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My beloved Ava,
It has been one year since you went through the portal. It has been one year since the day you kissed me, and then you left me behind. It has been one year since the world has finally gone back to its ordinarity and I find it extremely… I don’t even know what the correct word to describe this word would be.
Life has been everything but ordinary since you’ve left. The Order is not the same anymore, but why would it be if the Halo is not between us anymore? We have lost many Halo Bearers, Ava. Most in battle, less to old age, but we never lost the Halo before. The longest time we have been without it was when you left the Convent with the main purpose of never coming back to deal with the consequences of carrying it with you every day of your life.
My life has not been the same, either.
I left the Order, and I am okay with it. It is strange not having to wake up early as usual, and I must confess I still follow the same routine as before simply because I have followed it for so many years that it just feels wrong to change it now. It would feel foreign to create a new routine. I would have been okay to create a new one with you, Ava, but you’re not here and I cannot start new traditions if you’re not going to be there to share them with me. There is no purpose in that.
Not having you here… Feels like the biggest scam in history, a mistake even. As if we were supposed to be together but you're not here, and I still cannot understand if you not being here is the problem, or if my prolonged presence in this world is the original issue. We were supposed to be together. I should’ve been able to show you pictures about my past, I should’ve been able to hear your stories about the time before the incident. We should’ve been able to travel together, we should’ve been able to make new memories together. We deserved spending every single minute of our awake time together, and cuddled up at night. You should’ve been able to be there the times I got sick, and you should’ve been able to bring me tea in bed whenever I couldn’t move because of my period cramps.
I feel like this is not how it was supposed to end, like there’s too much that has been left unsaid. I have so many things to tell you and no time left at hand. I want to share everything with you, every part of me, even the ones that I still haven’t figured out myself. I need to hear your jokes, make everything lighter, discover your hidden talents and find out what your to-go karaoke song is. Are you even a good singer? I hate the fact that I’ll never know.
I think that the most disappointing thing is that the world actually does look the same. Surely, there have been changes. There is now a new Pope, but I am not very much involved in that anymore. People have gone back into blindly believing in a God that somehow managed to forget to look down to the Earth while one of His angels/demons was walking among His people, but I can’t really blame them. We lost so many of us, and only religion can give someone proper comfort while mourning one’s loss.
I find it terribly ironic how I lost my faith the day I lost you. I cannot exactly explain it, but I am not sure I can believe in a similar God anymore, a God that saw how happy we were and how perfect we were for each other, and chose to take you away from me. It wouldn’t be fair, not to me, not to you, not to Him, if He does exist, after all.
I see you everywhere, Ava. You’re in the way children scream excited whenever their parents agree to get them ice cream, in the way the deers in the park run around each other, in the way the Sun rises and disappears under the horizon every day. You are in the smell of coffee that welcomes me every morning, because even though I still believe that coffee is the worst thing ever invented in history, I make it every day just in case you’ll eventually show up. You’re in the cup full of coffee that looks at me every day, across the table, waiting for someone to drink it before it goes cold, but that always fails to be emptied on time. I know that you'd scold me for wasting such big amounts of coffee every day, but it makes me feel closer to you.
I can’t help but see you everywhere and while I love knowing that I am never going to let you go, I also fear the day in which my mind will betray me and you’ll start slipping away. I already am starting to forget some aspects of you, and this scares me terribly. I do not remember anymore whether you used to put the water on your toothbrush before or after you put the toothpaste on it, and I cannot remember what was your preferred order for wearing your shoes. Did you start with the left foot or the right one?
I know it sounds stupid, but they were all part of you, Ava. And if I start to forget now, one year later, what will happen in five years from now? In ten? When I will be old and wrinkly and I’ll be still waiting for you by the front door? What then?
Lately I started forcing myself to think about you less often than usual. I fear that thinking about you too much will make my memories of you disappear, as if I will consume them. Memories are the only thing I have left of you, but everybody knows that some memories are a bit like dreams: the more you think about them, and the less you remember. The details slip through your fingers, they fade away like the memory of an exceptionally cold winter disappears the moment the weather becomes too warm and everybody starts daydreaming about winter again. Some of my memories of you are too precious to be forgotten like this, and I cannot let something like this happen.
I promise you that I will think about them the least amount of times possible. Only when it’s worth it. Only when the loss of you becomes too much to handle.
