{orig} once upon a fallen star.
The wind was cold as it brought the waves to the shore, crashing softly. But it wasn’t necessarily cold outside. No, the weather was generally warm-of course with the exception of the breeze that swept down from Canada. It was mid-May and I’d just finished moving into my brand new home-a singular, somewhat cramped apartment in the small city of Eastport, Maine.
I’d spent my past few days returning to the coast where I’d take photos of the lovely horizon and waves-but I most of all enjoyed feeding the seagulls. I had a few photos of them when I managed to catch them. They were such animated birds; they were hard to keep up with.
It was a sunny afternoon. I was packing up my photography equipment and tossing out the rest of the breadcrumbs when I noticed movement that wasn’t from a bird. I glanced over subtly to notice the figure of a tall, lean man. He was dressed for swimming, though I couldn’t tell how he could stand to get out of the water with the wind blowing like it was.
I smiled a little and waved in a friendly manner at him after catching his grin. He nodded his head and waved back, grabbing a towel from his things. He had dried himself off as much as possible and slipped on a somewhat tight fitting t-shirt. It outlined the shape of his toned pecks, though the seams in the arms of the shirt looked like they were screaming from his tightly shaped biceps. I finished packing away my tripod and the camera when I noticed he was approaching me. He’s just walking by, I thought, brushing it off. Until he stopped beside me.
“I haven’t seen you around here before,” he murmured, extending his hand to me. “I’m Noah.”
I looked over at him, and then up. He had to be at least six feet tall, at least. I couldn’t tell. I was never good at judging lengths or heights-distances at all for that matter. I just knew that I was 5’4” and he was a lot taller than that. “Oh, no. I just moved here last week. I’m Alice,” I replied, shaking his hand daintily. Mine looked like it was only a third the size of his.
“If you were looking for Wonderland, you’re a little off,” he chuckled.
I shook my head with faint laughter. “Thankfully I wasn’t looking for that.”
“Where’d you move from?” he asked me.
“Boston, Massachusetts.”
“Must be a big difference, moving to a smaller city.”
I nodded. “It is. But I like it much better here. I moved here after passing through for a friend’s wedding. Something about it just caught my attention. It’s everything Boston was without the massive population and the extent of crime, it seems.”
Noah shrugged. “It’s fairly quiet. It’s nice. I quite like it here.”
“Me, too.”
There was a small awkward silence before he stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans. There were water spots where his swimming trunks had seeped through the denim. “If you’re ever looking for a friend in this place,” he began, somewhat shyly, “you’ve got me around. Maybe we can get together for coffee sometime. There’s an awesome family-owned café on Stevens Avenue.”
“I’d love to!” I exclaimed, rather excited at the prospect of a friendly face in an unknown town.
I quickly scribbled my number on a slip of paper from my notepad that I kept with me in my barely-legible handwriting. I handed it to him and smiled warmly. He folded it carefully in his hands, making sure each corner was perfect, every edge straight, before he slipped it into his pocket. “Are you busy at all this week?” he asked.
“Just unpacking still, moving in. Really, I’m not though.”
“If you need some help,” he told me, “I’d be glad to. Maybe after coffee.”
I laughed lightly and nodded twice. “That sounds great actually.”
“Tomorrow alright?”
“Sure thing. What time?”
“I’d say coffee at 10. I can come pick you up, since I know it’s difficult to navigate the streets alone sometimes.”
“You really don’t have to, I’m good with directions,” I murmured.
“It’ll be my treat.”
His words were sincere. Typically, I knew my mother would have scolded me for having given in to a stranger like this. But he was genuine and I could just… I could tell. I nodded a little. He removed the paper I’d written my number on and I’d given him my address, too. “I’ll see you around 9:45? It’ll give us plenty of time to get through traffic.”
“Wonderful.”
With that, he nodded his head slightly and walked up the beach to his vehicle-a slick Kawasaki bike. I was more excited than I should have been.
I awoke the next morning in plenty of time to get ready for my coffee date. As planned, he arrived at 9:45 on the dot (with the exception of some seconds). I wouldn’t lie-I was nervous about motorcycles. They didn’t seem like very sturdy vehicles to me. But, nonetheless, I donned a helmet and hopped on the back, arms curling around his flat waist. Faithfully, we cruised through the streets of Eastport and arrived unharmed at the destination we had discussed previously-the lovely family-owned café on the corner of Stevens Avenue. The sign read Asteria Café and Lounge, which seemed a little fancy for my tastes. I expected more of the scent of a coffee shop, like Starbucks or something. Instead, I received not only the scent of coffee, but the scent of bread and doughnuts, chocolate, vanilla, and tomato soup. I wasn’t sure what to make of it-but it was delicious.
Instead of opting just for coffee, I ordered a small bowl of that rich-smelling tomato soup and a vanilla cappuccino, with a bread roll to go with it. Soup for breakfast was odd, but it was absolutely delicious. I was intending to pay for my own when Noah touched my hand as it reached for the twenty-dollar bill in my wallet. “Please,” he murmured softly, “I’ll take care of this. I told you, my treat.”
I shook my head a little. “No, no. I couldn’t make you-“
“Who said you were making me?”
He had a point. I admitted defeat with a shy smile and let him continue. He ordered almost the same thing aside from the drink. Instead, he ordered a medium, caramel iced coffee-which sounded equally tasty. We received our food and sat at a small, two-person table, facing each other. The soup was rich and the roll was to perfection. The cappuccino was to die for. “Thank you,” I told Noah.
“Don’t worry about it, Alice. I knew I had to show you probably the best place in this little city,” he replied.
It was, in fact, the best place in the city to get food and coffee. I had to give him credit for showing it to me. We then sat in silence for a few moments after we’d finished our food, still sipping our beverages. “We should do this more often,” he mumbled finally.
Even for such an approachable man, he was still shy. It was rather cute how he blushed faintly and turned his eyes toward the window beside us. I blushed slightly and glanced at my Styrofoam cup, swishing the little bit of liquid inside slowly. “I agree.”
He looked over at me finally and just smiled. His smile melted me then and there. It had the first time I’d caught him doing so at the beach the previous day. “Should we start unpacking and moving your stuff?” he asked.
I shrugged and just smiled in return. “If you’d like.”
We finished our coffee and cappuccino, disposing of our garbage as we headed out the door. “Thanks for… breakfast, I think,” I told him as we stood outside beside his motorcycle.
He laughed. “It wasn’t a problem,” he murmured in reply. “Let’s call it… hm… brunch. Yeah, brunch sounds good.”
