Together Forever

To the friend who once stood with me in a world of three,

I hope you never find this letter. I hope it gets lost among the piles of other letters you receive. If you do see it, I hope you pretend it isn’t there. I don’t want these words to reach you, because then I might fall back into the loop of memories and feelings I have been trying to leave behind.

I remember the day we first talked. After months of barely smiling, I smiled more widely than I had in a long time. You made that happen. For the first time, someone asked me, “We won’t ever run out of words, will we?” That someone was you.

I used to ask questions like that because I have always wanted to be loved. When I catch even a small glimpse of love, I hold on to it. Sometimes I hold on so tightly that it hurts. But something about you felt different. I was different with you. Maybe I wasn’t the most productive version of myself, but I was the happiest.

There was nothing that could stop us. We were unstoppable. You counted each month we had been talking and told me when another one had passed. I found it adorable. For once, I wasn’t the only one counting the days. Someone else was counting, and that someone was you.

I never planned to become so close to you. I never expected you to become so important to me. I swear I didn’t see it coming. If I had, perhaps I would have tried to stop myself from falling so far. I always believed beautiful stories had to end eventually. I thought happy endings were meant for me, but I know not everyone gets one. If I had known how much it would hurt, I might have tried to change the story before it began.

Minutes became days, weeks became months, and we stayed the same: two happy kids in a world where hatred couldn’t reach us, a world where love lived. For a while, there were three of us. You, me, and Love, who stayed between us through all the difficult things.

Then we planned to play hide and seek.

I had to find you both. You were hiding, and so was Love. Love was always good at what he did. He knew how to keep people together, so I suppose he was good at hiding, too. I found you within minutes. I searched for Love for days, but he was gone. He disappeared and never came back.

You and I were still standing in the world where the three of us had lived. But it was no longer the same world.

For a long time, I thought it was us who had kept us together. Then I understood that it was Love. Sometimes I wish he had never disappeared. Other times, I wish he had taken you with him. At least then, one of us would have been with Love. Now we are both left without him, in a world that has forgotten how to love us.

I believed I would end up alone. You held my hand and promised you wouldn’t let loneliness catch me. I thought I would always be unloved. You told me you would love me forever. I thought there could never be an “us.” You held me and said that in your world, we would always be us.

I read every line your heart wrote for me. Somehow, I missed the little box marked with an asterisk: “Terms and conditions apply.” The condition was that Love had to stay. When he left, you ended the contract. You left my life, and the world we had made together. Love left me, too.

Who should I blame? You, Love, or the game of hide and seek?

Still hoping I find Love someday,

With love,
Shallu