Letters to Wyatt✔️

37

February 6, 2018

Dear Wyatt,

It's been more than a year since I have written a letter to you in this notebook. Today was a big enough day that I went to the pain of digging it out of the box in the top of my closet so I could write to you. The front cover is bent, many of the pages are unintentionally dog eared from having stuff thrown on top of it while it was in storage, and most of the unused pages are crinkled and unusable from water damage, but, thankfully, there are still a handful of blank ones left in good enough shape for me to write on.

I don't know how to lead up to telling you the big news of today, so I'm just going to say it: Matt proposed, and I said yes.

I tell this to you like my relationship with Matt is something you don't already know about, but sometimes I swear I can feel you watching over me, walking beside me when things get tough, your face splitting in a grin over my victories. So maybe you already knew that we were engaged before I just told you.

He proposed to me on the park bench where we met for the first time. He took me there at sunset, and when I saw the tea lights on the ground circling the bench, I knew something was up. The proposal was simple and sweet, and once the ring was on my finger, we sealed it with a kiss and some tears. Tears on his part, not mine, surprisingly. It seems like a fair turn of events considering the first time he saw me sitting on that bench, I was the one doing the crying, not him.

I'm back at my apartment now writing this letter to you in the early hours of the morning, and I can't get past how grateful I am that I have made it to this point in my life where I am overwhelmingly happy and have Matt by my side. It's funny to think back on the early days of our relationship and how we almost didn't make it to this day.

It took me a month or so after Matt accidentally declared his love to me in the restaurant that November day to fully admit to myself that I had feelings for him, and it took me another month after that to get far enough past my guilt regarding those feelings to be able to voice them to Matt. In the time between him saying "I love you" and me saying "I like you," he never pushed or pressured me once to take our relationship past "just friends." I think that made me love him more.

Me admitting my feelings to Matt didn't instantly make us the perfect couple. The beginning of our relationship was rocky. For a bit, I still held onto the idea that I was betraying you by dating Matt, and it definitely didn't help make me a good girlfriend. Add in my lingering sadness over you to the equation along with the need to take things slow and the typical difficulties of a new relationship, and it's no surprise that we bickered and didn't see eye-to-eye as much as we did.

Maybe two months into us dating, Matt and I had a big argument and said some things that aren't easily taken back. We called it quits, decided that being lovers would just never work out for us, and stormed off to our respective apartments. For the next few days, we didn't run together at the park in the mornings as we had nearly every day since we first met, and we went out of our way to avoid each other.

Our breakup didn't last long. The morning of the fourth day apart from him, I missed him so much that I walked over to his apartment, hoping to see him, talk to him, and make amends somehow if he would let me. Right as I knocked on his door, my phone rang, his name lighting up on the screen. As I walked into his apartment, we laughed about the chances of both of us trying to reach each other at the exact same time, and after a long conversation, me saying the three big words to him, and making out for a bit (of course), we got back together, and we never looked back again.

Ironically, our short breakup was one of the best things that ever happened to us. I think it helped us realize that, yes, we were lovers, but we were friends first, and that was something we never wanted to lose. We had both been trying so hard to make our love work, creating a complicated mess between us in the process, and once we stopped trying so hard and just started being us again, things began to fall in place.

And now after being together for a year (minus our four day break), we are engaged. And I'm so happy about it, because I really do love him. So much more that I could have predicted I would, so much more than I ever thought I could love anyone.

Are you happy for us? I think you are.He makes me so happy, and somehow I know that that all we need to receive your approval.

I can't help but compare what I had with you to what I have with him. You two are the only boys I've ever loved, which is confusing because you are very different people.

You spoke animatedly and often, and your laughter was so loud and obnoxious that it always turned heads. Matt has never been one to fill silence with words unless he has something to say, and his voice and laughter are soft.You held my hand gently, as if I was a fragile flower that you wanted to protect. Matt crushingly grips my hand as if he never wants to let go. You were always declaring right and left how much you loved me and writing me flowery love letters, and though Matt does say "I love you" fairly often, he tends to show it to me more often than he says it.

If you're right, Matt's left; if you're up, Matt's down; if you're warm, Matt's cold. Yet despite the stark contrast between the two of you, somehow Matt reminds me of you, and the only reason why that I can come up with is because I have loved both of you.

I wouldn't necessarily say I love him more than I loved you, but my love for him fills much more of my heart than my love for you does now. Matt has erased any feelings of bitterness I have over not getting more time with you. You were a good part of my life, but I understand now that not all things are meant to last for forever. And I'm okay with that now. However, you were my first love, and because of that, I will never forget you.

Because the thing about firsts is they only happen once. And you were so many of my firsts: my first kiss, my first boyfriend, my first love. And that's a spot no one but you can ever hold. Yet when I'm with Matt, I realize that seconds aren't so bad after all.

Do you understand what I mean? I think you do. I hope that in between all that harp playing I'm sure you do up there that your thoughts will turn to me and you'll remember the good times we had and the love we shared. I know that when I look up at sunsets, I'll imagine you painting them, and I'll remember, too.

Savannah

A/N: wOW I am emotional. This story is over. What are your thoughts right now? Leave me a comment and let me know. Please also vote & follow if you enjoyed this chapter.

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