We laughed together as I situated the helmet on my head again and we sped off toward my home. He’d forgotten a couple of the directions, so we took a small detour. The beautiful historic buildings were on one side while in the distance we could see the coast. Most of it was filled with boat docks and ships. I was lucky to have found that one patch of beach-apparently, right where Noah had found it, too.
We arrived at my house and without hesitation began sifting through boxes. Most of the boxes were filled with wall décor, like small shelves and little trinkets to go on them. We stumbled across some portraits of my family. “That’s my little brother and I. And there’s my parents. My mom passed away years ago. I really didn’t get the chance to know her very well,” I told him, pointing at each of the family members.
“I’m sorry,” he nearly whispered.
“Everyone dies,” I replied rather emptily.
My mother’s death had quite an impact on how I’d behaved afterwards. I had tried to convince myself not to attach myself to much, but that was just my personality-attached.
He touched my hand, snapping me out of my somewhat dazed state. I looked up at him, not quite realizing that I’d been tearing up until his image was blurred in my eyes. Damnit, I thought to myself. I’ve not even know this man twenty-four hours and I’m nearly weeping in front of him. He cares nothing for my sob story.
But, my assumptions were wrong. In an instant, he’d tugged my hand a little and wrapped his arms around my shoulders. Before I knew it, I was sobbing into his shoulder. “I understand,” he murmured in my ear. “I lost my father when I was six.”
I was clinging to Noah, this stranger who had just randomly walked into my life the afternoon before. And, for some reason, I was entirely way too okay with that. I sniffled and leaned back a little bit. “To what?”
“I really don’t know. My mom never talked about it.”
It was my turn to hug him. The only difference was that he was stronger than I was. He didn’t cry like I did. He didn’t bury his face in my hair and sob. No, he just sat there holding me, letting me hold him and for some reason it felt okay. It felt more than okay-it felt right. “Let’s get some of this stuff put up. Then we’ll take a break,” he whispered.
I just nodded in agreement as we shuffled through the boxes again.
We had known each other a week when he told me that he wanted to show me something he hadn’t shown anyone else. We took his motorcycle past the bay at the first sign of approaching twilight. He drove us along the road, closest to the seaside, leading up a small hill. It was nothing compared to the mountains I’d remembered when visiting Colorado, but it was enough to be considered a mountain in northerners’ perspectives, I was sure-though just a hill in my eyes. I was eager to know this secretive place he was anxious to take me to.
We turned left down a narrow dirt road that looked as though it were left alone. Despite the fact it was much untraveled, I knew this was not for a negative purpose. No, there was something he wanted to show me-something enlightening. We arrived at a cliff side where he propped up his bike and stretched out what seemed like a picnic blanket. There, we sat and watched the sun dip beneath the horizon. It was like the beach, only better. I wished I had brought my camera along.
“I love it up here,” he murmured softly, as though afraid to shatter the gorgeous scene before us.
“It’s fascinating,” I replied with equal caution.
The silence of the evening was captivating. The sun’s final glow left the skyline an orange-pink sort of color. The further away from the horizon, I observed, the sky faded out into a sort of pastel rainbow-a violet sort of color, into indigo, then the beginning of a sort of dark, velvety blue. “Alice,” he murmured softly, “I have a question.”
“You can ask me anything, Noah,” I told him softly.
“Do you,” he began, hesitating nervously, “believe in love at first sight? Stupid question, I know.”
I laughed faintly, and I could tell that he thought I was laughing at him. “Noah,” I told him softly, “there are no stupid questions. Don’t ever worry about that.”
His cheeks grew a pinkish tint, though not with the fading sun. “Well… do you?” he asked a little softer.
I smiled at him, folding my hands in my lap and looking at them. “I didn’t used to,” I muttered meekly.
“You… didn’t used to?”
“I like you, Noah.”
“I like you, too, Alice. And, I really didn’t used to believe in it either.”
I couldn’t help but feel like we were preteens, just in the early stages of some very brief relationship. It felt childish, this admission of liking-not love. But I’d learned long ago to never utter the word love unless it were purely meant-never to commit myself to something that would surely never last. Instead of ruining this moment though, I just glanced over at him a little before leaning in and lightly kissing his cheek with a soft giggle. He reached over and intertwined his fingers with my own, his thumb caressing mine gently. Together, we watched the sun completely fade beneath the horizon, sharing not another audible word between us.
Another week later.
Noah called me while I was out grocery shopping, asking if I wanted to go to lunch with him. He seemed serious, but happy-if that was a combination that was at all possible. Even if it weren’t, he certainly pulled it off well enough. I agreed, and we met at the café he’d shown me the second day of knowing him. We sat by the window, staring out at the passersby who walked along the sidewalks or rode bikes. He seemed a little nervous, perhaps uncertain. “I wanted to tell you something, since we seem to be… growing closer,” he murmured meekly.
I smiled faintly and nodded, reaching over to brush his hand with my own. “You can tell me anything.”
“I have a medical problem,” he told me. “It’s serious, but not really.”
I watched him for a moment. I think he could tell I was somewhat confused. “Serious, but not really?” I questioned. I sounded rude. “Pardon. I didn’t mean it… in anyway offensive.”
“No, no. You’re fine. It’s really hard to explain,” he told me. “It’s hydrocephalus. You know, water on the brain. I’m not deformed, thankfully. At least, not noticeably.”
I’d learned about it in some class I’d taken, during a time when I thought I could attempt college-and realized I hated it. It sounded familiar. I knew some of the symptoms, but he hadn’t shown any. I’d also studied it in children though. I hadn’t noticed but his skull compared to others might have been a little larger. Like he said, though. It wasn’t a noticeable difference. Either way, technicalities were of no importance-the only thing that mattered was that he could make me smile like no other male figure in my life had been able to do.
“I’m not sure what to say,” I said awkwardly, coyly looking downward.
He just chuckled and reached across the table, pinching my cheek slightly. “Don’t worry about it. I just felt you should know about it. They said it was fine, unless I were to experience serious head trauma.”
“And you ride a motorcycle?” I asked, both worriedly and kiddingly.
He just smiled and nodded. “I like the way it feels. It’s both relaxing, and sort of a rush. It’s weird to explain. Adrenaline. It’s just the thought that one little accident could cripple or kill me. But it makes me careful.”
