me in your arms. It felt so odd at the time; I wasn’t used to being held or shown affection. But then I settled into it, started to crave it.

It was that last day, standing there by my car not wanting to let go of you, when you said “See, you don’t want to go either.”. Put simply, that was the truth. Something inside told me that if I got in my car and drove away, that I would lose you. You wouldn’t be there when I got back, not at least until the end of the summer when classes restarted. I was certain that you knew how scared I was, but I was hopeful. You would come back and it would be just like it was.

Now I’ve woken up, but I know how the rest of the movie goes. Except the ending. I haven’t found the strength to watch that part yet. The most heartbreaking scene came when you drunkenly said “I don’t get it, I tell you terrible things and you just accept them. No one has ever done that before…”. I fear the ending might not spare us, Love.

With endless love, your (un)conditional lover