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Dear Harumi,
In only a few days, it will have been four years since the collapse of that building. Four years of you being buried under the rubble. Four years since I last saw your face.
I still think about the gaze we shared right before your fall. Every night, I lie in bed and remember how scared you looked. It leads me to wonder if there was ever regret, or if that had truly been what you wanted all this time.
You didn’t scream. You didn’t run. I watched you let yourself fall.
I couldn’t move. I wouldn’t have made it. You were too far. But I know I should have tried. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t regret not running to save you.
I was an idiot for not seeing through you sooner. An idiot for choosing to be blind, for not understanding you as thoroughly as I thought I could. You always sounded so genuine that I didn’t care to dig deeper. The realization only hit me when it was already too late.
But now, you’re dead.
I still ache at the sight of the word. I can’t bear to think about your name and that word in the same sentence. You’re really gone.
I should have saved you. I could have saved you. I know if only I had been quicker, more alert, I would have saved you. I’m haunted by the possibility. The thought of knowing you’d be here if it weren’t for me. Me and my responsibilities. Me and my mistakes.
When I close my eyes, I see you standing there. The image is branded on the back of my mind. I almost think that I see you in the corner of my eye when I’m walking too fast, but when I turn, I’ll see nothing but empty space. In crowded places, I look around for you, because maybe I had imagined your fall and it didn’t really happen after all, and you’re still out there, somewhere.
I struggle falling asleep because you always appear in my dreams. You caress my face, and I hold you close. You look into my eyes and I into yours, and you ask me if I want to try again. You tell me that you’re sorry, and that you want to make amends. I say yes. Every time, I say yes.
Your lips brush mine as you card your fingers through my hair. I hate that it’s not real, because it could – should – have been. Even sleeping, I dread waking up. Opening my eyes and not seeing you there shatters me. I mourn you every dusk and every dawn.
Four years.
Four years, and I still can’t let go.
I can never let you go. You were part of me, and you’ll always be. I reminisce about small moments. Moments in which you were only professing half-truths, I know, but it was still you.
I hold onto everything I know you’ve touched. I haven’t used the shirts I’ve lent you since you wore them. Sometimes, I swear I catch whiffs of your perfume in my room, but I know it’s impossible. It’s been far too long for anything I own to still be smelling like you. You only remain in memory.
The others think I’ve forgotten. They’re convinced that I think it’s long over, and that there’s nothing to be done anymore. I’ve gotten so good at not flinching when I hear your name that they don’t realize I’d give it all and then some just to see you in the distance again. Just to know you’re somewhere.
I can’t just move on and forget you. You matter too much. I’ll have to remember you for longer than I knew you, and it’s not fair.
“Join us,” you said the night of the apocalypse. To this day, I still wonder if you really meant that, or if it was only a trick. Did you really want to kill me? You had so many opportunities to do so. What was the point in asking me to join you if you wanted me to suffer?
You were holding back, that much I know. But you didn’t only want to hurt me, I’m sure. Did you want more from me? Did you want me to fight for you? To chase you until I no longer had legs to run? To beg you to please, please change your mind?
I would have done it. If I had known, I would have done it.
What did you want from me? The question gnaws at me. I need to know what you really thought of me. Your most unfeigned thoughts surrounding me. I could take your cries, your punches, your stabs. I could take it all for you to be honest.
You were such a contradiction in my life. The total opposite of me, yet so alike. I miss you like I’ve missed nothing else. I look at my own hands and imagine your fingers tangling in mine. I stare at my reflection in the mirror and hope to see you appear behind it, wrapping your arms around my neck. I grip my own shoulders, close my eyes, and try to convince myself that it’s you. I let my eyes drift to the ceiling when I’m lying down, and try to make out your shape in the shadows.
I miss you, Rumi. I miss you so much. I want you to be here, but you’re not coming back. You’ve given me more scars than I can count, both on my soul and my body, and yet you are my other half. I know you felt it too.
Why did you have to leave me?
I’ve run away from the Monastery many times these past four years. I feel the urge to escape because I know that if you are to be anywhere, it won’t be within these walls. Hiding is all you’ve known since the incident. I know you don’t like to be found.
I’ve written many letters for you. I’ve carved myself out for you. I wish you could be here to see it, the devotion, the endless dedication. I could have given you this.
My mother once told me I am too kind. She was wrong. If anything, I wasn’t kind enough. Had I been kinder, more patient, more tender, perhaps it would have saved you.
Everyone always seemed to think you were beyond saving, even yourself, but I knew you were better than that. It’s why I dug through the debris of the skyscraper you fell from. I searched for you until my hands were too raw, and my friends opted for dragging me away. They said it was for my own sake, but they just don’t understand.
I always believed.
If you really are out there like my heart tells me, then I hope – I pray – that I find you one day. I don’t know how much longer I can take the grief.
Most sincerely,
Lloyd.