I wondered if his care was executed in other things, like carrying glass or metaphorically holding the heart of another. I thought about everything he said, the way he acted… he was careful. He was careful when I was sobbing in his arms about my mother. He was careful the moment I attached myself to him as we rode through the town. He was careful when we were lying on that cliff, watching the sunset.
“Two weeks isn’t enough,” I murmured.
“Isn’t enough for what?” he asked.
“To tell you the way I feel right now.”
Noah just smiled again and leaned over the table a little-since God knew he was tall enough to. He placed a simple kiss on my forehead. “Give it some more time then. I can wait. I’ve got plenty of time.”
For some reason, when he said those words, I knew he meant it. But at the same time, I worried that those words weren’t true.
Two more weeks to make it a month.
We decided it was official and started dating. The first person I happened to tell was my friend, Lynn. “NO WAY! My little Alice finally got a boy?” she squealed on the phone.
“You could say that, I guess,” I murmured.
“How cute! What’s his name?” she asked.
“Noah,” I replied.
“Is he cute?”
“I think so.”
“Explain, miss!”
It was then that I sighed and smiled. I began explaining how we met, on the beach in May. I told her that his hair wasn’t too long and it was the color of sand. I told her that his eyes were like the ocean in shallower parts, that mixture of greenish-blue like sea-foam, but deeper than sea-foam-speckled with what I classify as seashells. I explained that his biceps were rippled just enough to show their form. I continued with how he usually smelled like vanilla, which was my favorite scent. And then I mentioned that he took me to see the sunset where the stars were beautiful, but so was he-and that everything in that very moment was perfect.
She was silent on the other end, but I knew she was listening. Once I finished, she just chuckled. “You always have a way with words, Alice.”
I just smiled. “My words are nothing compared to how he is in person.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it, Alice. I’m happy for you.”
Our conversation was ended shortly, with the wailing of her nearly newborn child in the background. Apparently her new husband was working and she was trapped at home with the child. I understood and let her go. Talking about him made me miss him, though we hadn’t spent much time apart since the day we met. All I knew was that he was perfect. I wanted to tell him I loved him-but I couldn’t. I couldn’t yet, and he understood that. But I wanted to.
Another month. Two months total.
We went on a picnic to the very spot he’d shown me on the cliff. We had already polished off a couple of sandwiches and some fresh fruit. We were left gazing at the sunset. Slowly, we laid back and gazed at the stars glittering in the twilit sky. This was perfect. God made this perfect. Or whatever being lie beyond the atmosphere had made this perfect.
I used his bicep as my pillow, until he tugged me closer to him, wrapping his arm nearly around my body. My arm rested across his abdomen, but my eyes never left the sky. This was how things were supposed to be. This was right.
“I wrote you something,” he murmured as we lay beneath the stars on that cool summer night in July.
“Can I read it?” I asked eagerly, for his writing was always gorgeous.
“I can’t let you read it yet,” he continued. “You can only see it when the time is right.”
“Well, how on Earth will I know when the time is right?” I asked again, leaning up to look at him.
“Trust me,” he said softly, closing his eyes even softer, “you’ll know.”
There was a strange sadness in his voice that I could not understand. I could sense there was something he wasn’t telling me-something serious. I wasn’t sure if it had something to do with his illness. Perhaps it was something to deal with the “L” word and the fact that I couldn’t tell him that. I wanted to know. But the time was not right yet.
We gasped simultaneously as we saw the exact same thing-a shooting star. “Wish upon it,” he told me. “I will, too.”
We were silent for a moment before I chuckled. “I know what I wished for.”
“What’d you wish for?”
Part of me wanted to tell him and part of me didn’t want to. “It might not come true though,” I whispered.
“I’m sure it will. What was it?”
“I wished for this… to last for a very, very long time. You and I.”
He smiled and pulled me closer. He leaned down and it was the first time his lips met mine. My arm held him close and I smiled as our lips parted. “I wished for the very same thing,” he murmured, our foreheads pressed together.
I buried my face in his neck. He kissed my head then and wrapped both arms around my form. “Stay with me.”
“I didn’t plan on leaving, Noah.”
The world seemingly fell silent, aside from the crickets and nearby sounds of the slowly settling city.
Two months and two weeks we had been together.
I had gone to meet him at the café he had taken me to shortly after meeting him. We held our coffee cups close in our hands as if it were cold outside, though it was August, tearing off pieces of bread from the slices we’d purchased. It was honey wheat-one of my favorites-and we talked over vanilla cappuccinos. “I was thinking,” he said softly, fiddling with the edge of the cup with his thumbs as though suddenly shy, “of something. I remember we talked once. You said your birthday is in a couple months right?”
“Yeah,” I murmured quietly, an eyebrow raising. “Why?”
“I wanted to see if you had any plans or… if you wanted to plan something with me.”
I found myself grinning stupidly at the proposal. It wasn’t like I’d had much luck with the friendship factor in the city yet, so doing something on my birthday with the one person I cared about most-the one person I spent the most time with-was naturally the best idea in the world to me.
“Let’s plan something together. I want to spend it with you,” I told him.
“What do you want to do then…?” he asked me quietly, taking a sip of his cappuccino.
I had almost gotten distracted by how lovely his lips looked perched on the rim of the Styrofoam coffee cup. I blinked rapidly and looked at my own cup then, shrugging a shoulder. “I dunno,” I mumbled thoughtfully, before turning my eyes back up to him. “What is there to do in October?”
He laughed at me a little. In that sweet, light tone of his, he replied, “Anything you want to do, silly.”
I smiled and reached across the table to take his hand. I brushed my thumb over his fingers, taking in the feel of the skin along his knuckles. Always perfect. A little rough from his surfing, but nonetheless perfect. “I’ll think about it then and we’ll talk about it later.”
“Promise?”
“I promise, Noah.”
Another week had gone by.
I’d kept to myself for a whole day with the exception of our text message conversation. He had been busy with something. He really hadn’t told me what, but it was something. I left myself to think during this time. Without him there to actually distract me, without all the little touches and kisses and precious spoken words, I was left to think.
It had only been almost three months. I was beginning to think of words and phrases I wanted to say, things I felt that I wanted to vocalize but I was too scared to. I was thinking of all the possible things I could tell him, everything I had neglected to so far, everything I had been so reluctant to say before-and how I wanted to say it all now. I grabbed the nearest notebook and started to scribble down these things as if I’d forget.
Line by line, I sorted out every thought and every feeling on a single sheet of paper-front and back-then stared at it, setting the pen down quietly. I wanted to give it to him. I wanted to show him every bit of me he hadn’t seen.
