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My business cards just arrived and I’m so excited! They’re a hundred pieces with five different photos I’ve taken in the past few months. Yay!

One morning, in a museum

Peter. We were looking at a piece by Marc Chagall, my favorite. Actually, he was alone until I decided to join in because I couldn’t wait and once I get impatient, I lose all sense of respect for personal space. Unintentionally, of course. And that matters a lot in museums.

“Fucking beautiful,” he muttered to himself. This took me by surprise. I go to museums on a regular basis and no one has ever muttered to himself like that in the presence of someone who’s not his friend or companion. I felt included in his thoughts, in what was going through his head and felt it necessary to hit back with an equally overwhelming response.

“Yup,” I said with an awkward nod without looking at his face. “Truly.” Truly? I never use that word in normal conversations. Why did I say that?

You smiled and walked over to the next piece. It was still a Chagall. I contemplated skipping the exhibit altogether to avoid the possibility of following you around the room. Again, unintentionally. It’d look much like my real life relationships. I can’t have that, of course.

I decided to skip the next piece and moved on to the third one. I couldn’t bear to leave. Not Chagall. You decided to view the same piece at the exact same time. Our shoulders bumped and it was funny, the timing of it, how bad it was. So I laughed. I stopped myself the moment I remembered I wasn’t dreaming all of it. You stared at me like I was the sickly animal at the zoo. There’s always at least one sickly animal at the zoo. Then you laughed too. I felt insulted at that point. Am I so funny looking? I thought. No, you laughed first, you idiot.  I’m crazy like that sometimes that I answer my own thoughts. I like to believe everyone does it.

You reached out your hands. So warm, so soft, like hands of a man who has never lifted a thing in his life. “I’m Peter,” you said. I shook it and didn’t want to let go.

“Alice. Sorry about that. I’m a bad mover,” I said. I sounded like the moron that I was at that moment, overwhelmed by what was taking place. I’ve never had a meet-cute. Ever. It was exciting. “I mean, I’m clumsy. Sometimes.” Shut. Up.

“No, don’t worry about it. Are you a Chagall fan?” The magic question. I wanted to take you home right then and there.

“Oh, yes. I want to own a piece someday. One day. Hopefully not when I’m about to die of old age or gross diseases after selling my body every night for years and years just to purchase one.” Why do I say these things? “Okay, that was weird and not exactly small talk material. Rewind?”

Surprise - you laughed again. “Don’t worry. I’d do the same thing. No, I’d sell my kidney.” I would’ve brought you home in a doggy bag, I swear to God.

“I’d sell both my kidneys, then I’d be dead. They’d write on my grave that I died for love of Marc Chagall.”

“You’re badass,” you said. I remember still the way you said it, how you spoke with such sincerity. No one’s ever called me badass before and it was a quality I’d never seen in myself. Maybe only you can see it. “So, Alice, I’m going to this awesome place for lunch after and if you’re not doing anything, you should join me. We could talk about all the other things on our list of Stuff We’d Do for Marc Chagall. Or not. I mean, we could totally talk about other things.”

I wouldn’t have minded it at all, talking about kidneys and STDs with you all day long inside this museum, this room, this space full of Chagall. I would’ve jumped up and down with my arms outstretched yelling, “Yes, universe! Yes, motherfuckers! Finally, finally, a meet-cute surrounded by all this beauty!” Did I go to museums all these years just for a taste of this? Instead, I pretended to look at the time and paused for a few seconds.

“Yeah, I guess. That might be fun.”

“Great,” you said with a smile. You were so genuine and I wondered to myself why I couldn’t be genuine as well. Oh, because that would mean exposing my inner crazy to a man who had just invited me out for lunch. No, the composed and cool persona was good. For now, I thought. I mean, if ever there’s a later for us.

I mean, who knows?

Para ti.

“Dear,” I write. I struggle to keep the pen in my hands. I haven’t written in so long, see. Like write write. It’s just not the norm anymore these days. I don’t even recognize my own handwriting and my fingers tremble too much. The pushing of keys, of buttons is what I’m used to.

I would say my handwriting is like a really bad font.

“Dearest,” I continue. I can’t decide how to address you in this letter. I can’t understand the necessity of it as I’ve always felt more comfortable talking to you face to face despite the general awkwardness of our relationship with each other. Committing words to paper just seems a bit too serious, too ridiculous. It means I won’t be able to take anything back should the need arises (as it always does in my case) and that is a very scary prospect.

I’ll just go with honesty.

“Hey.” Hey is casual and approachable, but the period adds apathy. Most write it with exclamation points, but I’m not excited to write this letter. I want it to be calm and cold.

Just write the goddamn letter. Fine. Here we go.

“Hey.

I know it’s been ages since we last corresponded and…”

It’s beginning to sound so stupid.

“I know it’s been ages since we last talked. Things got pretty awkward and I am mostly to blame for that. Everything I said that day still holds true.” Did I just make things awkward all over again?  ”I’m not writing to take anything back because I still think the same of you. I’m writing to tell you the other things I left out because I was too nervous to say them to your face.”

Sigh.

“I met you at my loneliest and you at yours. Remember how I took a photo of you the minute we were introduced? I took it in color, but I saved it in black and white. It was perfect. Your eyes had a strange impact on me. They were always tired and watery and once, I even asked you if you were about to cry. Do you remember that? I always thought they reflected my own sadness right back at me and it made me feel, for once, that I was not alone in this.

We were both going through break-ups, but of entirely different kinds. Mine was stupid, shallow, irrelevant to the grander scheme of things. Yours was eternal, made for the books, the kind that no one can ever compete with. And yet there we were, in the same city, with the same dark shadows under our eyes, and discomfort in our own skin. I was inebriated with the idea of you and me. The idea that I created in my own head to the tune of instrumental Icelandic music that progressed faster than reality.

You’re amazing because of the way you held my camera so knowingly despite your preference for the other brand. You’re one of the few people I can honestly call talented without feeling the slightest bit of resentment. I believe it and though I envy it, I am more fascinated by it. You made me feel like a dilettante (which I really am), but you also challenged me. I wanted so bad to prove to you I was worth your time somehow.

You’re amazing because you try. Remember at Juicy Burger when I bought you lunch, you smiled in gratitude and cracked jokes about the couple in the table beside us. You tried to look happy, but your eyes refused to cooperate. You tried to talk about the break-up, but you couldn’t find the words to say. You tried and tried.

‘Billetera, pasaporte, llaves de la casa, llaves de la auto.’

You said it over and over again at random moments. Sometimes you’d break the silence by this weird ritual of yours, patting each of your pockets to check if the contents were still there. Sometimes you’d whisper it to yourself while you crossed the street. Sometimes you’d mumble it while you drove us to the grocery store.

You obsessively guarded your possessions and I loved that. I thought it said a lot about you. I still do.

Why am I writing all these little things to you now? They were details you never thought much about and came so naturally to you.

You were your own person the whole time is what I wanted to say more than anything else. You were real and uncompromising in spite of your grief and your dissatisfaction. You missed her terribly and I felt so bad for you. And for myself. I couldn’t figure out how to help you. I couldn’t figure you out at all.

I’m writing this a year and a half after I met you. These memories hang on to me and everything’s still so fresh in my head. Maybe I’m trying to unload them by writing to you. Maybe I’m trying to understand.

Maybe I just want you to know that this is how I remember you. You’re amazing and until now, I stand by it wholeheartedly. I hope one day, you’ll believe it too.”

Signed, sealed, thrown in the trash.