Part 4: Dear John
Dear John,
It's been over a year since we've spoken in person. What closure I had hoped to get is no longer necessary, which is the only reason why I can write this letter to you - a letter of course, that I will never send you but will instead post on the internet for all those curious enough to read.
We were never supposed to fall in love - not you and I. We made about as much sense together as fire and water or predator and prey. Being together meant one of us getting consumed by the other and we always knew it would be me as the victim. You were always too dominant for it to work any other way and I always wore my naked heart on my sleeves for all to see.
You were the exact opposite of any man I'd ever been interested in. It fascinated me and you knew this and you used it to your advantage. I didn't mind because it gave me everything I ever thought I'd wanted and everything I thought I'd needed to move forward with my life. I had never been with a man who worked in the glossy glass high rises of the downtown, who fitted himself into suits and ties with professional ease. I had never been with a man who always brought flowers, wine or chocolates when he made a social call. I had never been with a man who would take me to dimly lit Italian restaurants and who never expected I do the fake reach for my wallet. To do so would be an affront to your chivalrous, masculine upbringing. I loved that you were tall and broad shouldered; even in my stiletto heels which clicked smartly on the marble floors next to you, I was never taller than you.
It would have been easy to think that I was nothing more to you than mere arm candy or a prize on two long legs if you hadn't been genuinely happy around me. Can you fake that? Can you fake the evaporating stress and worries that you always displayed when you were with me? I saw what you were like at the office. I saw what you were like with your friends. I saw what you were like at the grocery store. And you were so different around me - you laughed with a big booming ease and your lopsided grin never left your face. There was a tenderness when you touched my face and an eagerness to please me that would have surprised those who knew you as the Big Bad Suit. I could soothe the beast that was in you.
You always said the sweetest things. What was it that you said that one cold afternoon in the park as we both clutched our coffees to keep our fingers warm? That you had lived around the world and had met thousands of girls but none were as amazing as me. I stared into your earnest baby blue eyes and believed it all. You had this feral, animalistic gaze that always left me pinned and helpless; our first kiss left us both flushed and breathless as our hands scrabbled for purchase on shirts, and necks, hair and lapels. You carried around a raw power; you had a presence that commanded. I was willingly under your spell.
But I never seem to go for the easy ones. The catch here was that you were seeing another woman at the same time as me. So as amazing as you thought I was and as perfect a girlfriend as you claimed I was, it was never enough for you. You had your reasons of course and I sometimes think some of my demons of this past year came from you. You came from a conservative religious family and the fact that I was divorced was an indelible stain on the white sheets. In a society where people marry and divorce with frightening impunity, my post-marital status was for the first time a problematic stigma. You once admitted you would have a problem with being the second husband.
Very well. We had what we had, whatever it was. I never wanted you to stop seeing the other girl. I knew I would never marry you nor would I be so foolish as to seriously consider a long term relationship with you. You were charming, intelligent and funny and I didn't trust you further than I could throw you - which wasn't very far at all. And yet - despite both of our cautions not to take whatever it was we had to the next level, we somehow both tripped and fell and lost our grip on our promises.
When did it happen for you? It happened for me late one night, on the phone with you. I was curled up on my couch and we talked about those nothings and everythings that lovers talk about in the wee hours of the night. You were using the soft, private voice that you only used around me and I could feel myself slipping and protesting all the way. No no no no - I can't fall for you like this, not this hard. The first rule of having a fling is not to fall in love! This is such a bad idea, a terrible idea, the worst ever.
Whoops. A mistake, but not a regret.
I don't know when it happened for you but I know when you told me. It was after a cocktail party and we were both suffused with enough alcohol that you were struggling to take your black dress shoes off and I had tossed my jacket on the back of the kitchen chair because coat hangers just seemed so damn complicated. You were staying over because the trains had stopped running hours before and we both didn't have anywhere to be in the morning. You were lying on my couch and I was sitting beside you, and we were going through the photographs I had taken of the evening while we waited for our tipsy buzz to subside. I put the camera down on the coffee table and smiled down at you when suddenly you sat up and pressed your forehead against mine. Your voice was thick and fervent, low and throaty as you said hoarsely, "I love you." There was no more speaking after that.
A spontaneous albeit drunken declaration. I would have dismissed it as an inebriated confession had you not repeated those three words the very next morning, stone cold sober. I replied in kind. You hugged me and then went back to your condo.
I basically never saw you again.
We live in a society of easy and virtually limitless methods of communication and you were silent to me on all fronts. For the first week, I was in denial and blamed your work schedule. Hadn't you said you were involved in a merger? A deal about to close? Didn't you say there was a big shareholders meeting? Was it the fiscal year end?
By the second week, it was clear you were avoiding me. It takes less than a minute to send a text hello. Before, even when you were at your busiest, you always contacted me at least once a day. It destroyed me in a way I vowed never to be hurt - but oaths are meaningless against the heady rush of being in love. This was a runaway train and the best I could do was hang on for my dear, sweet life.
I hung on. For weeks, I kept hoping. Then when hope faded and became bitter, I moped and mourned something I wasn't even sure had truly existed. I went through the motions of life, hiding my wounds as best I could but I was unspeakably devastated. You had cleft me into two and my ghost circled my still living corpse - angry, hurt, confused and unable to move on. There could be no closure when you steadfastly refused to answer even my most innocuous correspondence.
When you had joked one evening that you loved spoiling me and would ruin me for other men, I had no idea how true this would be. You ruined me but not in the way we both assumed.
It took me almost another year before I trusted myself enough to re-enter the world and not flinch under the attention of men. It took months before I could walk past our favourite spots without feeling the pangs and seeing the wisps of a once happy couple. I cried until my body threatened to throw up what meagre meal I had managed to eat; alternatively, I would stare at my bedroom ceiling blankly while the dark hours whittled away. I'll never really know why you left as abruptly as you did. I've ventured a few guesses and mutual friends have their own theories; I have long suspect however that you aren't even sure why you left.
But I think you were afraid. I think you were afraid of what it meant when we both finally admitted our feelings aloud. It terrified you that this would signal an irrevocable shift in our relationship - and one you could not handle. It would mean you would have to choose between me and the other girl; it would mean introducing me to your family. It would mean traveling down a path you never thought would make you happy but did. You were never good at pursuing what truly made you happy and instead did what others said would make you happy. I always knew I was a forbidden thing to you and then when the temptation was too great, you fled.
I rocked your world and turned it upside down. So you left in the most cowardly way you could. You know this and I know this. I know by the way you won't meet my eye when we bump into each other at parties. I know by the way you'll always hover near me while I'm conversing with our friends but never join the circle. Your presence has somehow diminished; you're not as shiny to me as you once were. Time and friends and a lot of introspection sewed me back together; I'm changed because of you but I would never want to go through love and not come out the other side unchanged.
Last I heard, you had asked the other girl to marry you. I wish you both nothing but happiness. Good luck with that.
All the best,
Artemis
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