I felt my eyes burning then. “Alice, you idiot,” I mumbled shakily to myself, burying my face into my hands.
I felt everything I had forced away-all of the thoughts, memories, and feelings I had suppressed-escaping. They escaped my eyes in the form of tears and my lips in the form of quiet whispers. I had written everything. Absolutely everything of me.
I wanted him to know.
Two more weeks passed. This made three months and a week, unless my math skills sucked as bad as I knew they probably did.
I had found the courage on one of our outings to talk to him finally. Sort of. I was hesitant as all hell, and I knew he could tell but he didn’t push it. We sat on the cliff that we’d watched the stars from. I rested my head on his shoulder and gazed outwards. My voice was quieter than I expected it to be, sounding timid like a frightened mouse. “Noah?” I said softly, waiting for a response.
“What is it, Alice?” he replied suavely.
“I want to tell you something,” I told him. “I want to tell you a lot of things.”
I felt the shift in his muscles as he turned his head barely to look at me. It was enough to make me lift my head from his shoulder. I fidgeted with my fingers, playing with the hem of my shirt as I fought myself to find the words I needed to say. “You can tell me anything.”
I knew that was coming. I knew he would say that. His belief was that I could tell him anything. He placed a hand over mine. I couldn’t tell if the gesture was just to hold my hand or if it was to cease my fidgeting-nonetheless it worked, and I stopped. I wrapped both hands around his and sighed. “I wanted to tell you about me,” I began. “About the things you don’t know. About how I’m not perfect. And about how I’m afraid.”
“Anything, Alice. Anything you want to tell me.”
I took a deep breath and had to swallow the lump in my throat. “I’m afraid of losing people. All of the good things in my life had either altered themselves or left or died. I’m afraid of losing things and people. I’m afraid of being alone. I’m afraid of the dark. I’m afraid… to fall in love.”
His fingers laced through mine, squeezing my hand gently. I felt myself tearing up again, remembering the page of things I had written down before. “My dad… after my mother died, he drank. All the time. He turned into something I didn’t recognize and he screamed a lot. I was like my brother’s caretaker. I don’t know what a childhood is. And the only time I’ve ever told someone I loved them, they hurt me.”
I didn’t want to elaborate. The thought was making me cry, because I seemed to be turning into quite the emotional mess. I seemed to do this more than I had before. More than I ever had alone or more than I had when I was in the moment, more than when I was being beaten. More than when I was curled up in the bathroom, shivering, cold, bruised.
Noah said nothing. He slid his hand away from mine, tugging me into those comfortable arms of his and held me. We stayed like that for what felt like hours before he finally spoke. It wasn’t a direct admission. It wasn’t him saying he loved me just yet. But it was enough to understand.
“The only way I will ever leave you is if God decides to make it so. But I will never hurt you.”
I didn’t trust people. But I trusted him.
Another week after that conversation.
I was going to say it. I was going to tell him the one thing I had left out. I was going to tell him that I realized something-that I loved him. I did. I loved him like I had never felt the feeling before. I remember the one time we had taken a trip to his apartment. His singular, equally cramped apartment.
I had walked, since it wasn’t too far and the weather was nice, making sure to use all of the busy pathways and sidewalks because I was paranoid of getting abducted and no one being around. Yes, yet another thing to add to my list of fears.
I stood across the street from his apartment complex, giddy as ever at the fact that I was going to say it. I was going to say the three words-or four, if I used his name-that I had meant to say the evening I had told him everything. I brushed out the wrinkles in my clothes primly, raising my eyes to look at the building. I froze.
Outside, an ambulance among other emergency vehicles were parked. A frantic woman was talking to a police officer. There was a body, covered and being slid into the back of the ambulance. Nothing was specific. I knew nothing of the situation or the people involved. But I had a bad feeling. I stepped across the street-not even paying attention to oncoming traffic-which thankfully there was none. Approaching the scene, I was directed away slightly by an officer. “C-Can I ask what happened?” I asked him timidly. “I need to see my boyfriend…”
He shook his head, shooed me away. I was growing more anxious by the second. I turned to another one of the people who had joined the crowd and asked them the same question. They at least responded. “There was a young man who lived here. I guess since the elevator was down, he took the stairs. He slipped, fell. They said he wasn’t breathing when they found him…”
I covered my mouth with my hand, a sob escaping my lips. And there I was again. I was sobbing in the center of a crowd. To make matters worse, my knees trembled and gave out underneath me. I collapsed, leaning against my hands before hugging myself. I knew. I knew what had happened. I knew who it was.
I was being tugged on by a few people. “Are you okay?”
“Ma’am, what’s wrong?”
I shook my head and sobbed harder. I shook my head because I was not okay. I sobbed harder because everything was wrong.
I knew. I knew I should not have told him my wish.
I sat bunched up in my bedroom, knees pulled to my chest. I hadn’t slept or eaten. I hadn’t felt much else than this hollowness. I was a shell. It was as I predicted. I had seen it coming the night I told him what I wished on that star. I knew that fate would have it that we would be separated. The stars were like that. They were cruel bait for lost fish like me.
I heard a knock at the door. It was the mail. Shuffling from my bed, I dragged my feet across the apartment to the door. The mail had been neatly stuffed beneath it. It was bills. I tossed them aside carelessly on the kitchen table before pausing. There was another envelope. It wasn’t a bill.
I grabbed the envelope and examined it. There was no return address. No, just my name and address. Hesitantly, I ripped open the envelope and opened the neatly folded paper inside. Tears stung my eyes at the sight of it. I began to slowly read it, pausing now and then to wipe away the forming tears.
“Her eyes are like the stars;
I could gaze at them forever,
Find patterns in the speckles
And make wishes on them.
She is everything; she is perfect.
She will never believe me, but
Perhaps one day if I’m not around,
Someone will be able to make her
Believe.
I love her.
I am stupid for saying such a
Thing so soon, especially when
I worry that she would think so.
But I love her.
I thank God every day that
I realize she lives on Earth,
And not in Wonderland. Or
In Heaven where I thought
Angels usually lived.
But she lives here. My angel
Lives on Earth.
Alice, I told you I wrote you something. I know it’s not as beautiful as you. I know it isn’t perfect like I believe you are, but… I wanted to let you know I love you. Because even if you think I’m stupid, I believe in love at first sight. With you.”
I finished, sobbing and hanging my head. This had been what he’d written for me. I scrambled for the envelope, digging to find the postmark date. Two days ago. Two days ago, he had sent it through the mail.
