Dear Leroy,

There is something odd about the nature of unsent letters, e-mails, texts, and parcels that seem to possess the incredible, inherent ability of being so beautifully broken. I've always thought nothing of the ethical systems beyond utilitarianism, often regarded as the pinnacle of decision-making in every corporate, private world that our minds can hold. It never once crossed my mind how consequences or anything other than physical manifestations of properly produced results could matter as much; how terribly wrong have I been.

Just yesterday, I realized that the parcels I have been sending to the address you'd provided me have been returned to the doorstep of my previously rented apartment—which I no longer occupy, now that I am a second-year student and have a room of my own in Cinnamon lodge—according to the nice landlady. I'm not sure if you'd ever met her before you left.

The feeling, the emotion I felt after realizing you'd never received the things I thought you had was something beyond my capability of describing, let alone terming it, exactly. It was a strange, odd feeling of... of... the closest word I can think of at the moment is an almost, which, itself, doesn't quite make any sense.

Regardless of it being grammatically erroneous, using almost as a noun, as though it was a phenomena meant to be recorded down in diaries and planned every step of the way, well. To me, it sounded quite ridiculous. That was this afternoon.

Now, as I am writing this letter I most definitely will not be sending (I don't quite know why I am writing it, either. Now you see what I mean by beginning to understand the mattering of the non-physical returns or results, of practicality, per se), I am finding it increasingly sensible and perhaps even logical to be conceiving the idea of an almost as a proper, legitimate phenomena.

I am constantly thinking of the things we did not get to do, or have, in some way or another, planned for some near future we were, prior to our separation, fairly sure of. Things like the beach, or that New Year's picnic, or our first trip to a museum. Things like that. Things we never really got to do, together. Things we almost did.

The timeliness of the letters and parcels I sent prior to this are, well... they are now irrelevant. I texted you this afternoon about the parcels, that you mentioned, had not arrived, asking yet again for an address and you told me that your father had had you move to another apartment near West End. Admittedly, I was slightly ticked off by this. Quite frankly, fuming by the end of our conversation that lasted less than fifteen minutes.

That it lasted for that amount of time was, obviously, not your fault. And that you had to move, yet again, a month into your recent apartment, is not your fault either. In fact, I hadn't a single clue how or why the most unsettling disappointment about the situation we were experiencing and an utter inability to do anything about it!

Either way, you never did receive that handy leather-bound organizer I'd gotten for you as a gift of practicality (since you did mention having a rather packed schedule) and it was only three days ago that you told me someone else had apparently gotten you one, your neighbor, yes? And so the gift turned out perfectly irrelevant. I mean, it would have arrived two weeks earlier but, well, it missed you narrowly and was hence returned. For the lack of a better word, the gift was, for all intents and purposes, an almost.

Vanilla

2/9/2021

____________________________

I'm not busy I just look like I am because I don't know how else I should be looking like when you're busier and have less time to be thinking about me when I am thinking about you every fucking second of the day, so I look busy so that I don't feel like a loser who's only missing you too much.

You probably don't know this, but there are different ways to be occupied; like I am, when I'm thinking about you. So what I mean when I say that I am, occupied, is that I'm not really sautéing vegetables when I'm sautéing vegetables—I am thinking of you; I'm not plating that filet mignon when I'm plating that filet mignon—I am thinking of you.

I'm doing things, but that doesn't distract me from you. The you that's in my head. Permanently. You never leave. And that makes me not busy when it comes to you, because without even having to think, I know that I'm thinking about you, that I spend all my time. On you. It drives me crazy.

Yeah, but I can't say that, can I?

Makes me sound like a loser.

I don't think you think about me as much as I think about you.

2/9/2021

_____________________________

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: [Draft] Longing and Endearment

I miss you incredibly and

Draft saved 1/11/2021 00:13 AM

_______________________________

I quit the restaurant. One month ago. And I haven't had the gets to tell you, so I've been making things up over FaceTime... don't know if you can tell. You probably can. Even if you can't call me out, you probably know something's up anyway. I keep telling myself to come clean 'cuz I know you hate it when I hide. I keep saying I don't mean it. I don't know if I really mean it when I say I don't. Anyway, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry I still lie.

Nothing's really working out like how I thought it would? I'm saying this like I thought it would work out in the first place, because I did, but only with you around. I'm starting to get what you meant by not needing someone but wanting them to be there. That's nice and all and it's what I'm working on (have to work on) but at this stage, I'm nowhere near. I still need you and I don't know who I am. I know you're trying to help me find my way. I know you want me to stand on my own. I'm still trying. It's hard to keep the mask up in front of you so that you'd think I'm doing okay. Thank fucks our calls are getting shorter. I have nothing good to tell you.

Except Annie. She's doing decent post-recovery, like I said, but I don't think you got what I actually meant over the call. Her therapist's gay. I think. As in, she likes girls. Interested in. Whatever. Don't think Annie knows much but I didn't want to tell you because it feels weird, talking about budding romances when ours just feels like it's... I don't know. Lukewarm.

