Chapter Text
From: Maraiah Queen Arceta <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Date: Apr 8, 2025 at 2:43PM
Mikha,
It was your idea to park outside McDonald’s that first night. We weren’t friends then, not by a long shot. I was just a friend of a friend, laughing along and desperately trying to decode your conversations.
I remember the perfume you wore, something sweet and fresh—ocean scented. Like sunburn and sand and sea urchins dipped in vinegar. I remember laughing about a joke you made—about Jhoanna being ‘glass half-stupid’. Maybe I laughed too loud, because that made you look at me from the driver’s seat. You gave me your signature slow, overwhelming, infuriatingly gorgeous smile. And not to be dramatic, but I died a little.
I remember the way you snuck up behind me when we were buying groceries. I jumped and fell on the carefully stacked canned goods, and they asked us to leave. We made love for the first time that night, on my bed, surrounded by the fresh laundry I was too lazy to fold.
Anyway, I know this is weird. Me, writing to you out of nowhere. But I saw you last week, at a home fragrance kiosk at the mall. You had your hair tied up in a way you never did when we were together. I wish I didn’t recognize you that quickly, I wish I had to squint to make sure it was you. But I didn’t even have to think twice, I didn’t have to see you up close. It’s more visceral, the way I could spot you from a distance—a feeling of recognition specific only to me.
For the longest time, I have been feigning ambivalence, pretending your absence doesn’t feel like being buried alive. And I know two years ago we both said this was for the best. But why am I still suffering? I still love you, Mikha. None of that has changed.
Maybe this is another one of my warped declarations of love, as you used to point out, and I’m sorry if I’m intruding again. I know you have a different life now and that whatever I feel is no longer your burden to bear, but I miss you.
I don’t know if you’re with someone else, and, frankly, I don’t care. Please come back to me. Pick me up in the middle of the night again, or tease me when you get off the shower, or piss me off again—leave towels anywhere, or say something inappropriate, or give me that smug, irritating look when I’m wrong and you’re right.
Don’t get married to someone else. I’ll carry our children for us. Our kids will have your voice, and my sense of humor, and our allergies, and our ability to rot in bed for days, and our recurring nightmares, and your skin, and your skin. God, I love your skin. I’ll make sure our kids will be both of us, I’ll make science find a way.
Sorry I’m all over the place. What I really want to say is that I have changed a hundred different ways since you last saw me, but I’m still yours. I’ll always be yours. Signed, sealed, delivered. I’m so grateful that you loved me. And whether you write back or not, I hope I loved you enough for it to stay with you for the rest of your days. Use it when you feel ugly, or in moments you start hating your body, or when you feel guilty about consuming sugar.
I hope I loved you enough for you to think about me with grace.
Yours, always and always,
Aiah