I was completely unprepared for how very hard it hit me. I was minding my own business. Living. That’s what I’m supposed to do. That’s what I’m best at. Doing what I’m supposed to do. I sat on my bed and held your shirt. The blue and white plaid Daniel Cremieux one that you were so fond of. You would wear it untucked with the sleeves folded up. You would saunter casually with your hands in your pockets. So confident. I held it in my hands, inhaling your scent. It still smells like you. Hei by Alfred Sung and Tide. I am overwhelmed by it. I close my eyes and I can see your face, your eyes, your smile. I can feel your cheek on mine. Rough. You laugh and pull me in. My chest constricts. I feel the grief and regret smother me. It ambushes me. Caught me off guard. I was so unprepared.

I know you are on the other side of the world. Its nighttime there.  So very far away. You are not thinking of me, not grieving, not counting the lost days. Or have you found something of mine and been transported to another time? Another place? Somewhere hopeful and bright? Can you feel the sun on our bodies as we lay in the grass, our hands intertwined, my leg draped over yours? Can you see me leaning over you gazing into your perfect brown eyes and can you feel my lips press to yours promising you everything and forever with that kiss? Does it break your heart the way it does mine? Do you mourn the death of the idea of what we were supposed to be? Or, am I just a brief glimpse of scenery, a stopover on the road you’ve travelled?

It seems cruel that simply breathing in the scent trapped in the fibers of your forgotten article of clothing could do this to me still. After all these years. Your memory lives for me in this piece of fabric that once clung to your tall, slender frame. I am rendered helpless, frozen, trapped in the memory.

So, I set it down, stand up and place it on the top shelf of my closet, to be ambushed another day when I’ve forgotten I’ve put it there. I can’t quite bring myself to discard it. That makes is too real. Too final. Having it means you were real and we happened. It means for that for one brief, golden moment we were hopelessly in love and happy and hopeful. Everything changed, but for that glorious moment I was a part of love and it was wonderful.

If I was courageous, if I was brave, I would send this letter. I would tell you that the only reason I left you was I knew that you loved me too much to leave of your own accord. I would tell you that having to break your heart was one of the hardest things I had done at that point in my life. There were so many things you wanted to do, so many adventures you wanted to have, but I couldn’t leave everything and go with you. I knew you would have stayed. You said so through the tears that proved I was ripping your heart to shreds. I would tell you I hated myself in that moment. I would tell you that the idea of you staying just to be with me, and you waking up one day and looking at me with regret was more than I could withstand. I would tell you that I instantly regretted it because I knew what it meant. It meant that someday you would hate me after the hurt wore off.  I would tell you that I loved you too much to keep you like a caged bird. It was the only way I knew you would leave. It was the only way I knew how to make you live the life you dreamed of. I would tell you how sorry I am. I loved you so much. I would tell you that.

If I were courageous I would also tell you how happy I am that you are happy. I would tell you that when I see your posted pictures of you in exotic places, after the heartache wears off, I am happy to see you smiling. I would tell you to have an adventure for me.

But I am not courageous and I will never send this letter. I will never tell you any of this. You will never know how you touched my life and my heart. You will never know there is a girl on the other side of the world who misses you terribly and would love nothing more than to turn the corner at a book shop and see you there with your hands in your pockets and your wild hair hanging in your eyes. To have you turn to me, take a minute for recognition to set in and then smile and hug me. For you to look at me with a smile.

This won’t happen. Maybe someday I will be able to get rid of that stupid button up shirt and not think of what we had or what was yet to be. Maybe someday I will not be ambushed by grief when I see it. Until that day it will stay on that shelf, a souvenir of one of the happiest times in my life. One of the last times I remember being truly happy.