Dear Heartbreaker (Completed)

Letter # 8

Dear Heartbreaker,

If you laugh while reading this I'll know you forgave me. Forgave me for being a coward and hiding in my dorm room so many nights ago. I'm ashamed that I sat on my twin bed, wrapped in my covers, ignoring your texts and phone calls because of those three tiny words I love you. 

Those three deceptively simple words shouldn't have been nerve wracking, shudder worthy, scary...yet they were. To an anxious, hurt young woman they were both a blessing and a curse. 

I'ld always hoped to find the love of my life during college.  According to my life plan 3.0 I wanted to graduate with my bachelors, get married, work for five years, then maybe adopt a child.  Eventually my spouse and I would both retire and travel the world. Perfect, planned, concrete. 

My need to attempt a semblance of control over my life stemmed from watching my parents' messy divorce which inflicted pain on my sibling, myself, and those around me.  I didn't want to end up like that, married 18 years after a shotgun wedding 'cause my papaw didn't want two grandchildren born out of wedlock. 

'I love you' wasn't a common phrase in our household. Thus, the enormity of you expressing those three little words was too much to handle. So I ran. I ran to my dorm after labs and I hid physically and metaphorically. 

I still wasn't entirely convinced you actually loved me, Elise, a lost girl with a broken past and a mysterious future where the life of a military wife didn't quite fit into life plan 3.0

Several excuses for my low self esteem permeated my mind and allowed me to contemplate shying away instead of taking a huge risk. I could blame the magazines with all their glamour and glitz, depicting the supposedly "perfect" look or how the neighbor girls were always so critical of my looks, speech and choices.

But blame leaves a bitter taste behind, unpalatable to a tender heart.

For the first time in years, perhaps I had met someone worth the risk, someone who would see me as Elise, a beautifully imperfect person worthy of another perfectly flawed person.

After hiding all night, I left the dorm the next morning ready to grovel for your understanding.  I met Janna and Tate for breakfast, hoping to see you to apologize in person for my cowardice. However, you were absent.  Tate picked up on my less-than stellar mood and with a sly grin, handed me a note you had composed for me. 

I gripped it, fear seeping into my mind.  Fear you didn't love me and it had been a misunderstanding. Fear that you slipped away before I was able to show you a strength I was just discovering. 

Walking away with shaky legs I walked into the courtyard next to the on-campus Starbucks.  I sat down on a cold wrought-iron chair and slowly, carefully opened the folds of a single sheet of loose leaf paper.

And then I read it. 

Elise,

I won't apologize and I wonder if you are hoping for my words to be as insignificant as the setting in which they were confessed.  Well I'm not sorry, because it's 100 % true: I love you Elise.

The only regret I will admit to is blurting it out in such an unromantic manner that I don't blame you for ignoring my calls and messages. 

A beautiful blossom in a sea of ordinary deserves a grandiose declaration. If you would allow me a chance to redeem myself, meet me by the Wishing Fountain at 8 pm tonight.  I promise my love, you will never regret taking this chance.

Yours truly,

Cole 

Tears stains littered the page as I re-read it a dozen times. I remember a half sob, half laugh ripped from my throat. I was so glad to be alone. Tate would have made some perverted joke to try to stop the flow of tears, not understanding they were happy tears. A sign of relief instead of despair.

I still have that singular letter, tucked away in a small wooden box on my top shelf in the tiny hall closet in the apartment where I reside.

Why did I preserve that letter? I'm sure that's the question running through your mind, if you even care at all to know the answer. 

The reason I suppose is because it is a reminder of something that was once pure and good.  A first love is something that can never be forgotten or altered. The heart feels what it will, when it will, how it will. It's a part of who I am, the woman it shaped me into, molded like clay into an even brighter, more vibrant version of myself than I could ever imagine.

Who am I, to deny my past? Who are you to so easily forget?

Yours Not So Truly,

Elise