Julie,
Here are you books. If you asked why I was returning them, I probably said something like, "I thought I'd had them long enough and thought you might like them back." The rest of the truth is that it allowed me to drop this on your doorstep, ring the bell, and walk away.
Don't be alarmed. This is no proclamation of undying love or anything even foggily resembling that--no greeting card singing "You Are My Sunshine." It's entirely self-serving. You don't even have to read it; I can pretend you did and be happy believing it. No need to respond, though I will ask questions, if a bit less intensely than at the coffee shop. I won't challenge your ideas or try to dissuade you from your feelings. Of course, I accept how you feel about me, but disengaging
myself from my attraction to you will take some doing. This was never an attraction of convenience, so it won't be conveniently put aside. Neither was it a creation of rationale, so it won't be reasoned away. Bottom line: You are as fascinating and as striking as ever.
I would like to apologize for embarrassing you--but I can't. I wanted to strike a spark, and the fire in your cheeks proved me successful. (You can't take that from me!) But nothing I have ever said to you, Julie, was flattery. Every word was how I felt (even about the bin-packing). It's hard to not try, however awkwardly, to express what I feel. I would like to promise that I won't ever again blow on you embers, but what the head decrees is of little import to the heart.
Did my proclamation in the coffee shop really take you by surprise? When you wondered to yourself why I asked you to meet me there, what did you surmise? What were you expectant of that day? Have you since reflected? Have you, in retrospection, seen "signs" of my attraction? Because all this time I thought I'd been Tom Sawyer--walking on my hands and punching the other boys--to your Becky Thatcher.
I concede defeat in the pursuit of your heart, but it is always with the stingiest reluctance that I back down from any challenge, and hope is the sharpest prod (and not a rational one, either). But I accept what I'm given and never take what's not offered. I want to know more about you than I have any right to ask or you any obligation to disclose. So, I'll take what satisfaction I can rationalize from having told you all this and continue from your doorstep, with maybe a glance now and then over my shoulder until you are out of sight.
(Signed)
P.S., You wondered aloud what I could possibly find fascinating about you. Well, I'll tell you.... But I said I'd shut up.
But I said what I wanted to say how I wanted to say it--three weeks and a couple dozen sheets of paper later. Sadly, some things don't even feel true any longer. How much does she really fascinate me now? How much hope do I really harbor? Do I honestly believe that her concealment has depths? That doubt could simply be bitterness, an artificial distancing. I am so tangle in my wants and needs that I don't know which is which anymore. The wants are emotional, the needs practical--or is it that easy? No, I can't find the separation there, either. Is it any wonder I'm confused? I've written a breakup letter to someone I never dated, for god's sake! Could that be a teensy bit more pathetic?
*****
I tried to rewrite the letter in cursive, but I couldn't write the first word without screwing it up--twice. More paper trashed. For what?
1 comment:
I understand some of how you feel in your letter. It's so hard not to tell her how you feel, and to bombard her with questions about herself. I felt the same way. Sounds like love to me, Dion, unrequited but not unreal.
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