Twenty-Eight Stamps [#Wattys2017] || ✓

the s e c o n d letter

Dear Hunter,

I remember the first time I truly saw you. I remember it so vividly that it could have happened five minutes ago — and God, do I wish it had happened five minutes ago. Do you remember it too, or is it just a forgotten event to you?

At the time I was sitting on the windowsill in my room, where I had a clear view of the street below. A crowd caught my eye.

You were leaning against a fence in that stupid leather jacket of yours, a girl who was all smirks and red lipstick under your right arm. Surrounding you were the notorious badasses and jocks and general popular kids from our school, who I'd have recognised anywhere. I had never been one of them. I never would be.

I remember what you were doing. There was a cigarette between your teeth, and you were taking deep inhalations of the stuff before projecting it out of your mouth. Then you looked up at me, and my world slowed down and sped up at the same time, because you were so beautiful.

I recall that damn smile of yours being flashed my way, and I melted. Reluctantly I returned it, before flashing you a disgusted expression and signalling your cigarette. With a laugh and a smirk, you flicked it to the ground and put it out with your boot.

Things may be different now. I'm not ignorant to that fact. But I never saw you smoke again after that.

If you supposedly cared about me enough to break an addictive habit simply because I asked you to, what was it that drove you to hurt me in such a way?

I'll probably never know.

All my love, always,
Maia.