Twenty-Eight Stamps [#Wattys2017] || ✓

the t w e n t y - s e v e n t h letter

Dear Hunter,

I don't think we spoke again.

I tried to call you, many times, but your number was disabled and I never managed to get through. A couple of times I came to your house and just stood outside, not wanting to knock but knowing that I'd regret it if I did. You probably wouldn't have even come out. I never did knock.

Only a couple of times did I see you at school again. You'd hang at the back of your group as they smoked their cigarettes and wreaked havoc. You never looked at me when I called your name, you were never there for me when I needed you the most. It was the cruellest contrast between two different worlds.

Once, I looked out of the window towards you. You were standing on the side of the street in the same place you had been when I saw you for the first time, only this time you were alone, holding a packet of cigarettes between your fingers. For the briefest moment we made eye contact as I felt the tears prick my eyes and I turned away from you, my lips pressed together. When I turned back you weren't looking at me, but you'd placed the cigarettes into the pocket of the baseball jacket that hung over your thinned frame like an enormous coat on a spindly clothes rack. It was considerably noticeable that you'd gotten thinner, much more so — and for a moment I wondered whether you'd stopped eating. Then I reminded myself that I shouldn't care. I shouldn't care what happened to you.

But I really did.

The day I was pushed to breaking point was the day the removal men came to your house and started loading the boxes from the front lawn into the back of the van. The windows were boarded up and the once immaculate garden was left bleak and unattended-to, and I was there in my window, watching the whole thing.

When I saw your car turn out of the driveway and disappear down the road for the last time, I sobbed, knowing I'd never see your face again.

And you didn't care.

I guess pain and heartbreak are two different things, but they also go hand in hand. I'm the prime example, and it's all your fault.

Here I am, a sad, lonely, depressed, unemployed twenty-year-old woman, writing letters to a lost lover, reminiscing something she can never change, and missing you. I miss you so much, Hunter. I miss your laugh, your smile, your jokes, your scent that felt like home to me, falling asleep in your arms with one earphone in my ear and one in yours. And I miss us.

All my love, always,
Maia.