Dear Easton,

I didn’t realize the last time I spoke to you would be the last time. I am humiliated, ashamed, and embarrassed to even be writing this to you right now, but there are things that need to be said. I still miss you, I still love you, and every time a love song comes on I think about you. I am still struggling to accept that you will only be a memory to me and I probably won’t ever get to speak to you again before I die. Morbid and dramatic? Perhaps. You were my greatest love, even if it was short-lived. I cherish every memory I have with you still. I don’t want to believe this is actually over. Why can’t I get over you? I don’t know if I truly love you or if I have created an idealized version of you in my head that I still am holding onto. Either way, I need to move on but I don’t know how to make you a happy memory instead of a sad bitter one. I love you so much, it hurts. There was a quote I heard once;
 
“Have you ever got everything you’ve ever wanted.”
“No, but once I got very close”  

And that basically sums up how I feel about you. I don’t want to feel this attachment to you anymore. 

I was just thinking about how I want to call my mom after this, and read her all the emails I wrote for you, but at the same time, this is one of the only things that has become sacred to me. I can’t share it with anyone, I will lose its value. You are my deepest darkest secret. Even though people know what happened, they will never understand the gravity of what I feel for you. It crushes me everyday. Oh, Easton. As much as I want to feel nothing but indifference towards you, I feel everything else. Love and hate. You were my half-baked dream that never came true. I wanted everything with you. I wanted to love you. I wanted to spend my college years with you, going to Kav’s for karaoke and having sleepovers at your house. I wanted to eventually move to Colorado with you and get a real big girl job. I wanted us to get engaged and get married. And I did want to have your babies. You taught me that I am capable of love, so how can I let you go? 

I keep going back to the night I talked to you in your basement and you asked me “What if we’re soul tied?”
All I did was laugh. I wish I wouldn’t have, and everyone keeps telling me that was the appropriate thing to do in that situation, but as more time passes and the feelings still persist, I wonder if you were right. The truth is, I don’t know how to handle this love I have for you with no one to give it to. It’s eating me alive. I never thought there would be “the one that got away,” but you exist. I’ve seen you on hinge, and I keep wishing that I never met you so that maybe, just maybe we could have started a relationship from there. No Kayla, no bullshit, no drama. I wish that is how it would have happened for us. I guess we were dealt a shitty hand. It sucks that in another life, that is how it worked out. Maybe if I had never joined the stupid fucking sorority that didn’t even want me, we would be together right now. And if we had never met, I wouldn’t be going through this pain right now. Maybe, someone else would have broke my heart. 

Regardless, you still did and said some pretty fucked up shit. The way you talked to Kayla after we had sex. was unacceptable. I couldn’t let myself be with someone like you. When I asked you “So, I’m just an option?” and you shrugged. When you told me, right before you fucked me not to get too attached. Those were all the things that I was not willing to settle for. Even though I did not believe what you said or implied, it still hurt. 

The fact that I still hold onto this stuff says a lot more about me than it does you, but I’m just trying to make myself feel better right now. Remind myself you’re not perfect and there are reasons for me why it shouldn’t have worked out. Somehow, by default, I feel that I am the one who ruined our whole relationship. The time you asked me if I wanted to ride with you to your baseball game and I said no, the time I laughed at you, and when I didn’t show up as your date to semi-formal. It was all fucked up and I regret it everyday because maybe if I hadn’t done all that stuff you would be mine right now. 

I miss you and I don’t think I’ll ever stop missing you. I am so ugly crying now btw. When it comes to men, I think you set the standard too high for me. I am so picky now and can’t seem to like anyone or go without comparing them to you in some way or another. It’s fucking ridiculous and I don’t know how to stop. I should probably read this email specifically to my therapist. 

We both fucked up, and I know I crashed out on you and Kayla in the beginning of the summer, but I wish we could just have one conversation before you graduate in May. Accepting that it probably won’t happen has been a tricky situation for me. I still see you out every once in awhile. We’ve nodded at each other and that’s about it. I don’t see that changing. You confused me at Falla when you asked if you could scooch closer to me on the railing. I keep ruminating on it. What were you thinking? I feel like I could always read you before, but in that moment, my mind went blank. Maybe that’s why you walked away. I don’t know, but I still care. 

Whatever, I’m done writing this.

Bye…