My fingers dug into the textured paper and I clung to the letter for dear life. I was not perfect. I was not beautiful. The one person who believed that whole-heartedly had left me-just as God would have willed it, and tore him from my hands.
I’d spent my past few days returning to the coast where I’d take photos of the lovely horizon and waves-but I most of all enjoyed feeding the seagulls. I had a few photos of them when I managed to catch them. They were such animated birds; they were hard to keep up with.
It was a sunny afternoon. I was packing up my photography equipment and tossing out the rest of the breadcrumbs when I noticed movement that wasn’t from a bird. I glanced over subtly to notice the figure of a tall, lean man. He was dressed for swimming, though I couldn’t tell how he could stand to get out of the water with the wind blowing like it was.
I smiled a little and waved in a friendly manner at him after catching his grin. He nodded his head and waved back, grabbing a towel from his things. He had dried himself off as much as possible and slipped on a somewhat tight fitting t-shirt. It outlined the shape of his toned pecks, though the seams in the arms of the shirt looked like they were screaming from his tightly shaped biceps. I finished packing away my tripod and the camera when I noticed he was approaching me. He’s just walking by, I thought, brushing it off. Until he stopped beside me.
“I haven’t seen you around here before,” he murmured, extending his hand to me. “I’m Noah.”
I looked over at him, and then up. He had to be at least six feet tall, at least. I couldn’t tell. I was never good at judging lengths or heights-distances at all for that matter. I just knew that I was 5’4” and he was a lot taller than that. “Oh, no. I just moved here last week. I’m Alice,” I replied, shaking his hand daintily. Mine looked like it was only a third the size of his.
“If you were looking for Wonderland, you’re a little off,” he chuckled.
I shook my head with faint laughter. “Thankfully I wasn’t looking for that.”
“Where’d you move from?” he asked me.
“Boston, Massachusetts.”
“Must be a big difference, moving to a smaller city.”
I nodded. “It is. But I like it much better here. I moved here after passing through for a friend’s wedding. Something about it just caught my attention. It’s everything Boston was without the massive population and the extent of crime, it seems.”
Noah shrugged. “It’s fairly quiet. It’s nice. I quite like it here.”
“Me, too.”
There was a small awkward silence before he stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans. There were water spots where his swimming trunks had seeped through the denim. “If you’re ever looking for a friend in this place,” he began, somewhat shyly, “you’ve got me around. Maybe we can get together for coffee sometime. There’s an awesome family-owned café on Stevens Avenue.”
“I’d love to!” I exclaimed, rather excited at the prospect of a friendly face in an unknown town.
I quickly scribbled my number on a slip of paper from my notepad that I kept with me in my barely-legible handwriting. I handed it to him and smiled warmly. He folded it carefully in his hands, making sure each corner was perfect, every edge straight, before he slipped it into his pocket. “Are you busy at all this week?” he asked.
“Just unpacking still, moving in. Really, I’m not though.”
“If you need some help,” he told me, “I’d be glad to. Maybe after coffee.”
I laughed lightly and nodded twice. “That sounds great actually.”
“Tomorrow alright?”
“Sure thing. What time?”
“I’d say coffee at 10. I can come pick you up, since I know it’s difficult to navigate the streets alone sometimes.”
“You really don’t have to, I’m good with directions,” I murmured.
“It’ll be my treat.”
His words were sincere. Typically, I knew my mother would have scolded me for having given in to a stranger like this. But he was genuine and I could just… I could tell. I nodded a little. He removed the paper I’d written my number on and I’d given him my address, too. “I’ll see you around 9:45? It’ll give us plenty of time to get through traffic.”
“Wonderful.”
With that, he nodded his head slightly and walked up the beach to his vehicle-a slick Kawasaki bike. I was more excited than I should have been.
I awoke the next morning in plenty of time to get ready for my coffee date. As planned, he arrived at 9:45 on the dot (with the exception of some seconds). I wouldn’t lie-I was nervous about motorcycles. They didn’t seem like very sturdy vehicles to me. But, nonetheless, I donned a helmet and hopped on the back, arms curling around his flat waist. Faithfully, we cruised through the streets of Eastport and arrived unharmed at the destination we had discussed previously-the lovely family-owned café on the corner of Stevens Avenue. The sign read Asteria Café and Lounge, which seemed a little fancy for my tastes. I expected more of the scent of a coffee shop, like Starbucks or something. Instead, I received not only the scent of coffee, but the scent of bread and doughnuts, chocolate, vanilla, and tomato soup. I wasn’t sure what to make of it-but it was delicious.
Instead of opting just for coffee, I ordered a small bowl of that rich-smelling tomato soup and a vanilla cappuccino, with a bread roll to go with it. Soup for breakfast was odd, but it was absolutely delicious. I was intending to pay for my own when Noah touched my hand as it reached for the twenty-dollar bill in my wallet. “Please,” he murmured softly, “I’ll take care of this. I told you, my treat.”
I shook my head a little. “No, no. I couldn’t make you-“
“Who said you were making me?”
He had a point. I admitted defeat with a shy smile and let him continue. He ordered almost the same thing aside from the drink. Instead, he ordered a medium, caramel iced coffee-which sounded equally tasty. We received our food and sat at a small, two-person table, facing each other. The soup was rich and the roll was to perfection. The cappuccino was to die for. “Thank you,” I told Noah.
“Don’t worry about it, Alice. I knew I had to show you probably the best place in this little city,” he replied.
It was, in fact, the best place in the city to get food and coffee. I had to give him credit for showing it to me. We then sat in silence for a few moments after we’d finished our food, still sipping our beverages. “We should do this more often,” he mumbled finally.
Even for such an approachable man, he was still shy. It was rather cute how he blushed faintly and turned his eyes toward the window beside us. I blushed slightly and glanced at my Styrofoam cup, swishing the little bit of liquid inside slowly. “I agree.”
He looked over at me finally and just smiled. His smile melted me then and there. It had the first time I’d caught him doing so at the beach the previous day. “Should we start unpacking and moving your stuff?” he asked.
I shrugged and just smiled in return. “If you’d like.”
We finished our coffee and cappuccino, disposing of our garbage as we headed out the door. “Thanks for… breakfast, I think,” I told him as we stood outside beside his motorcycle.
He laughed. “It wasn’t a problem,” he murmured in reply. “Let’s call it… hm… brunch. Yeah, brunch sounds good.”
