Christmas Present for oddlylunalu
Dear Luna,
I've been sitting here looking at this piece of parchment for an hour trying to figure out what to write. I've started and stopped this letter a dozen times in the last week for that very reason. Everything I try and put down seems so fake, stories about what's going on now that the war is over, gossip about friends, a few words about my greenhouses...
But none of it matters. None of it's what I really want to say to you.
So for once I'm going to just say what I'm feeling and hope, hope that you'll understand even if I'm not making sense.
I miss you and I've been missing you every day since you left. I knew it would be bad when you told me you were leaving, but I don't think I'd realized just how much I've come to need you, depend on you, how much I've come to love you.
And I do. Love you, that is.
It probably started the first time you helped me look for Trevor. I don't remember falling in love with you then - I think I was just a little too dazzled by your smile. You have that way about you this sort of easy, sweet affection that is so genuine you can reach into a painfully shy little boy's heart and just light up his entire world. Then you kissed me under that missiletoe. I must have loved you then. . .how could I not love you? I stood there for a good ten minutes after you danced away and I know I had a goofy smile that didn't leave my face for days.
Then things got so dark, so fast for all of us. We had to grow up faster than we realized. There was so much to be done and just making it through the day became a victory of sorts. You probably don't know this, but I was watching you that whole time. The way you worked, the way you reached out and gave people whatever it was they needed to just hang on a little bit longer, raise their voices a little bit louder, stand a little bit taller. I know you don't see yourself that way but it's who you are. It's what you did for the D.A and I know that because it's what you did for me. Whatever strength I found in our last year may have always been inside of me but you were the one that brought it to the surface.
Even then, I didn't realize how much I loved you. I knew you were my friend, I knew you were more important to me than anyone and I knew there wasn't anything I wouldn't do for you. I don't think I understood being in love with you until you left. Until I knew I couldn't just find you in the library or walk with you by the lake or just be near you.
I understand it now. I understand that in my life no one has given me more happiness, more peace, more courage than you. I understand that with you gone things are just a little bit grayer, life's a little more drab and I am a little more out of step.
I'm not writing this to make you come home. I understand why you left and why the time's not right - there's so much out there for you to see and I want you to see it all. But I want you to understand that I love you. (Funny how much easier it gets to say the more I say it) I love you and when you come home I hope you'll come home to me.
Love,
Neville