You looked so beautiful. So simple and serene, but so beautiful it made my heart hurt to look at you. Everything about you looked as though it had been painted right before my eyes. Truly, you shone like the sun.

I thought that it was your attention that I craved so badly, maybe it was the way that you would pretend that you were in love with me too...to this day I'm still uncertain. Whatever it was, I missed it so badly in that moment that I lay my eyes on you, I felt like a child taking it's first step without a hand to hold. I wanted to touch you, but the way you looked...the perfect way in which everything about you fit together, I just knew that it would be wrong. I knew that I could only look, and even then, just quick glances whenever your head was turned.

I wanted to be a part of your conversation. I wanted to reach out and grab the words right off of your sweet candy apple lips. I wanted to laugh and nod and understand everything you were saying.

We were feet apart and yet it felt like a million miles between us.

If I could have you again, only for a second...I would hold you tight as though you might slip away again. If I could have you again, I would do it all over as though you were fine crystal...not a toy. I would never wrong you again.

But then, I think my time has come and gone.

Dear Love,

It's me again.

I didn't mean to run away. It's just that I was so scared when I saw everything had changed. You know how much that scares me. Well, you knew once.

It was all so much at one time. Nothing had remained the same, nothing except for me. I was still the same little girl, waiting for my old life to come rushing back to me as though I'd never left in the first place.

I wanted the walls to be white again, I wanted the lights to be dimmer. I wanted the flowers to be pink like they were, not that ugly blue and yellow. I wanted everybody to be the same...I wanted to see all those old familiar faces smiling back at me, instead of all these new scary ones. I wanted you to be holding my hand when I walked in.

But then, we're not the same people we used to be. This much I can easily realize. We're nothing like we used to be. This saddens me, because I really loved who we were. And still, I think of it every day and I think of how you'll never be that boy again.

Why they love you so much now, I'll never know.

Maybe it's because you're so damn beautiful.

Dear Love,

Everything fell so dark, and suddenly I needed you more than anything else in the world.

Everybody else had somebody, and as I picked up the phone to call someone to comfort me, your number was the first that crossed my mind.

I wanted to hear your voice, I wanted your gentle hand to smooth my hair and soothe my own nervous heart. As I tried to dial, but failed, I felt as though I should be the one in the hospital. But still, with my shaking hand I placed the phone back in the cradle, and quickly erased the thought of you being with me.

Though I needed you more than anything, it wouldn't be right. It would never be right. If we were ever again in the same room, there certainly would be no physical contact involved. No emotional contact either, just a simple hello, If that. And already you've proven that you can walk by me without giving me even that.

I guess I'm just writing because I needed you, and I wanted you to know that I needed you. I wish that I could place this letter in your hand, and feel your skin wrap around the paper that my hands once brushed. I wish that if you ran your fingers over the words, you could feel where my little clear tears had dropped onto the letter.

I never meant to fall, and I never intended to take you down with me...but I couldn't help it. My breaking heart wanted nobody else. I wanted you to be my friend, and if that never happens, I'm sorry. I love you still and forever, maybe not like you'll ever love me again... but like I always have.

Dear Love,

I always knew that somewhere inside of you lay that perfect boy that I was once in love with. I knew that you still remembered everything, and I knew that sometimes you felt the same.

I wondered if sometimes when you buried your face deep enough into that pillow if you could still smell my shampoo in it, I wondered if sometimes when you pulled that sweatshirt over your head you could still feel me on the inside. I wondered if sometimes I haunted you like you haunt me.

And then, today the strangest thing happened. You made it all clear. The memories were no longer empty and I no longer missed you...because you were standing right there beside me, and you were touching my hand and I FELT you. And I loved you, but today it was different.

Today, it all became perfectly clear and I finally understood why everything was now the way it is. And why it will always be this way. And why that's ok. Thank you, thank you for everything you did and everything you said.

Thank you for finally allowing me to let go. Goodnight, I love you still.

Dear Love,

When you walked away, it was this brief almost nonexistent moment that nobody else could possibly have picked up.

But in that moment, I smelled your cologne and I just wanted to reach out and take your hand, and walk with you in the other direction. I just wanted to laugh with you and smile at you and be the center of your attention for just one moment more. I wanted to tell you how much I loved spending time with you even though I understood that we could never be again, that the reasons for this were completely non-emotional.

I wanted to tell you that I understood everything that you'd just said, and I wanted to tell you that I felt the same, that I was so happy for the direction that we had taken, but deep inside me I only wanted more. I wanted you to look into my eyes and realize that you felt for me what you had felt not so long ago.

I wanted you to take my hand in yours again and gently kiss my fingertips. I wanted you to brush your eyelashes against my cheek as you whispered sweet summer air into my ear. I wanted you to touch my heart and feel me beside you...I wanted you to realize that I loved you still and forever, and nothing could ever come between me and that intense feeling. I wanted to assure you that the only reason we had lost what we'd once had was because we never realized how much we had to begin with.

I wanted to tell you that without you, I was nothing...and shine a light in the little dark corner of your heart where those feelings coincided.

I wanted to kiss your face and wash away your tears with my desire. I wanted to love you again, and I wanted you to love me back.

I never wanted you to leave. I never expected that you could walk away and it wouldn't break your heart to see me break down and cry in front of you, to see me cry for the first time since that night.

If I had only know this was the way it was going to be, I would never have gone back. I expected more.

Dear Love,

Tonight, I sat on the edge of the dock, alone. I watched the stars, by myself, and hummed those songs to myself...and thought, a lot.

And I've come to some sort of a conclusion.

With every passing season, I am reminded of you. Summer brings the sweet smell of the lake to me, and I can feel you there with me, on some little path away from everyone else, kissing my face and whispering nothing but sweet summer air into my ear. And spring, with formals and dinners...I can almost feel your arm linked in mine as we walk proudly past everyone else. And I can smell the sweet flowers that you pluck from the ground as we walk in the warm evening rain.

And fall, do you remember the day that we raked all of the leaves in gram's yard and jumped into the huge piles like little kids?

And then, winter. It chills me to the bone. Because, I remember you most vividly now. And I miss you more than ever.

But not this time.

She said it so well...the lips that I remember left a smear across my face...

And the clouds whispered to let it all go.

One of us did.

Now it's my turn. It's finally time to let you go.

So as you've said many, many times before... Goodbye.

Dear Love,

I wanted to cry to you tonight. But instead, as I walked toward the door I held my head higher than I have in a long, long time. I was determined not to let you break me down again.

Your words ripped through me like a million knives, and I wanted to scream back at you. I wanted to throw my hands in the air and yell to you how I'd known all along that it all would result in this. Only this.

As I contemplated whether or not to fight back, I thought of all the times that we had been over this before. And I finally saw through your perfect facade. I finally realized that you were the weak of the two of us from the beginning. I knew then that I had allowed you to feed off of me, stripping me of my pretense and leaving me nakedly honest.

You took away my heart, my dreams.

What more could you possibly want?

So this time, when I shut the door behind me, I vowed that I would never walk back into your web again. I'd always wanted so much more, and I could never get it by playing your games. And strange as it may seem, I realized that leaving you was so much easier than loving you.

Gabrielle