Dear Brittany,
Remember that time, some time ago, when we were in the park, just resting by a tree? Just when we started dating... I held your hand and it felt like I was holding the world. I rested my head gently in your shoulder and I could smell the soft fragrance of your hair being brought to my nose by the fresh, calm spring breeze. I felt something heavy in my heart. Heavy, but yet so pleasant. I later found out what it was - it was just love. That was the first time I really felt it, our bodies barely touching, and it was the first time of many others.
And do you remember our first kiss? We were in eight grade and you wanted to know what it was like to kiss a girl, and you did. We went to a more hidden part of the school to get away from the filthy stares we would get. Our lips hardly touched but it sent us through days and days of giggling. I still feel the tender touch of your young lips in mine.
We had our first time in the sophomore year, and honestly sweetheart, that was really embarassing. We were just best friends with some benefits and it was just really awkward. If I could go back in time I would've made it a little bit more special... If only I knew how important you would be in my life...
A year or so later you got your first serious boyfriend, and I was so jealous. That was the time I was just realizing my feelings for you, and then I started questioning who I really was.
It was a rough time, those months. I told you that I loved you - in that way. And you said you loved me back, but you still couldn't be mine. I was a coward, I'm so sorry. I was impatient and rude. I just wanted you so bad, too much for our own good. But you know what? It happened. We got together. We wouldn't show that much affection together because of the people that didn't accept us, and I'm so glad that time was over rapidly and people got over it. And I loved you more and more each day. I loved our dates, the way you dressed, your sweet inoccent face, your blonde hair. All was just like in the movies - a silly teenage romance.
Then I graduated. I know how much you wanted me to be happy that day, but you weren't graduating, how did you expect me to be happy? You said I shouldn't be held back by you, that I should follow my dreams. But my dream was right there, in Lima. My dream was you.
So I postponed my plans to go to New York and I waited for you. I made some money for a small appartment on a calmer zone of the Big Apple, and you came with me. You got a lousy job while I went to castings and you were always exhausted, but as you used to say all the time, you were doing it all for me.
And finally, after those hard months, I got a little role in a commercial where I even had a little jingle to sing. I got a decent ammount of money for us. And now I'm smiling while in tears, because I remember you used to sing that horrible, cheesy jingle all the time, while wearing your napron over your old clothes on those lazy Sunday mornings. You used to make some omolets and you would sing it just to drive me mad. You thought it was cute, and frankly, so did I.
I got a phonecall months later, and after that it was role after role - I got to be a TV extra, and then I got the shoe commercial and a crappy role in a soap opera. It was very exhausting, but I got us a lot of money. You got a better job and I would get many work offers. In our third anniversary, I got us out of that horrible, tiny appartment and bought a bigger one in the center of the city. I don't think four months passed before you proposed to me. Do you remember how badly I cried? You took out that ring out of nowhere. You're so spontaneous. And that's one of the million things I love about you.
Our wedding day was perfect, it was raining that day but that's a sign of good luck. I can't stop staring at the pictures they took from that day, you looked flawless. You are a true beauty!
Then we faced the elephant in the room - were we having a child? We both took some time to think and we agreed that it would make our home and life even brighter. I was getting some fame and the baby would be easy to support.
How long did it take to adopt Danielle? I think it was one year and a half, maybe two, right? Her birthday was so close to yours, so every year we had a pretty fun week!
It was such a good life, we had everything - it was great, maybe too great to be true because destiny played a trick on you and your family.
I was staying home with Danielle just two days ago. You were supposed to get some groceries and you needed to fill in the gas first. Just the average Saturday morning for us, I thought. But it wasn't. You got out at eleven in the morning, but it was two in the afternoon and you didn't comeback. I tried calling you, but nobody would answer. Then the home phone rang, and I happily go get it, thinking it was you. But it wasn't. It was the doctors saying that I had lost you in a road accident. I'm just shaking thinking about that moment, when I literally felt my life falling apart. I haven't got any sleep ever since and I'm still shaking and crying.
I lost the love of my life - out of nothing. I'm so angry at life, why would it take you without a warning? The woman I loved, Danielle's mother was gone. Out of thin air, gone. And then I realized the kiss I had given you that morning was the last one I would ever get from you, and the "I love you" you said the night before was the last one I would hear in your sweet voice. If it wasn't for Danielle, I wouldn't have another reason to live.
The story exploded in the tabloids. I'm still getting tons and tons of presents that are supposed to confort me, but fuck all that. I just want you, YOU by my side, safe and sound. I wish I could get five more minutes with you, and then maybe I can accept that you're gone, gone. I'll never see you again, and your memory lives in our pictures, the songs you dedicated to me, a shiny wedding ring, in a daughter that's too young to understand what happened and in some dusty love letters.
I'm so sorry, I'm sorry for being so sad, but I can't help it. I don't think I will ever get over you. I still hear your sweet voice echoing through the bedroom every morning. "San, wake up!".
But you know what, I know you wouldn't have liked me to be miserable all my life. I just hope that suddenly you appear, saying it was all a very bad joke. But it couldn't have been, since I saw you there, covered in dry blood, and I can't get the image out of my head. The body I knew so well, so damaged, not a soul in it.
I hope you will watch over me and your daughter.
I hope Danielle remembers you. You were such a great spouse and mother.
Thank you for loving me, for showing me how wonderful and cruel life is.
Forever (and ever) yours,
Santana