We laughed together as I situated the helmet on my head again and we sped off toward my home. He’d forgotten a couple of the directions, so we took a small detour. The beautiful historic buildings were on one side while in the distance we could see the coast. Most of it was filled with boat docks and ships. I was lucky to have found that one patch of beach-apparently, right where Noah had found it, too.
We arrived at my house and without hesitation began sifting through boxes. Most of the boxes were filled with wall décor, like small shelves and little trinkets to go on them. We stumbled across some portraits of my family. “That’s my little brother and I. And there’s my parents. My mom passed away years ago. I really didn’t get the chance to know her very well,” I told him, pointing at each of the family members.
“I’m sorry,” he nearly whispered.
“Everyone dies,” I replied rather emptily.
My mother’s death had quite an impact on how I’d behaved afterwards. I had tried to convince myself not to attach myself to much, but that was just my personality-attached.
He touched my hand, snapping me out of my somewhat dazed state. I looked up at him, not quite realizing that I’d been tearing up until his image was blurred in my eyes. Damnit, I thought to myself. I’ve not even know this man twenty-four hours and I’m nearly weeping in front of him. He cares nothing for my sob story.
But, my assumptions were wrong. In an instant, he’d tugged my hand a little and wrapped his arms around my shoulders. Before I knew it, I was sobbing into his shoulder. “I understand,” he murmured in my ear. “I lost my father when I was six.”
I was clinging to Noah, this stranger who had just randomly walked into my life the afternoon before. And, for some reason, I was entirely way too okay with that. I sniffled and leaned back a little bit. “To what?”
“I really don’t know. My mom never talked about it.”
It was my turn to hug him. The only difference was that he was stronger than I was. He didn’t cry like I did. He didn’t bury his face in my hair and sob. No, he just sat there holding me, letting me hold him and for some reason it felt okay. It felt more than okay-it felt right. “Let’s get some of this stuff put up. Then we’ll take a break,” he whispered.
I just nodded in agreement as we shuffled through the boxes again.
We had known each other a week when he told me that he wanted to show me something he hadn’t shown anyone else. We took his motorcycle past the bay at the first sign of approaching twilight. He drove us along the road, closest to the seaside, leading up a small hill. It was nothing compared to the mountains I’d remembered when visiting Colorado, but it was enough to be considered a mountain in northerners’ perspectives, I was sure-though just a hill in my eyes. I was eager to know this secretive place he was anxious to take me to.
We turned left down a narrow dirt road that looked as though it were left alone. Despite the fact it was much untraveled, I knew this was not for a negative purpose. No, there was something he wanted to show me-something enlightening. We arrived at a cliff side where he propped up his bike and stretched out what seemed like a picnic blanket. There, we sat and watched the sun dip beneath the horizon. It was like the beach, only better. I wished I had brought my camera along.
“I love it up here,” he murmured softly, as though afraid to shatter the gorgeous scene before us.
“It’s fascinating,” I replied with equal caution.
The silence of the evening was captivating. The sun’s final glow left the skyline an orange-pink sort of color. The further away from the horizon, I observed, the sky faded out into a sort of pastel rainbow-a violet sort of color, into indigo, then the beginning of a sort of dark, velvety blue. “Alice,” he murmured softly, “I have a question.”
“You can ask me anything, Noah,” I told him softly.
“Do you,” he began, hesitating nervously, “believe in love at first sight? Stupid question, I know.”
I laughed faintly, and I could tell that he thought I was laughing at him. “Noah,” I told him softly, “there are no stupid questions. Don’t ever worry about that.”
His cheeks grew a pinkish tint, though not with the fading sun. “Well… do you?” he asked a little softer.
I smiled at him, folding my hands in my lap and looking at them. “I didn’t used to,” I muttered meekly.
“You… didn’t used to?”
“I like you, Noah.”
“I like you, too, Alice. And, I really didn’t used to believe in it either.”
I couldn’t help but feel like we were preteens, just in the early stages of some very brief relationship. It felt childish, this admission of liking-not love. But I’d learned long ago to never utter the word love unless it were purely meant-never to commit myself to something that would surely never last. Instead of ruining this moment though, I just glanced over at him a little before leaning in and lightly kissing his cheek with a soft giggle. He reached over and intertwined his fingers with my own, his thumb caressing mine gently. Together, we watched the sun completely fade beneath the horizon, sharing not another audible word between us.
Another week later.
Noah called me while I was out grocery shopping, asking if I wanted to go to lunch with him. He seemed serious, but happy-if that was a combination that was at all possible. Even if it weren’t, he certainly pulled it off well enough. I agreed, and we met at the café he’d shown me the second day of knowing him. We sat by the window, staring out at the passersby who walked along the sidewalks or rode bikes. He seemed a little nervous, perhaps uncertain. “I wanted to tell you something, since we seem to be… growing closer,” he murmured meekly.
I smiled faintly and nodded, reaching over to brush his hand with my own. “You can tell me anything.”
“I have a medical problem,” he told me. “It’s serious, but not really.”
I watched him for a moment. I think he could tell I was somewhat confused. “Serious, but not really?” I questioned. I sounded rude. “Pardon. I didn’t mean it… in anyway offensive.”
“No, no. You’re fine. It’s really hard to explain,” he told me. “It’s hydrocephalus. You know, water on the brain. I’m not deformed, thankfully. At least, not noticeably.”
I’d learned about it in some class I’d taken, during a time when I thought I could attempt college-and realized I hated it. It sounded familiar. I knew some of the symptoms, but he hadn’t shown any. I’d also studied it in children though. I hadn’t noticed but his skull compared to others might have been a little larger. Like he said, though. It wasn’t a noticeable difference. Either way, technicalities were of no importance-the only thing that mattered was that he could make me smile like no other male figure in my life had been able to do.
“I’m not sure what to say,” I said awkwardly, coyly looking downward.
He just chuckled and reached across the table, pinching my cheek slightly. “Don’t worry about it. I just felt you should know about it. They said it was fine, unless I were to experience serious head trauma.”
“And you ride a motorcycle?” I asked, both worriedly and kiddingly.
He just smiled and nodded. “I like the way it feels. It’s both relaxing, and sort of a rush. It’s weird to explain. Adrenaline. It’s just the thought that one little accident could cripple or kill me. But it makes me careful.”
I wondered if his care was executed in other things, like carrying glass or metaphorically holding the heart of another. I thought about everything he said, the way he acted… he was careful. He was careful when I was sobbing in his arms about my mother. He was careful the moment I attached myself to him as we rode through the town. He was careful when we were lying on that cliff, watching the sunset.
