Chapter Text
As the years went by, I knew I wasn't going to make it. Not with you, not even face to face. Today is our last day of high school, and I think the closest I ever came to telling you was a fortnight ago at the fall dance. Remember my hands around the back of your neck while, more than my words, it was my closeness and the sadness in my eyes communicating how much I was going to miss you? .... And, above all: how much I have always loved you. We danced to our song, the guitar chords as fine and delicate as they are preserved so well in my memory. It's a special song, my favourite.
You may not remember it, you danced with many people that day. A lot of tact was invading that spotless suit you wore . . . I'm sorry you lost the handkerchief embroidered by your mother; I know it meant a lot to you.
Actually, I knew a lot about you, Adrien. You broke my head, you were a puzzle I never tired of completing with every little piece of information you threw into the air and that, with shame, my senses always so attentive to you collected for that little file inside me that was nourished day by day. I thought if I knew enough about you I would be perfect, because you wanted someone to understand you. Just as I wanted to be so good for you, although in front of the mirror there was never any recognition on my part; I wanted to be good for you, but I never found qualities that made me stand out from the other girls. Many were great for you, others just left because they didn't deserve you, but nevertheless, they all got your attention. They had you there, inches away, enjoying your cologne, your hugs, your tenderness and nobility. I never felt worthy of that, maybe I was asking too much for myself. There were endless nights when I felt like a crazy obsessed, even a stalker with you. I had it all figured out in my mind, the way you would look at me if I stumbled over my words, the grip on my arms when my awkwardness decided to embarrass me in front of you and you would seamlessly come like a superhero to hold me up making the most acceptable fool of myself just because you were near. I understood every dimension of your life because in school you were my favourite subject. Learning the accent of whatever language you were practicing because it was impossible to understand what you said from time to time, the movement of your hands when you loved a song so much that no one would stop you from dancing to it, your sadness when you remembered what was going on behind closed doors at home, the discomfort in the corners of your mouth when your father forbade you any contact with us, the pain of feeling that a human mistake you made was completely catastrophic for him. When I found out you were in love with a girl who wasn't me and you made me promise not to tell anyone. We made promises as friends and it wasn't the only time.
It was wonderful to have your trust, to be teased from time to time at lunch and to create our inside jokes with such complicity that, even though I had sworn I would forget you, every little thing you did made my heart melt. I was no longer just a friend; I was your best friend. You made me feel important, I wanted your approval. Because then it meant that I was good enough for you. You made me a better person, I found peace with you and you made me see the good in everyone, appreciate the beautiful things in everyday life and just wait for the bad to leave my sight.
For a while I thought there would be no more knives in my back burying themselves over and over again for every word that was directed towards me as a simple friend. In my mind I would sooner rather than later accept that we weren't meant to be, that I had wasted my time believing that you would look at me differently. When I started collecting pictures of you and me, and not just pictures of you taken from magazines, I knew it was better to have you as one of the purest friendships I have ever had in my entire life than to simply never have you at all. I was always happy and grateful to be your friend, to be accepted by you in your life, to be trusted to tell me things even before Nino. I stopped looking at you as the love of my life and started to appreciate the most beautiful thing you had given me until then.
But they say nobody can fool the heart and the beginning of this year brought to my reality a blow of misery. Once November was over, we would never see each other again. My hands would have to start by forgetting the mould of what your face would look like between them. I'd been preparing them forever, memorising every inch of your face. Just to a size I believed to be exact, but always ready to resize if I found that your smooth skin ended up being a thinner porcelain or with a wider profile.
With each school term, you grew closer because you wanted to spend our last year together while I moved away so once the autumn was over it wouldn't hurt so much to let you go. It has been ten months now. Madame Bourgeois has once again offered me to go to New York with her, there is nothing left to hold me to Paris. My parents are happy for me, you are happy for me, a last matter that was of major weight ended a couple of years ago and now I am free. Alya will come with me, she will study Social Communication in Washington D.C., I will still be able to see her. . . . I'd like to say that I'm staying for you, but I can't keep being stuck for something that can't be given and keeps hurting me so much. Hopefully I'll stop thinking about you when I meet new people in America and find new hobbies that don't have to do with you.
Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to sound rude. You're the best thing that ever happened to me, you always will be. But it's time to get over you.
And you'll probably say "Oh, Marinette, but why are you writing this to me if you're already leaving?". Do you remember the first time you came to my house for dinner? You said how necessary it is to let people express their feelings so they can get to know themselves better and not allow them to create explosive emotions as time goes by and they keep repressing all that inside. I remember every word of what you said to me.
In the last few weeks, I haven't stopped dreaming about you, as if we had something pending, unfinished. I don't want to have unfinished cycles in Paris, especially not with you. I've talked to Luka, I've made peace with Chloe (who by the way is coming to NY in January too), I've talked to an old colleague I met years ago and with whom I've already finished all my work. I couldn't give less to you, ... we deserved better. That is why this letter. To record all my truth, for the wind not to carry my words away and for you to know how a soul in love writes. Besides . . . telling you this to your face would make me take a thousand steps backwards and my twisted tongue would play against me again. I can't afford that, not on our last goodbye.
I didn't mean to go on so long with this, I'm sorry. I thought about giving you something plainer like "Hi, I've been in love with you since that afternoon when you gave me your umbrella. Bye.", but do you think that's fair? I don't know the answer. I don't know whether to give you this letter or make a second one that says the previous. I needed to explain to you the reason for this love, not a platonic one, but an infinite, pure and real one.
I don't intend to take up any more of your time . . . I don't know if you read this far or if by the second paragraph you were already hating me and stopped reading.
I'm terrible at writing letters.
I'm terrible when it comes to you.
What I want to say is. . .
Thank you for giving me the best years anyone would want to have as a teenager, I love you in a way you won't understand (I'm sure I don't know how it goes either), I just know this is all true and I wish I had told you this a long time ago. I hope you're not upset with me.
Marinette D-Cheng.