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Dear [Redacted],
I honestly don’t know how to start this, but I have a feeling that it’s going to be quite long. Hope you don’t mind.
Not a single day goes by that you don’t occupy my mind; thoughts of what we had and how if i’d done some things differently we might have had longer together. I genuinely believe that with you, it was the right person, wrong time, wrong place. In college I couldn’t love you the way you deserved, and now I can, but I spend most of my time on the other side of the country, and we barely talk.
I constantly find myself daydreaming about getting you your favourite flowers, and holding your hand, and kissing you. God, how I wish I would’ve had the confidence to kiss you. I should’ve done it. I wanted to so badly. The day you lay in my arms and almost fell asleep as I was playing with your hair? I wish I’d tilted your head up and asked if I could kiss you. I wonder if things would be different if I’d have had the courage.
Northampton has a performing arts degree. Well it’s called “Acting for stage and screen” but it’s basically performing arts. And there’s a theatre literally not even a five minute walk from my current accommodation. You wouldn’t believe the amount of times I’ve imagined you coming here and us being together and being able to pursue our dreams in the same space. Little coffee dates where I read novels and you memorise scripts. The sun shining through your hair in the spring and summer. Honestly you must be so so blessed by whatever almighty force there is to be so beautiful, and for that beauty to only be enhanced even more when you’re in the sun.
It’s funny to think about how a few months ago I would have let you kill me. And I don’t mean that figuratively. I mean that if you had a knife in your hand, I’d bare my neck on instinct. I would sit obediently with your shotgun to my skull. I wouldn’t even bring up my hands to stop blows to my ribs. I would let you dismember me. Skin me alive. Bite until the skin tore. Touch me in my sleep. It makes me feel so meek but then I remember I love like a dog. Beautiful and wretched as that may be.
And I did love you. I might still do. I tried to move on, but nothing’s felt the same since. It’s like as soon as we broke up, you took half of my soul with you, leaving what was left to wither up and die. A bit dramatic but it’s true.
If you asked anything of me, I’d come running. I should’ve done that the entire time, but I didn’t.
It’s been about a year and a half since we broke up. Your birthday isn’t in my calendar anymore. It feels like a piece of me is missing.
That time in your living room at your birthday party when we held hands properly for the first time, with your arm wrapped around me and me leaning on your shoulder. As soon as your skin touched mine, I knew it was over for me. I was entirely yours. Now, I am a demanding creature. I am selfish and cruel and extremely unreasonable. But I was your servant. If you starved I would’ve fed you, if you were sick I would’ve tended to you. I would have crawled at your feet. I would have, if I had been braver and loved you the way I wanted to. Before your love I was debased. For you alone I was, and am, weak.
I never did tell you how proud I am of you. The night I got to see you on stage, I was utterly speechless. Perfect doesn’t even begin to describe how you were. As soon as you stepped on that stage, I couldn’t take my eyes off you, even if you weren’t the main person performing. And when you went off again all I could think of was when I would see you next. I should’ve held you afterwards, kissed the side of your head and told you how proud I am of you. You put in so much hard work for it, all while being sick and not knowing what was wrong, and you did incredibly. That whole night the only thing that was going through my head was how much I loved you. But I never told you.
Before the show started as well, when people were getting ready. I was talking to one of the then second years, and you came by, obviously distressed and anxious. I should’ve ended my conversation right then and gone to you, holding you and telling you that everything would be okay and that you would do amazing. But I didn’t. I just watched you out of the corner of my eyes. Even then I knew I was making the wrong decision. I still regret it.
I dream about taking you on a picnic. A flower field or an apple orchard or a grassy meadow in summer. But I don’t know of any near either of us so I’ll have to stick to my imagination. No-one around so we can truly be ourselves, the sun shining on us as I fed you grapes. Or whatever your favourite fruit is. I’ve forgotten. The sun shining through your hair, making you glow. Your eyes bright with happiness. I think it would be perfect. I hope you would agree.
Honestly I only want for one thing now, even though I know it’s probably impossible.
I want you to want me as I want you. Desperately. I want to make you shiver from my touch. I want to hear your voice, breathless and shaky. I want you to say my name like a prayer. Full of devotion. I want to bind together our bodies, intertwine our bones. I want you to devour me. To watch you strip off all layers of my being and digest every single piece.
But I ruined the chances of that happening too soon.
If I’m ever brave enough to give you this and you do read it, I hope you don’t think I’m weird lol. I hope you realise that you still own half of my soul, and that there isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t think about you and what we had, and how I should’ve treated you. I regret so much and I just wish I had a chance to love you the way you deserve and to show you how amazing you are.
There’s so so so much more I want to say but I can’t find the words.
You’ve always had that effect on me, making me speechless.
You’re incredible.
Love, yours
Ash,
I don’t know why Aelin wanted me to write you this letter since you’ll be home soon, but here we go.
I love you. So much. In a brotherly way, of course, or Aelin would kill both of us. Just know i would destroy the word for you. And I would do it over and over again to get you back if you were taken from us. Whether that be death or just stolen away. I would destroy the world over and over again to get you back, no matter how long it took. We all would. Aelin, Aedion, Lysandra, the Cadre, the witches. Even Dorian and Chaol. We’d do anything to get you back if you were taken. Anything at all.
But you wont be taken, so you don't need to worry about that. We wont let you be taken, none of us will.
We miss you here in Terrasan. When you get back from your mission, Aelin wants to make chocolate cake and go for a picnic in the mountains with you. Aedion says you should rest, and frankly I agree, but you know how Aelin gets when she wants something, especially when it comes to you and chocolate cake. Let’s just hope you two don’t destroy the kitchen like you did last time
I apologize that I couldn't send someone with you, but I know and acknowledge , that you like working, and work better by yourself. So yes, Aelin and Lysandra may have been mad at me for a bit, but i let you go alone. Just...please be safe on your mission. We’re all waiting for you to come back.
-Rowan Whitethorn Galythenius
King of Terresan