Dear, Aless

I don't know how to tell you this, I don't know how to put into words what you mean to me. I've written this letter over ten times...and thrown each one out with the same thought in my mind: I'm going to ruin everything. We've been through everything together, and I..I've never met anyone so perfect in my life, so perfect in my eyes. You know my past and still love me, you always help me through my present and I can only await for you to still be by my side in my future. No, our future. Everytime I see you my palms grow sweaty, and I don't go through one waking day with you not on my mind, my delusional mind that thinks you may love me. Truly love me. Because I love the way you scrunch up your face when your nervous, and that effortless smile you place on your face when you see me. I love the way your long wavy black hair caresses my face when we embrace, I love your adorable dimples, and how you can make me laugh at anything. But that's not what I wanted to tell you in this letter I'll probably never give you. I wanted to tell you that I love have my heart, now please don't break it. Because loving you is all I ever want to do. And if you don't feel the same way, I'll deal with it, I'll find some way to deal with it. But to be honest to myself and you, I may as well face the fact I'll probably never get over you. But if friends is all you want then friends is what we'll be, anything for you.

That's how much I love you.

Love, Michael.

I could barely grasp what I had just read, I couldn't seem to understand. My eyes cried endless tears, my throat felt like it was burning, and my heart was in a rage. I sat there my mind racing, not comprehending what this ment. I grabbed the steering wheel for support, I held on like someone who's gone overboard would hold on to a life preserver. I needed something solid to hold onto, something whole, to remind me I'm still alive. I stayed like this till for what felt like ages. Michael's Mom probably heard my deafening cries from inside and found me in my state, she tried to get me out of the car, to hug me, but I pulled her away.

She must have known all along, she had to. She probably read it, or maybe Michael himself told her yet she never gave me that letter til' agonizing months later after his death. I felt like I had been put in a cage entitled "Life" where people crowded around me and laughed, I was a huge joke to them. They wanted to see me like this. I couldn't stand her presence, or anyone at the moment. I needed to leave, but to go home to my parents looking like such a disaster would only lead to an ongoing interragation of questions that I could not handle right now.

I faced the truth, I had no one.

Blake's face ran across my mind at that moment. Blake. Out of everyone he was the only person I could talk to. But what would I tell him? Hey Blake, Michael really loved me after all. He wrote it in this letter he never gave me. And now I'm going to cry in front of you and talk about my feelings, and how much my life sucks. I closed my eyes shut and then revved up the ignition. I knew I shouldn't be driving, I was probably worse then a drunk driver, but I drived down the street as I looked at my rear-view mirror and could see Michael's Mother crying as I descended.

I was almost to my neighberhood when I stopped so upruptly my body lunged forward then back hitting my head on the seat. I looked up to see Blake's car in front of mine, his face turned from confused to worried in less then a second. A second was enough to realize I could barely see the road through all the tears I was crying.

"Alessandra?, Alessandra!" he yelled out getting out of his car and approaching mine.

"Go away" I yelled at him, as much as he truly was the only person I had right now, the only small comfort, I didn't want it, I wanted to suffer. Plus he was holding up the traffic, even though that was totally out of my concern.

"What happened? Are you drunk?" he asked me scrunching his eyebrows in concern.

"No, I'm not drunk idiot, I want to be alone, so LEAVE me alone" I said harshly, I was a monster but at that moment nothing mattered. "Get off the road" people yelled at him from the window of their cars, he payed no attention to them.

"Alessandra please, lets get you off the road, then you can tell me what happened" he said trying to calm the tirade that was being unleashed from me, he didn't deserve to hear the words that I told him, he deserved better. He opened my car door and stood in front of me until I gave in frustruated at his stubborness.

I got out of the car and threw him the keys, I then walked myself to a small park that was a couple yards away from the road. I sat myself down under a huge tree and ripped out the grass from underneath me, it was exactly how my heart was being ripped - piece by piece.

Blake came running towards me after he had parked both my car and his own in the park's parking lot before sitting down and trying to get me to talk. We sat there for five minutes straight while I ripped out grass, and sulked. He didn't tell me a word, he just sat there silently next to me, hearing my cries. I didn't want him to see me like this, but my mouth couldn't find words to speak to tell him to leave, only thrashing noises escaped along with my sobbs. I was an utter mess, but just like everything else in my life when it came to Michael; everything else didn't matter.

"Alessandra your scaring me, please, please, tell me what happened?" he said grabbing my shoulder to make me turn and face him. He stared at me straight on, he cupped his hands around my face whiping my tears before leaning forward and wrapping arms around me. I cried into his shoulder. We stayed like that for a while, he rubbed circles on my back while whispering to me, "It's ok, Alessandra It's ok."

After a good couple more minutes, I leaned out and sat myself letting my back rest on the tree trunk. He sat next to me while staring at my face. I had finally controled my crying and concluded he wasn't going to leave until he knew the truth.

I looked over at him and began, "I went to Michael's house today, and found something I was supposed to read a long time ago." I got the note out of my pocket, it as well was stained with tears but was still readable. I looked at it and could feel another batch of tears about to pour out once more, so I handed him the letter and let it speak for itself.

He opened it and looked at me before reading it as if asking for my permission, I simply nodded. He read it then looked at me with a heart-broken look in his eyes, which reminded me why I told him in the first place- because he cared.

"Alessandra, I'm so sorry..." he began to say, "I don't even know what to tell you right now, I can't even imagine what it must feel like, you must really hate the world, you must think it's against you. But Alessandra it's not, It's not. Life is this long road we walk, and we all start the road the same way, safe. But as the road goes on we are thrown things that we wouldn't even imagine, good things, bad things, miracles, and crisis. And at the end of the road there is no, 'Congradgulations you survived, you made it through' no, there is none of that. Theres no finale line or trophy that awaits on the other side. And happiness isn't at the other side either. Life sucks. But sometimes if you find enough courage in you to hold on, to keep going, somewhere along the way happiness finds you, not the other way around. You just have to find the will in you not to give up."

"Do you have some sort of book where you get all this motivational crap out of?" I said as light-heartedly as I possibly could.

He looked down at me smiling, "I wish I had read this and not experienced it."

I look up at him through my tears, questions filling my mind, experienced? What could he ever mean. But my mind was too preoccupied with my own worries to question his further.

I looked down at the ground and thought he really did always know what to say, it didn't take away my pain but it did ease it. "Walk the road with me?" I responded.

He put his arm around me while we lay back against the tree, his face still managed to light up, "I thought you'd never ask" he said.

As much as I had experienced on that day, as much as I had hurt, I figured something crucial out. Blake always knew what to tell me not because of coincidence, but because he had been through something difficult too. What that was? - I had no clue. But I was determined to find out, because if he got past it, if happiness found him because he got through it, then maybe something I thought was lost - wasn't.

Hope.

His hope guided me home that night.

And as I closed my eyes I could hear his soft whisper in my ear replaying in my mind...

"I thought you'd never ask."

I slept a dreamless night, I slept a tearless night.

A small hope ignited.