Me & Mine

57. Ghost of Christmas Future - Part One

Love,

I googled how to write like Fitzgerald, because his sentences built you dreams and palaces and I want to give you those things too. I did not succeed, though, so I'll write like Max Sheffield, and hope it will be enough. I don't have your way with words, or your poetic mind, I'm not as romantic as you, nor do I believe I understand the word, and the world for that matter, quite like you do. But I do love you – so, so much.

It is crazy, right? To have known each other for such a short time, and yet feel like I never truly lived before you? Like I only started breathing when you were next to me? I think that maybe we're not supposed to understand things like this. The matters of the heart, as you may, they don't belong to the head.

The head makes sure we survive, but the heart – oh, the heart makes sure we live. I don't know, I never used to question things like this before, and now look at me! You've turned me into something else, my dearest Fay, and I never want to be the old me again.

What I do want, love, is you. All of you. The good and the bad and the beautiful and the ugly, and I do think you finally understand this. I have written this letter a dozen times, because I could never quite get the next part right. You see, I know you don't understand why I can't be with you through it all. I know you pretend like you do – because you haven't turned to drinking or partying since we broke up, or because you need to work on all your issues before we could ever work. But that's not it, not all of it at least.

I love you with everything I have, love, with my soul and my heart and my body and my mind. And you love me too – I feel it, every time you look at me it's in your eyes, I know. But I want all of you, and right now, I don't have it. Because you can't give me all of you when a part of you still longs for someone else.

I will wait. Even if it takes forever. Even if it takes longer than that. I will wait a thousand lifetimes to be with you, love.

Because you and I, we're meant to be.

I love you,

Your Max

***

"Merry Christmas!" Richie throws his arms around me and hugs me tight. I smile and hug him back. "Merry Christmas, Rich," I chuckle. He releases me from his tight embrace and takes my arm. The excited elf practically bounces me from room to room until we join the others in the kitchen. The smell of fresh coffee greets me and I smile at Harley and Ann, who are busy making pancakes under Amory's wakeful eye. Travis jumps up when he sees me and hugs me even tighter than Richie did. "Merry Christmas you wonderful human!"

I laugh and roll my eyes. "Happy Holidays to you too!"

Travis takes my hand and spins me around. "Now, now, little miss Fay," he teases, "I do believe that is not your shirt!"

Travis smiles and I prick my finger in one of his dimples. "That's none of your business, pretty boy." But he is right of course. After last night I had fallen asleep in Max' shirt, like I always used to, and after reading his letter over and over this morning I couldn't bring myself to change into something else.

Harley turns around to hand me a cup of coffee. I smile and warm my hands on the steaming mug. "But the pretty boy is right," she teases, "that really isn't your shirt."

"Who is a pretty boy?" Max smiles, rushing to his best friend to wish him a happy Christmas. He's shirtless again, like apparently all boys on Saturdays, or perhaps he just doesn't have a shirt to wear, since, well, I'm wearing it.

"I am, man," Travis slams Max on his back, "merry Christmas."

Kane is the last one to join the little family gathering in the kitchen. "Pancakes are almost ready," Ann muses and Amory smiles approvingly. If my brother is anything, it's peculiar about his pancakes.