The worst thing about you not being here, Ava, is that it is as if the rest of the world didn’t notice. It kept spinning, every day, and it never slowed down. Sometimes I felt like it started spinning faster whenever I tried to tell the Earth to stop, at least for that one single time, to let me sit back and breathe, but she never did. The Sun rose everyday, and every night the Moon switched shifts with him and shone bright between the billions of stars. They never stopped chasing after each other, kind of like I never stopped looking for you.
How did the world move on, Ava? How can I move on from you? Should I ever? I don’t know. I know what you would say, though. I know you’d make a joke about how you rocked my world so hard you made it spin backwards without even having to touch me (even if, in a way, you kind of did, with that kiss), and I would roll my eyes and you would throw an arm around my shoulders and pull me in, while laughing your usual laugh.
I don’t need jokes now. Or maybe I do, if that meant having you back here. I don’t know. I just want all of this to stop. I need all of this to stop, Ava.
I feel like something got broken the day you left. And despite the common beliefs, it was not my heart. Despite the pain, it still kept beating, stronger than ever before. No, something else is broken and the more I think about it and the more I am sure that I have lost my connection to the world, that kind of connection that made me see the beauty of every little thing surrounding me, that made me smile for the incredible opportunity that life is. It broke down, and I don't know how to repair it anymore. I feel like there is no connection between me and existence, and I feel like an astronaut that somehow fell off its spaceship and is now aimlessly fluctuating in the void. I am looking at the world from above, from far away, and I do not miss it anymore because I know that there is no point in going back anyway, if you're not going to be there waiting for me. My happy thoughts are getting crowded in that same room I am forcing them in, and despite they're trying to show me their relevance I just can't help but look right past them, right into the memory in which you disappeared right in front of my eyes and I had to sit alone, in that big empty room, and listen to the silence that you suddenly had left behind.
People told me that it would’ve gone better over time. It does not, and now that I know I am even more mad than I was before. Who would ever lie to someone that has just lost the most important person of their life? Who could ever say such a thing, making them hopeful for a future that would never come? No, it doesn't get better. You just get used to the fact that life changes so drastically, all of a sudden, a random Tuesday afternoon, while everybody else’s is still the same, and you have to figure out a way to live with that shift for the rest of your life. It alters your brain chemistry, and never for the better.
For many things I do not feel the same as before. I need to find an equilibrium again, but despite telling myself this same thing over and over again, every single day, it seems like I can’t ever reach it. It’s killing me, Ava. Truth is, I am stuck. I am stuck between missing you, believing that you’ll be back and the knowledge that our time is over and it is time for me to move on. You told me yourself to go live my life, yet here I am stuck in the same place as I was 365 days ago. It feels like I’m sitting in the waiting room and I am waiting for someone to call me out of here, but it is a trap. There is nobody there for me, I came the wrong day, and I have to leave now. I know it is not my time, I am still missing some pieces of my puzzle. My life is not complete, I cannot go yet and whoever calls people out the waiting rooms knows it and keeps looking through me, over me. Still, I can’t seem to find the strength to get up on my own and leave.
I think you took my serotonin away. Before you came into my life I wasn’t exactly a happy person, but I still lived my life normally without worrying too much about anything other than being the best one in training and proving to myself that I could try to do more. Now, some days, I cannot even get up from my own bed. I can’t bring myself to open my eyes, because for a couple of seconds I can pretend you’re there with me.
It happens often, to be completely honest way more often than I think it would be considered as healthy. But Goodness, Ava, the moment I wake up, for a good full second, you’re still there. The Holy War has not started yet, the fight is going to happen tomorrow. For that one instant, I’m remembering the plans that we made the previous day, and I remember that I wanted to surprise you with some flowers. I remember that it made me feel warm inside, knowing that there was something between us, that there was something to look forward to, after the fight. Then the memories come flooding in, and despite trying to keep my eyes shut for a little longer, the moment is gone and you left with it.
I met someone new, while you were away. I think you met them, and you didn’t like them. To be fair, nobody really likes them. They’re heavy, they are everywhere I turn and they’re in my every breath. The Sisters suggested that I find ways to get rid of them, but I am starting to grow fond of them. They’re with me from the moment I wake up to the moment I close my eyes and drive off to sleep, even though sometimes their presence makes it hard to reach that kind of quietness that one usually aspires to before falling asleep. They never let me go, and while at first it was too much, now I am starting to realize that I am not sure I remember a time in which they didn’t exist. Sometimes, when I think really hard about you they disappear and it feels nice, but when they’re away for too long I feel weird, almost as if I am not supposed to go anywhere without them. Their name is Panic, and they’ve been with me for 365 days now.