“Two weeks isn’t enough,” I murmured.
“Isn’t enough for what?” he asked.
“To tell you the way I feel right now.”
Noah just smiled again and leaned over the table a little-since God knew he was tall enough to. He placed a simple kiss on my forehead. “Give it some more time then. I can wait. I’ve got plenty of time.”
For some reason, when he said those words, I knew he meant it. But at the same time, I worried that those words weren’t true.
Two more weeks to make it a month.
We decided it was official and started dating. The first person I happened to tell was my friend, Lynn. “NO WAY! My little Alice finally got a boy?” she squealed on the phone.
“You could say that, I guess,” I murmured.
“How cute! What’s his name?” she asked.
“Noah,” I replied.
“Is he cute?”
“I think so.”
“Explain, miss!”
It was then that I sighed and smiled. I began explaining how we met, on the beach in May. I told her that his hair wasn’t too long and it was the color of sand. I told her that his eyes were like the ocean in shallower parts, that mixture of greenish-blue like sea-foam, but deeper than sea-foam-speckled with what I classify as seashells. I explained that his biceps were rippled just enough to show their form. I continued with how he usually smelled like vanilla, which was my favorite scent. And then I mentioned that he took me to see the sunset where the stars were beautiful, but so was he-and that everything in that very moment was perfect.
She was silent on the other end, but I knew she was listening. Once I finished, she just chuckled. “You always have a way with words, Alice.”
I just smiled. “My words are nothing compared to how he is in person.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it, Alice. I’m happy for you.”
Our conversation was ended shortly, with the wailing of her nearly newborn child in the background. Apparently her new husband was working and she was trapped at home with the child. I understood and let her go. Talking about him made me miss him, though we hadn’t spent much time apart since the day we met. All I knew was that he was perfect. I wanted to tell him I loved him-but I couldn’t. I couldn’t yet, and he understood that. But I wanted to.
Another month. Two months total.
We went on a picnic to the very spot he’d shown me on the cliff. We had already polished off a couple of sandwiches and some fresh fruit. We were left gazing at the sunset. Slowly, we laid back and gazed at the stars glittering in the twilit sky. This was perfect. God made this perfect. Or whatever being lie beyond the atmosphere had made this perfect.
I used his bicep as my pillow, until he tugged me closer to him, wrapping his arm nearly around my body. My arm rested across his abdomen, but my eyes never left the sky. This was how things were supposed to be. This was right.
“I wrote you something,” he murmured as we lay beneath the stars on that cool summer night in July.
“Can I read it?” I asked eagerly, for his writing was always gorgeous.
“I can’t let you read it yet,” he continued. “You can only see it when the time is right.”
“Well, how on Earth will I know when the time is right?” I asked again, leaning up to look at him.
“Trust me,” he said softly, closing his eyes even softer, “you’ll know.”
There was a strange sadness in his voice that I could not understand. I could sense there was something he wasn’t telling me-something serious. I wasn’t sure if it had something to do with his illness. Perhaps it was something to deal with the “L” word and the fact that I couldn’t tell him that. I wanted to know. But the time was not right yet.
We gasped simultaneously as we saw the exact same thing-a shooting star. “Wish upon it,” he told me. “I will, too.”
We were silent for a moment before I chuckled. “I know what I wished for.”
“What’d you wish for?”
Part of me wanted to tell him and part of me didn’t want to. “It might not come true though,” I whispered.
“I’m sure it will. What was it?”
“I wished for this… to last for a very, very long time. You and I.”
He smiled and pulled me closer. He leaned down and it was the first time his lips met mine. My arm held him close and I smiled as our lips parted. “I wished for the very same thing,” he murmured, our foreheads pressed together.
I buried my face in his neck. He kissed my head then and wrapped both arms around my form. “Stay with me.”
“I didn’t plan on leaving, Noah.”
The world seemingly fell silent, aside from the crickets and nearby sounds of the slowly settling city.
Two months and two weeks we had been together.
I had gone to meet him at the café he had taken me to shortly after meeting him. We held our coffee cups close in our hands as if it were cold outside, though it was August, tearing off pieces of bread from the slices we’d purchased. It was honey wheat-one of my favorites-and we talked over vanilla cappuccinos. “I was thinking,” he said softly, fiddling with the edge of the cup with his thumbs as though suddenly shy, “of something. I remember we talked once. You said your birthday is in a couple months right?”
“Yeah,” I murmured quietly, an eyebrow raising. “Why?”
“I wanted to see if you had any plans or… if you wanted to plan something with me.”
I found myself grinning stupidly at the proposal. It wasn’t like I’d had much luck with the friendship factor in the city yet, so doing something on my birthday with the one person I cared about most-the one person I spent the most time with-was naturally the best idea in the world to me.
“Let’s plan something together. I want to spend it with you,” I told him.
“What do you want to do then…?” he asked me quietly, taking a sip of his cappuccino.
I had almost gotten distracted by how lovely his lips looked perched on the rim of the Styrofoam coffee cup. I blinked rapidly and looked at my own cup then, shrugging a shoulder. “I dunno,” I mumbled thoughtfully, before turning my eyes back up to him. “What is there to do in October?”
He laughed at me a little. In that sweet, light tone of his, he replied, “Anything you want to do, silly.”
I smiled and reached across the table to take his hand. I brushed my thumb over his fingers, taking in the feel of the skin along his knuckles. Always perfect. A little rough from his surfing, but nonetheless perfect. “I’ll think about it then and we’ll talk about it later.”
“Promise?”
“I promise, Noah.”
Another week had gone by.
I’d kept to myself for a whole day with the exception of our text message conversation. He had been busy with something. He really hadn’t told me what, but it was something. I left myself to think during this time. Without him there to actually distract me, without all the little touches and kisses and precious spoken words, I was left to think.
It had only been almost three months. I was beginning to think of words and phrases I wanted to say, things I felt that I wanted to vocalize but I was too scared to. I was thinking of all the possible things I could tell him, everything I had neglected to so far, everything I had been so reluctant to say before-and how I wanted to say it all now. I grabbed the nearest notebook and started to scribble down these things as if I’d forget.
Line by line, I sorted out every thought and every feeling on a single sheet of paper-front and back-then stared at it, setting the pen down quietly. I wanted to give it to him. I wanted to show him every bit of me he hadn’t seen.
I felt my eyes burning then. “Alice, you idiot,” I mumbled shakily to myself, burying my face into my hands.
