Letters to D

Dear D,

I know this wasn't the deal. I was supposed to write to you every birthday. That was the promise, wasn't it? One letter every year, telling you everything you missed while you were away, as though heaven had a postal service and someone occasionally remembered to check the mailbox. Instead, here I am writing on a random afternoon in the middle of July because, well...it happened again. No, I'm not dead. You would've laughed at the fact that I felt the need to clarify that first. You always said I had a flair for unnecessary dramatics.

Well, I liked a boy. Again.

It's almost insulting how quickly life reminds me why I swore off these things. I wouldn't say I'm heartbroken, though. Heartbreak feels too grand, I'm just... disappointed in myself. Disappointed that after everything, I still haven't learned my lessons. Remember when I told Tony and Kamso that I was convinced I was cursed? Because everything seems to go wrong the moment I begin to feel genuinely happy. I told you that too, and you laughed. You said my brain was once again auditioning for the role of "Worst-Case Scenario Generator." You never took my catastrophizing seriously, which annoyed me at the time but somehow made me feel better anyway. I wish you were here so I could tell you that story again. You'd still laugh. Then you'd probably call me ridiculous before buying me something unnecessarily sweet because, according to you, sugar solved at least forty percent of life's problems. I miss that and I miss you.

The last time this happened, things were much worse. Do you remember that night? Of course you don't. You're dead. I keep asking you questions as though you'll answer them one day. It was the night I called Kamso crying so hard I couldn't breathe properly. The night I spoke so fast that my words tripped over one another. The night I had my first panic attack because I misunderstood what someone said and convinced myself I'd accidentally led him on. Looking back now, it sounds ridiculous, but back then, it felt like the world was ending.

I remember clutching my phone so tightly my fingers hurt. I remember trying to inhale and discovering my lungs had suddenly forgotten how. I remember being terrified. I promised myself after that night that I'd never let another person have that much power over my peace. I was done abandoning myself just to preserve someone else's comfort. Or so I thought.

It's been a while since I wrote anything. Can you believe that? The same person who once wrote every single day for an entire month. The person who believed every feeling deserved a paragraph and every ordinary Tuesday deserved documentation. For months, I barely wrote at all because this year has been crazy for me. I kept thinking I'd eventually write my way out of it but I didn't. Instead, I kept reaching for my phone every time something happened because my first instinct is still to tell you then I remember every single time that I have to grieve you all over again. It hurts when you realize the one person you desperately want to tell is no longer here to laugh at your terrible decisions.

Speaking of terrible decisions, let's talk about this boy. I know you would've sighed before I even finished the sentence.

"It's always a boy with you people," you'd say, pretending to be exhausted while secretly waiting for the full gist. I can practically hear you which is unfortunate because hearing your imaginary voice is the closest thing I have to hearing your real one these days. Anyway, it's embarrassing admitting that I liked someone again. Especially after the speeches I gave myself after the last disaster. I retired from romance approximately seventeen times, declared emotional bankruptcy, and confidently announced that men would no longer know peace through me. Apparently, I lied. The embarrassing part isn't even that I liked him, It's that I knew better and that's what annoys me. There were signs, red flags, scratch that, red billboards. The emotional equivalent of a traffic officer waving both hands and screaming, "Turn back!" And I looked straight at them but kept walking.

Well, it turned out he had a girlfriend, lol. Again! The thing is, I probably would've understood if he'd simply told me from the beginning. People are allowed to be in relationships. They're allowed to fall in love with other people. What they're not allowed to do is invite someone else into an emotional space they have no intention of making room for.

He knew how we talked every day. He knew what he was implying when he flirted, when he said he liked me. He knew I wasn't imagining those moments because he had created them too.

For days after I found out, I kept replaying our conversations, searching for the exact moment where honesty should've entered the room but didn't. I wondered whether any of it had been real.

Remember that reel I sent you? One of the thousands currently buried somewhere in your Instagram DMs because you had the absolutely terrible habit of never opening anything I sent? It said: "Highly self-aware but delusional for the plot." Turns out I wasn't laughing at the reel, I was reading my autobiography. I still think about what I told myself after the panic attack last year. That I would never let another person have that much power over my peace. Or maybe it's just life.

I wish you were here to tell me which one it is. I miss you when something mildly interesting happens and you're still the first person I want to tell. I miss sending you unnecessarily long voice notes. I miss seeing your name appear on my screen. I even miss the moments you'd deliberately ignore the dozens of reels I'd sent, only to return weeks later asking me to forgive you. You were exhausting but you were also home.

Sometimes I wonder what you'd say if you could read this letter. You'd probably tell me I was overthinking. You'd remind me that liking someone isn't a moral failure, no matter how determined I am to treat it like one. You'd laugh at my retirement speeches and confidently predict that I'd like another boy in six month. You'd probably be right, and maybe that's okay.

It's almost two in the afternoon now, and I need to go and get my hair done. I legit told my hairdresser I'd be there by twelve. You would've complained about how much it costs before I even finished telling you where I was going. Then you'd somehow convince me to bargain, fail spectacularly, and still insist I'd saved money because of your moral support. See the money you're missing out on?

I miss you, D. I hope, wherever you are, you've finally started opening all those reels I sent.

Until our birthday.

Love always,

A