Dear Carlos

Dear Carlos,

I've loved you since the second I saw you in art class senior year of high school. Everyone filed into the room, and I looked up to see you standing at an easel a few spots down from mine. Your long dark hair fell over your eyes, and your high cheekbones and full lips immediately had my full attention. You must have felt me looking, because you looked up at me through your long lashes and smiled. I think I actually blushed as I smiled back and looked down, hiding behind my long mess of curly brown hair, embarrassed you'd caught me staring.

Over the next few weeks, I caught you staring, and we started talking. You switched easels with the person next to me, so we didn't have to talk over or around anyone.

Over the next few months, we fell in love. Young, wild love that surprised everyone who knew us- countless jokes were made about the trope of good-girl-falls-for-bad-boy. We were a cliché: I wrote my number on your hand, you lifted me up and spun me around, we kissed in the rain. You wrote me love letters. I drew your portrait. We said "I love you" a million times.

Over the next few years, we shocked our friends and family (maybe even ourselves) as our love proved to be lasting, not fleeting. We celebrated each year with a beach trip, because we'd been at the beach the day we made our relationship official.

This October will be the first year without a beach trip since that first one over 7 years ago. We were together for so long, and we helped each other through so much. Your addiction, my depression, our crazy families. We laughed, we cried, and we kept each other from falling apart.

I'm so hurt by the way things ended. The end was ugly, and unexpected. Even worse was how quickly you moved on, like our relationship meant nothing to you.

We still talk sometimes. It's strange, because we fall right back to the comfortable, playful banter we maintained for 7 years. We still get along, we still care, we still laugh.

We still love each other. You basically admitted that when you called me last night after a rough day at work.

But I won't admit it.

I can barely admit it to myself.

Because it doesn't matter- it's over between us. Maybe we can be friends, maybe not.

You joke about trying again in a decade or two-I laugh and blow you off.

I would never admit that I want to try again, more than anything. In a perfect world, we'd be back together, strong individuals facing the world as a unit. Eight months without you has been unbearable- they say time heals, but the hole in my chest is gaping as wide as the day you tore my heart from it.

I still love you,

But I won't tell you.

Chloe