Jamaica was, well I could see why Harry wrote a whole album there. The first week I spent in turns, from elated and relieved and as breezy as the trade winds to dark and twisty and tempestuous as the storm that kept me up all of one night. I'd never heard thunder or seen lightening like that. It was violent and felt cinematic is its drama. So a little bit like me waiting until my wedding day to get my shit together I guess.

When my parents took me to the airport, just two days after I'd deconstructed my life, it felt like they were sending me to tour, like I was once again 18 years old, going to see the world. At nearly 24, it was a better experience. I knew better, and I was going to get to know me again. Not just the me that I was projecting for years, but the girl who fell in love with a dimpled boy under borrowed sheets and never really unearthed herself from that. Who was really afraid of big feelings and anticipated hurt where it might not be found and wound up causing it instead. I was aware of my faults, I think we are all a little bit like that. My physical flaws I could catalog, but the deeper ones I could name at least. But now, I was going to find their backstory and fix it. So that when I stood before Harry and stripped myself down like he had for me on more than one occasion, I could be me, both who he fell in love with and the one who broke his heart. And I could know better how not to do it again. I could get better. That was all if he gave me the opportunity. Which was a big if. It takes a lot to run out of kindness with Harry Styles. I may have done it with my marathon.

I learned a little bit about this while we were dancing around each other. His changing shape and who he was able to really be without an image crafted by someone else. He was the earnest sweet boy who took me in so I didn't have to sleep on a hallway floor, but he was that for millions now. A harbor in a life storm, who said, project on me, I'll give you just enough and what I give you will be kindness, and a kindness, the rest is up to you.

He was also the dirty-mouthed silly thing I'd learned to play scrabble from, who quoted movies and memes in his daily conversation like they were commonalities everybody shared.

These were what I learned talking and texting with him. But, since he walked out on me, finally, I'd spent some more time learning him, following him. And the way he had grown into himself, filled out and then expanded the skin given to him, well, not only was the everspring of my love renewed, but my crush was too.

I think that was why I loved Jamaica. I loved the place, the green of the plants, and the blue of the water and the mountains. The way the sand felt between my toes, and the way I could lie in a hammock all day.

Sometimes I would do that and I'd treat it as a rack, and I would once again stretch out my decisions and feelings until the sinews popped and tears were the only remedy. Other times, the woven fabric would wrap around my salt-crusted body and I'd feel just as weightless as I did when I floated in the turquoise water I'd crawled from. I was getting better, healed by tears, and sweat, and sea.

Another enchanting thing about Jamaica was the way I could imagine Harry there. In the jungle foliage, his eyes matching the leaves, eating the red fruits and only knowing their stain when the borders of his raspberry lips were breached. I wanted to chase him on beaches and tackle him down to powdery sand.

And the best part, the absolute best part, was after running in from the rain that came nearly every afternoon, I would write.

It started the seventh day. I'd been jet lagged for two, and taken some tours or gone to the shops the others, but this day, I just went to the water outside the little bungalow that wasn't a love shack as intended but was a halfway house. I'd bought myself a surfboard on the beach from a boy who looked desperate and given him my phone number for when he regretted the decision. I figured maybe we could trade lessons for the board itself and both be happier for it.

I didn't know how to surf, but I tried to copy the motions of those around me. The burn in my biceps was amazing, but I never made it past my knees successfully. And my lungs were filling up with blue, blue water so I decided to take a break. I wasn't able to surf, but the board was excellent for floating. The cove at the end of the beach was quiet, and my board and I made our way down to it, slowly swimming or walking along the ocean floor. I stretched myself out on it and tried not to fall asleep. The laps of the water buffeted me and I figured I'd lay there and give myself another round of what for.

It started there. I know I didn't let myself off the hook, ever, which is probably why I pulled an ostrich routine for the last several years. If I had looked at my habits and my infractions for what they were, the way I was making myself at the moment, I may have made better decisions, or I may begged for my old bedroom back, moved home, and never left while I scrawled my brain waves on the walls.

I'd made it past the runner from Harry and was carding through the wool that was my engagement before I went back to my first final and final, final conversation with Harry when I felt the first few drops of rain. It rained most days about this time in Jamaica. But it was hot here, even for my Australian by way of Singapore self, so I liked the misty middle of the afternoons.

The drops soon got fatter though and then so rapid that the water was coming from above and below. When the thunder started, I knew I needed to get out of the storm. I'm not always calm in tense situations, so while trying to right my body, I slipped off the very wet surface and under the water. When I tried to come up, I bumped my head. And the scramble continued until my lungs burned and I finally was able to take a breath and get my head above water. I dragged the surfboard by its leash with me to the beach as quickly as possible and ran the mile or so I had drifted from my hut.

The storm had blown in cold and I was shaking. I stripped off my soaking rash guard and boy shorts and took a hot shower. The power went out then and I was thankful my recourse for tea was a pot and standard stove, maybe older than me. I brewed up and went to watch the storm while I lit candles.

