.. should not be forgot.

Dearest Andrew,

Beginnings are easy. We don't always see them, but they are there. New loves are the most common kinds, easily definable. New jobs, loss of jobs, loss of love: the more visible the ending, the more obvious that there is, or was, a beginning. No layers to peal back, you see; only a clear gaze pinned onto oneself.

I have been thinking about you a lot lately. About us, sometimes, but mostly you. R----- left me, today. His father left his mother; I should have seen it in that. I think I thought I could change him, the dream my mother gave to me. It may be the dream of all women, to shape men with their wiles. And like all dreams, there is nothing of truth to them. Love, beauty, hope: all our dreams fade away as we grow older and see clearer. I sometimes think that revenge is the only one we keep.

Hate keeps us warm when all the other fires have grown cold.

I know you will be wondering; so, yes. I have been drinking. We find what solace we can on dark nights. This isn't one, never fear. It is a night like all the others, no better and no worse. I thought of you when he left, because of how it happened. There were no angry words, no slammed doors, no curses. Only young love is still that volatile.

I found myself unsure of what we had when he left, beyond habit. It made me think of you, strangely. I am not sure why: Perhaps because you were my first, or because R---- reminded me of you, in some small way. I think what we had was not love, if it was only to try and recapture you. It was a hollow ending.

Even when I am in love, you know, I understand that it is not a real thing. Not a quantifiable thing. I understand it in the way we know solids are empty spaces. Did you know that the space between the heart of an atom and where electrons roughly are is greater, dear, than from Sol to Pluto? I can know this, but I cannot imagine it. And I have never been able to fool myself about love.

I wonder if what if why you left, the real reason. My failure of imagination. That I could not give enough. I doubt it was the only one, but I'd like to think you saw that deeply into me. With R---- it was something else, Andrew. I will not bore you with the melodrama of it. it It was, merely, that love was his gift, and I was to receive it. An offering, on his terms, and nothing more.

You kissed me when you left though. A kiss as strong as our first, a farewell. Few are as strong at the end of things as at the beginning. I think, if I was to remember you by only one thing, that would be it. Our real gifts are ones we do not we have. Things we give away that do not return to us.

Because memories are surer that dream,

- Deliah.