Do you remember the first night I stayed over? How we woke tangled together, our skin slick with sweat in every spot we touched, you ran away. You thought I was still asleep, that if I had been awake I'd have freaked out and never gotten in a bed with you again, but I didn't. I had been awake for an hour, just lying there in the safest place I've come to know. I heard you. I heard you whisper your sorries, I heard you sigh in contentment before you really opened your eyes, I heard the hushed curses.
Do you remember the batting cages? How you effortlessly got me to participate in sports. I heard the sharp intake of breath when we first touched, I heard your heart when we took the first swing, I heard the love in your voice when you spoke.
I still can't fathom how neither of us knew what was to come of us, when all you had to do was flash one crooked smile my way and I would do anything to keep it in place.
How about our first kiss? I'm not talking about the coat room, that wasn't a real kiss, that was a brush of champaign licked lips and nothing but a taste of kisses to come. I'm talking about our real first kiss, the urgent one, the emotion filled one, the one that couldn't be denied or looked past. I want you to know that I heard. From the gentle touch to the soft moans, that could only be taken as 'finally'.
And the night we got back together, do you remember? Do you remember all of the unsteady brushes of skin and lips, the trembling fingers because we had been so stupid to have gone that long without each other. I caught every awe filled stare, every fleck of regret, every smell of my hair, every loving caress. I heard you later that night too, apparently you have a habit of talking to me while thinking I'm sleeping when I'm not. I listened as you apologized again, which you promised you'd stop doing, I listened as you told me about our time apart, about how you kept buying my food out of habit and then would end up not eating at all and just going to bed. I heard you say it, I was awake when you sleepily whispered your love.
I heard, I knew it all, but I still never told you. I heard everything you said when there was no space between us and I still let you go… I'm still a self sabotaging Peck and will never change, not if I couldn't change for you. Because I meant it when I told you, you are the coolest chick ever, you are the most wonderful person in the world, and I'm in dept for the rest of my existence because I got to spend a sliver of life with you.
Holly, you are the love of my life, and I need you to know that.
I'm sorry.
Yours always,
Gail