I said I was thinking about the sister school offer, right? That's a lie. Siegfried met the board and they want me in for the new semester. It's in two months. I'm not enrolling. I just want you to think I am. That I have something under my belt. Like I'm busy. But I'm not. And it sucks.

I don't even see doctors anymore. I think he's given up on sending me anywhere after a couple of months. The meds don't seem to be working 'cuz all ice cream still tastes like nothing. I'm either washing dishes. Or waitering. Two days ago, they wanted some help julienning carrots. I cut myself by accident. It still hurts.

You're a real fool if you actually think I like the weather here by the way.

3/1/2022

____________________________________

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: [Draft] Butterflies are not Fireworks

Dear Leroy,

Si Yin was confessed to, earlier today. I'd heard this from Violet, who'd overheard a male classmate of ours speaking to Si Yin by the fountain over lunchbreak. The latter, naturally, hadn't any plans on telling anyone about this albeit her extremely generous conversational nature and though we'd spent an afternoon in kitchen nine testing out recipes for the Health and Nutrition Menu Design course project, still, not a word about this curious incident! I don't quite know if I am making any sense, or my curiosity is, for the matter.

Violet was particularly shocked into confusion, and seemed mildly disturbed, on her part. Naturally, I hadn't the emotional or intellectual capacity to be asking what she truly thought of this entire situation since, now, all three of us have moved up into the A-Division class, and she has been relatively well-acquainted with both parties (and by this I mean Si Yin and the male classmate who confessed). Nothing in my realm of knowledge appeared sufficiently sensitive to address the matter in tactful words, and so I opted out entirely.

Nevertheless, her opinions had been oddly concentrated on the stiffly-worded confession (which I refrain judgement upon for the sake of respect) which she seemed particularly bent on repeating. Something about the student having a 'crush' on Si Yin. That she was his 'crush'. That he would very much like her to give him a chance.

There is much rephrasing, thanks to my efficient memory that prioritizes the memorization of... important matters (not that this wasn't, um, well, just of perhaps less significance) and Violet's sub-par descriptive capabilities. The repeated, undeniable use of the word 'crush', however, had seized my attention for quite some time after the conversation, even after some prolonged thought into the night. Which is why I am writing this an hour past bedtime, with perhaps the worst eyebags I'd ever had the misfortune of acquiring in my fourth and final year of study.

It is for some apparent reason much more imaginable, conceivable, logically fathomable to be hearing the word from a younger, perhaps adolescent being in their teen years than it is from a thirty-something-year-old, or anyone beyond the seemingly unjaded years of paradise which may or may not come in one's twenties, depending on the circumstance.

I have a crush on someone is a statement that sounds objectively youthful, reminiscent of younger, much more innocent days without the seriousness and significance of a complex relationship that is at the risk of tying one down. The internet describes the feeling as something akin to having butterflies in one's stomach (which, by itself, sounds awfully terrifying) and the nervous, exciting disposition of a racing heart.

It is oddly interesting, how one's susceptibility to butterflies experience a reduction with age. But who is to say that the elderly, the old or the aged, the married, the lonely, the lost—who is to say that they will never be greeted by the same, significant, silly fluttering of the heart? And who is to say that the young and foolish are bound to set themselves free, basking in the presence of the fragile little creatures, beautiful and bright?

It should not be that a youth who has not experienced the butterflies or an older being who possesses as youthhood absent of such must necessarily be looked down upon as a heavy-hearted person of misfortune, never having had the beautiful thrill, rush, captivity that the butterflies can be. Perhaps what they felt was different.

Perhaps the butterflies are as they are in nature; fragile and fleeting. Short-lived and easily swept away. Perhaps they remind us of a small, flighty heart. The sentiments of a crush.

I would like to make the argument that true love does not feel like butterflies in the stomach. Well, if they were, then I'd perhaps like you to know that I've never once felt them. The butterflies. Never quite did. Additionally, I would most certainly be sure to avoid such a medical condition, had I known its existence, or find some sort of medicine or cure for the fleeting flutters. After all, butterflies should not like the acidity of a stomach environment, and neither should my stomach be fond of tenants such as butterflies.

It hits harder. Love does.

Much harder than the soft, papery wings of a butterfly tickling the insides of one's digestive system. At times, they feel thunderous. Earth-shaking. Ground-breaking. The tremors, deep in the core of the chest. A very loud, loud waterfall. Fireworks.

That's what they are—fireworks. But then again, I would be able to falsify such a claim by stating that, in times of patience and understanding, as Love can be, it is awfully silent in wait. And the word here, 'wait', perhaps embodies much more of the unexplainable phenomena than we make it out to be. Waiting is, I am inclined to believe, an essential, critical, vital part of Love. It is sometimes a beautiful anticipation. A struggle that combines loss and yearning with need and want; coming to terms with the void is as important as the thrill that is the flower in the sky. The loud, thunderous boom.

The wait is what is between watching that red spark rise, higher, and up into the night sky before disappearing and then, watching it bloom before finally feeling the hit, the strike, the tremors in the core of the heart. That is Love. It is sublime. It is the moment. It is soft and it is sometimes a creak, so silent, like the sound of company.

It is the moment before the boom.