They only really let me go in my dreams, and I do not feel bad for leaving them behind. In my dreams, we are still together and it is as if nothing has ever happened. To be fair, nothing actually happened. You're not really there, you're not real, so everything that is there is simply a trick that my mind is playing on me, but I let it happen because, at least for those couple of hours, we are together. There's nothing else but us, no worries, no fears, no weight of anything on our shoulders and chests. We are perfect for each other, there isn't anything that stands in the way to make our two pieces of puzzle fit together. Our only job is to be together, at least in the dream. I hate that I always wake up after them.
I think that one of the worst things is that I never had the chance to tell you everything I ever wanted to. I never got to tell you how sorry I was for putting you to sleep, the first time we met each other, and I never said that I am sorry for laughing at you the first time Mary hit you straight in the face because you weren't fast enough to doge the lunch. I was not making fun of you, I just didn't know how else to react. I hated that I didn't know what you were doing to me, and you weren't even trying. You were simply being you, and I was acting like an idiot and I couldn't help it. I wish we had the time to understand, to observe. I wish I could've stopped and looked at the way your hair was blowing in the wind when we were running through the mountains in Switzerland, and I wish I allowed myself to sit back to grasp the moment and make it a new complete memory to look back at the moment you would've left. I still remember everything, and I will keep those memories close to my heart. Each one of them is precious, and I will never let a single moment go.
I hate that you became the saddest part of me. You once used to be the reason for all my smiles, but now the only thought of you makes me break down despite all the time that has passed. I cannot talk about you to anyone, because the voice dies in my throat and my eyesight becomes blurry. You are the saddest part of me and my lesson. You taught me what love is and what love could be, but you also taught me what dying feels like. I now know what it feels to have a piece of you die, and I am not ready to let a new one be reborn from the ashes you left behind. My heart is still beating, it is not fully broken, but I feel it moving inside my chest and I feel it shifting over time, against my will. I know something will come out of it, and it scares me, but you taught me to not be afraid of it. I know I will survive it. I don't know how or when, but I know I will.
God, Ava. I miss you. I miss everything about you, but I mostly miss your voice and the way it filled up my days. I never realised how much I longed for those rambling sessions until I didn't have them anymore. I can't believe I let them slip away through my fingers like that.
I'm sorry I didn't recognise how important they were. I'm sorry I didn't figure things out sooner, I definitely lost most of our times like that. I’m sorry I didn’t hold on to you for a little while longer, I was simply too scared I was going to be the reason you would've broken under my eyes. I am sorry I didn’t go in for a second kiss, I was afraid I was not going to be able to ever pull back. I am sorry I didn’t touch your hands one last time, I knew that I couldn't stand the feeling of them slipping away from my fingers. I am sorry I couldn’t let you go, I know that I caused you additional and unnecessary pain, but I wanted to look at you for a little bit longer. I am sorry I didn’t live like I promised you I would, but life is too scary without you by my side now. I am sorry I still can’t let you go, I am too afraid of forgetting about you.
I promise one day I will move on, but that day is not going to be today. Today I will mourn you a little while longer, and I hope you’ll understand. I need to listen to the silence you left behind, I need to remember how you filled it with your laughter. I want to close my eyes and find your smile behind them, and forget about the fact that, when I’ll open them again, you will not be there. Today I need to ignore the spinning world and stop, if not for the others at least for myself. I need to lick my wounds and hope that they will finally form a proper scar that will let me start moving again without the risk of having me bleed to death.
One day, I will look back at that scar and accept that it is part of me and it is okay. It will look like a thin white line against my skin and maybe people will ask me about it, or maybe not, but they’ll never know the full story anyway. I promise I will wear it with pride and joy, though. I will never let anyone place a tattoo over it, trying to hide it. I promise.
I just have to find a way to remember that being happy doesn't mean having given up. Truth is, part of me is scared of being happy again. I am scared that being happy will make me hopeful for the future, just to come and bite back even harder than before. Mostly, I am scared that being happy means making new memories and you’re not going to be part of them. I do not want to remember new things that do not have your name and your face written everywhere. It makes me feel as if doing that would signify giving up on you and I don’t want to. I haven’t given up on you, Ava. I haven’t given up on us, on what could’ve been and might never will.
Come home, Ava. I am still waiting for you. I will never stop waiting for you.
I love you, still.
I hope you heard it, wherever you are.
Your love,
Bea