Twenty-Eight Stamps [#Wattys2017] || ✓

the f o u r t h letter

Dear Hunter,

I hoped that you would start to notice me at school after our encounter, our brief, momentary eye contact, but you didn't. I should have known you wouldn't, I should have avoided getting my hopes up to have them knocked back down; I was the kind of person to blend into the background at school, and was never really noticed by anybody at all.

Until then, I hadn't known what it was like to find a person as interesting as I found you. I had never really taken a liking to any of the people at our school, unsurprisingly. But when I saw you, it was different. I found myself wanting, craving your attention, knowing it was stupid and hardly caring. Wanting you to notice me, to talk to me, no matter what. You were fascinating; the way you acted badass was convincing, but in that moment of eye contact, of a glimpse of a connection between us, I thought I had seen through the mask to the real you, beneath the smirk and the cigarettes and the leather and the motorcycle. I just hadn't figured you out yet.

When I was young, my father used to tell me that no matter what I did in life, I would be happy. I still remember him sitting me on his knee and saying that no matter what life threw in my direction, everything would be okay in the end. Just you wait and see, Maia, he would say.

I used to live by his words, to think about it every time something went wrong or I felt down about something stupid. Sometimes, I don't think I would be in this mess if he were still alive, if he had given up the addiction for me like you did. The saying used to motivate me, convince me that I would power through whatever was in my way. I just had to look at it from a different perspective, or think about the positive side of things. And with everything, it helped.

With you, though, it didn't work.

It isn't okay.

And from my current perspective,

I don't think it ever will be again.

All my love, always,
Maia.