I felt everything I had forced away-all of the thoughts, memories, and feelings I had suppressed-escaping. They escaped my eyes in the form of tears and my lips in the form of quiet whispers. I had written everything. Absolutely everything of me.
I wanted him to know.
Two more weeks passed. This made three months and a week, unless my math skills sucked as bad as I knew they probably did.
I had found the courage on one of our outings to talk to him finally. Sort of. I was hesitant as all hell, and I knew he could tell but he didn’t push it. We sat on the cliff that we’d watched the stars from. I rested my head on his shoulder and gazed outwards. My voice was quieter than I expected it to be, sounding timid like a frightened mouse. “Noah?” I said softly, waiting for a response.
“What is it, Alice?” he replied suavely.
“I want to tell you something,” I told him. “I want to tell you a lot of things.”
I felt the shift in his muscles as he turned his head barely to look at me. It was enough to make me lift my head from his shoulder. I fidgeted with my fingers, playing with the hem of my shirt as I fought myself to find the words I needed to say. “You can tell me anything.”
I knew that was coming. I knew he would say that. His belief was that I could tell him anything. He placed a hand over mine. I couldn’t tell if the gesture was just to hold my hand or if it was to cease my fidgeting-nonetheless it worked, and I stopped. I wrapped both hands around his and sighed. “I wanted to tell you about me,” I began. “About the things you don’t know. About how I’m not perfect. And about how I’m afraid.”
“Anything, Alice. Anything you want to tell me.”
I took a deep breath and had to swallow the lump in my throat. “I’m afraid of losing people. All of the good things in my life had either altered themselves or left or died. I’m afraid of losing things and people. I’m afraid of being alone. I’m afraid of the dark. I’m afraid… to fall in love.”
His fingers laced through mine, squeezing my hand gently. I felt myself tearing up again, remembering the page of things I had written down before. “My dad… after my mother died, he drank. All the time. He turned into something I didn’t recognize and he screamed a lot. I was like my brother’s caretaker. I don’t know what a childhood is. And the only time I’ve ever told someone I loved them, they hurt me.”
I didn’t want to elaborate. The thought was making me cry, because I seemed to be turning into quite the emotional mess. I seemed to do this more than I had before. More than I ever had alone or more than I had when I was in the moment, more than when I was being beaten. More than when I was curled up in the bathroom, shivering, cold, bruised.
Noah said nothing. He slid his hand away from mine, tugging me into those comfortable arms of his and held me. We stayed like that for what felt like hours before he finally spoke. It wasn’t a direct admission. It wasn’t him saying he loved me just yet. But it was enough to understand.
“The only way I will ever leave you is if God decides to make it so. But I will never hurt you.”
I didn’t trust people. But I trusted him.
Another week after that conversation.
I was going to say it. I was going to tell him the one thing I had left out. I was going to tell him that I realized something-that I loved him. I did. I loved him like I had never felt the feeling before. I remember the one time we had taken a trip to his apartment. His singular, equally cramped apartment.
I had walked, since it wasn’t too far and the weather was nice, making sure to use all of the busy pathways and sidewalks because I was paranoid of getting abducted and no one being around. Yes, yet another thing to add to my list of fears.
I stood across the street from his apartment complex, giddy as ever at the fact that I was going to say it. I was going to say the three words-or four, if I used his name-that I had meant to say the evening I had told him everything. I brushed out the wrinkles in my clothes primly, raising my eyes to look at the building. I froze.
Outside, an ambulance among other emergency vehicles were parked. A frantic woman was talking to a police officer. There was a body, covered and being slid into the back of the ambulance. Nothing was specific. I knew nothing of the situation or the people involved. But I had a bad feeling. I stepped across the street-not even paying attention to oncoming traffic-which thankfully there was none. Approaching the scene, I was directed away slightly by an officer. “C-Can I ask what happened?” I asked him timidly. “I need to see my boyfriend…”
He shook his head, shooed me away. I was growing more anxious by the second. I turned to another one of the people who had joined the crowd and asked them the same question. They at least responded. “There was a young man who lived here. I guess since the elevator was down, he took the stairs. He slipped, fell. They said he wasn’t breathing when they found him…”
I covered my mouth with my hand, a sob escaping my lips. And there I was again. I was sobbing in the center of a crowd. To make matters worse, my knees trembled and gave out underneath me. I collapsed, leaning against my hands before hugging myself. I knew. I knew what had happened. I knew who it was.
I was being tugged on by a few people. “Are you okay?”
“Ma’am, what’s wrong?”
I shook my head and sobbed harder. I shook my head because I was not okay. I sobbed harder because everything was wrong.
I knew. I knew I should not have told him my wish.
I sat bunched up in my bedroom, knees pulled to my chest. I hadn’t slept or eaten. I hadn’t felt much else than this hollowness. I was a shell. It was as I predicted. I had seen it coming the night I told him what I wished on that star. I knew that fate would have it that we would be separated. The stars were like that. They were cruel bait for lost fish like me.
I heard a knock at the door. It was the mail. Shuffling from my bed, I dragged my feet across the apartment to the door. The mail had been neatly stuffed beneath it. It was bills. I tossed them aside carelessly on the kitchen table before pausing. There was another envelope. It wasn’t a bill.
I grabbed the envelope and examined it. There was no return address. No, just my name and address. Hesitantly, I ripped open the envelope and opened the neatly folded paper inside. Tears stung my eyes at the sight of it. I began to slowly read it, pausing now and then to wipe away the forming tears.
“Her eyes are like the stars;
I could gaze at them forever,
Find patterns in the speckles
And make wishes on them.
She is everything; she is perfect.
She will never believe me, but
Perhaps one day if I’m not around,
Someone will be able to make her
Believe.
I love her.
I am stupid for saying such a
Thing so soon, especially when
I worry that she would think so.
But I love her.
I thank God every day that
I realize she lives on Earth,
And not in Wonderland. Or
In Heaven where I thought
Angels usually lived.
But she lives here. My angel
Lives on Earth.
Alice, I told you I wrote you something. I know it’s not as beautiful as you. I know it isn’t perfect like I believe you are, but… I wanted to let you know I love you. Because even if you think I’m stupid, I believe in love at first sight. With you.”
I finished, sobbing and hanging my head. This had been what he’d written for me. I scrambled for the envelope, digging to find the postmark date. Two days ago. Two days ago, he had sent it through the mail.
My fingers dug into the textured paper and I clung to the letter for dear life. I was not perfect. I was not beautiful. The one person who believed that whole-heartedly had left me-just as God would have willed it, and tore him from my hands.