The last one I found was on the altar I had created but not touched yet. There I had placed the leather bound journal, eerily like the first one I had bought Harry, that Kara had given me after she and I had eaten three pints of ice cream and watched the BBC's Pride and Prejudice - my comfort movie and then Empire Records and Mean Girls - hers. She suggested The Princess Bride but my quick salty head shake took it off the table. Next to the journal were the pens I liked to write with, rollerball blue ink, I liked the way it looked against the page, and a cinnamon candle. The brand I had always been faithful to. I wondered if Harry still burned them too.

It was mocking me. I had come here to first get better, but also to write, and those two things seemed tangled together like my hair after a day in the surf. But, while I'd whipped myself like a good penitent and cried and swam and ran, I had not written a word.

A huge crash and flash illuminated the room and I lit the fresh candle by the journal. And I sat at the desk. Then I opened the journal and clicked out the pen. I scrubbed it against the page, trying to start the letter M. I scribbled in the margin and finally my hand before sucking the tip and retrying the corner where the back and forth had left imprints maring the perfect first page.  I sighed in relief when the first marks filled with ink.

And I filled in the lines of the letter M.

Milo,

I think that I may be the last person you want to get a letter from. And that's ok. I hope you read this, and if you don't, I understand that too.

I know that I hurt you. Because I am not honest. But I am trying to be.

The truth is, I wanted to love you with all of me, every bit of my heart, but most of it wasn't even within me. But you do have a piece of me and more respect and well wishes than I could ever see myself giving any body but my dad.

My darling, I hope you can trust again, I wish you joy, and happiness, and more than anything, I hope that somebody gives you a heart, a whole one, even bigger than that which beats in your chest. Because no one could protect such a vulnerable thing like you.

I am so sorry I said yes, but I'm not sorry it was you.

I am selfish I know, but I am so thankful that I got to spend a season of love with you.

Thank you, and thank you and thank you.

And Milo - when you meet them, who ever they are - do it anyway.

Melly

But the flow kept coming. So I wrote another letter, one to Kara, then one to my parents, Maria Luisa, and finally Michael.

They were full of explanations and hopes and wishes. Those things that you do not say, even to the people you love most and are very close to. All the kind thoughts I had. My brother's was full of old apologies, for my 'judgy mc judgerson-ness' when he was climbing on the ride. And thank you, for bringing me. For widening my world and cracking apart my lungs so I could breathe the wide open air.

When I was finished there I wrote to Kara. For her I recounted the day I walked into the apartment for the first time when she called out it was open and found her butchering a pineapple. "We don't have a good knife." She said while she wore rubber gloves to tear the spiky thing apart. She offered me the first piece too. Because she is good. Everybody should have a Kara.

Maria Luisa's was about Milo. I was not a mother. Maybe I would be someday. But she raised that man on her own and he, well he's a credit to her. She should know. I thought she does. But I wanted to tell her.

My parents, well I told them everything. Beyond the love I tried to show, I said it. Over and over and, and I thanked them. For giving advice, but letting me follow my own bad judgement without recriminations, and for choosing each other everyday. Now that I knew a little bit of their love story, I wanted to know more.

I ended that letter with a plea. "I want to know it all, even the gory details, so I can write it all out for you. So this is my official application to be your storyteller. When can we schedule an interview? Also, I'd like to speak to each of you individually. Because I think I'll get more out of Mum without you Dad!"

I wrote until the storm ended and then wrote some more. About where I was and what I thought Harry may have loved there. But I did not name him. This was not a letter to him. I could not seem to draft that missive.

Until the next storm. This one blew in at night and woke me from my slumber. I layed in bed and thought about being brave and going into Harry's hotel room and sleeping in his shirt for the first time. Before I could question it, I found myself going through the same motions. Creating a new ritual. I lit candles and watched the trees do a wild dance with the wind. The fronds of the palms blew so hard, I was afraid that they would be torn off. I understood while I watched them why their attachments were so thick and strong. They were lashed to the tree by tough stuff so that the winds and rain of a tempest couldn't pull them off.

I made my tea and sat down after I had lit my last candle and opened my journal.

The pen worked the first time. But, I wasn't able to make the upright stroke of the letter H first. I thought his name all the time, but didn't say it out loud and wasn't able to write it even. So I just wrote. And I wrote about getting kicked out that first night and the other memories that were on my mind when I woke up. And I kept writing until I heard Harry's voice saying 'as you wish' the first time we watched The Princess Bride together.

Every storm that blew in saw me writing at the little desk. In the afternoon a week later, when the lights flashed I went back to "you're my best friend." Both the heartbreak of its first utterance and the elation when he coupled it with, "you can call be baby too, ya know."

A gale force later in the week, found me writing about him being so happy he could die and naming me his own personal angel.  Of reminiscing about all of the homes we made, how I made every place feel like home. And realizing anew he did the same for me.

Monsoon season blew in and I wrote about when he came to my childhood home and saw his memory on my walls in song lyrics. And his promises to get better. And I was getting better with every word, so I wrote honestly about being a coward and running away when he didn't get as well as I needed him to and I was too afraid he was over me to ask for what I needed.

I got stuck during an unseasonably dry week and that was okay, because I was even more afraid to tell about the next parts. Of Shanghai, and my cheating heart. How clearly I broke Harry's strong muscle because I "was supposed to be for him." And how it broke mine to discover he came for my fleeing heart and wrote on my adolescent vision board about how much he would do to be with me.

And I confessed all of these things, including how I planned and mourned our wedding, Harry's and I, while laying out the day for Milo and I when the rain came back, violent and short, but in regular afternoon bursts I was able to meet daily. During those dark afternoon hours, I called myself a liar outright for not telling him the truth of my heart when he revealed that he had ideas about our wedding day too.

I wrote all these things while my life changed in Jamaica.

I sent out all of my letters, except Harry's, because his wasn't finished. My time proposed time in Jamaica had come and gone, but I knew I couldn't leave, not until I was finished.

"Mum, um, I know that we had talked about me moving home for a bit. But, I think, I think I'm gonna stay." I hesitantly explained.

"Stay? Stay where?" She sounded as bewildered as I had felt when the thought had first entered my head. How could I stay in Jamaica? With what money? Where? My accommodations were not deluxe, but they were beachfront and cost for it. But the voice inside of me that I had been trying to hear, and was now unable to ignore, was telling me strong and sure that it would work out and that I had to stay, I had to finish.

"Um, here in Jamaica. Not in the bungalow. But, I'm sure I'll find a place." I explained in a not very satisfying way.

"Melly, what about work?"

"I talked to Jane, I recommended a friend. She's covered. I've set up some beach look tutorial work too." That was a laugh. My beach looks and hair came from sand and surf, but my Australian accent and blonde hair had gained me a few followers and I knew people in Korea who could secure me a viewership. It would be a tiny income. "I just know I have to stay, mum."

"What will you do for money?" She sighed. My mum wasn't sure what I was doing, running off to a foreign place after I'd leveled my life and staying.

"I have a plan!" I said. But I didn't really, apart from the Insta thing.

A few days later, I was looking for a place to live. I was walking by a building and heard a chorus of voices, little voices. The other voice, my new compass, told me to go, and I listened again. Being true meant to my impulses too, even when they didn't make a lick of sense. I found myself at a tiny school.

The headmistress took one look at me and laughed big and bright and toothy. "You English?" She asked before even my name.

"Australian." I answered back.

"That will work!" She smiled, and I had a job teaching English and a place. The school had a small teacher's quarters.

I'd protested, "I've had no training! Not as a teacher."

"You like kids?" She simply asked and I looked into the room full of 5-7 years old where they giggled and smiled.

"Yeah," was the only answer I had.

"I was praying before you walked in for help. I need somebody for the younger ones. They have to learn reading and writing first thing. I was out of options. Then you walked in." And that, was that.

I'd never been anything but a pupil, but, I loved it. Even the days where not a thing got done and I wanted to throw the little fruits, called Guineps, they picked for me on the way to class. Even when I couldn't get their attention to save my life.

And I finished everyday just in time for afternoon rain. I'd set up a little writing nook again. And lit my candle and drank my tea and wrote to Harry, about Harry and me, all the time, until it ran away with me. And the days when the lightning flashed were the best, because I could tell him my view of our memories in detail. Three months of rain were fruitful in the monsoon season. I was nearing four months in Jamaica, and I'd told him so much.

I was not sure if I would have been able to say them all to him if I could find him in person or by phone. Which I couldn't. I'd called the number I had, and he'd changed it, or blocked me. I'd texted to the void and my emails went unanswered. I knew where he was, but I felt as though I was where I should be. Instagram was an option, he was using it, his pictures after every show were beautiful, but I couldn't help but notice his face when he performed 'Meet Me In The Hallway' in the videos I spend my dry night hours and data package on.

One night, the storm was bad, and the power out, and I had to bring extra candles to my writing altar to make my offering. And that one is the most painfully honest. Because I recounted for Harry how I made it down the aisle to another man, and that it was wrong. But that I didn't marry him, because I loved nobody like I loved Harry. I couldn't.

Once it was finished, my letter to Harry was more than a letter. The voice urgently told me to get it to him. But it was very long for a DM, my letter had turned into a book. A book for him.

Finally, I broke down, and emailed it all to Anne and Gemma.

"Hi, I know he doesn't want to hear from me, and so you guys probably don't want to either. But, please, could you pass this on for me. He needs to know I'm sorry."

And Harry, I am. I'm so sorry. That's where I wanted this letter that has turned into a book, our story, to start and end. I was afraid and a liar and too young to recognize what we had. I'm waiting for you and I will come to you if you miss me as much as I miss you. I dream about you at night and when it rains and I don't make it inside, I stand in it and dance and remember the pool deck in Perth.

You wrote me an album, but I'm not a poet like you. I can't distill my words as you do. So I've written you all of them. And if there is any poetry in me, in these pages, it's you. This is my offering, I'm in Jamaica, where I think of you everyday. Where I'm loving all of you with all of me. Because me is all I have left, but I am better. I got better. I'll wait for you here, or I will come to you. I will meet you anywhere.

I will meet you in the hallway.