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Dear Xavier,
The first time I saw you, it was as if something had collided with my chest. The big bang happened in that classroom. My heart had exploded into a whole new version of the cosmos, something grew where there was nothing but expansive emptiness before.
I could feel the weight on your shoulders from across the classroom– heavy and encumbered. Did they really need to put all of it on you? You are but a boy, a sweet sweet boy.
I could see it in the deep pools of your eyes. The blue hues that sparkled like the night sky. The specs of light that look like stars when the sun is in your eyes. The deep set bags under them. You were tired. How often did you go from school to swordsmanship practise? How many balls did you attend in your father’s place on a school night? He saw his legacy in you, and yet let duty sink you. You would suffocate in your own dark depths of the space they had put between you and your peers. I needed to save you that day. When you were being dragged back and forward. I could see it in your eyes. You needed a friend.
I had no true plan when I dragged you away from your guards, yet I would have hidden with you under the bleachers forever. It was the first time you smiled at me. The way that your hair changed colours in the light. It was as if you had produced Haley's comet and gifted it to me. I would lasso the moon down and pull it for you if I thought that you wanted it. If I thought that it would unburden you from the responsibilities that you never asked for. No one should have to live in the shadow of a whole planet, line of succession that had come before you. I know you never wanted this life, and I would take your role if I could for you.
I am but a sickly commoner girl. What do I know about duty? About sacrifice? I watch you every day stagger into class and try not to fall asleep, you often do. I don’t mind. It is the only time I see you peaceful. Your eyelashes flutter shut and your dreams see your smile, and so do I. Do you know the freckles on your face if I connected them would look like libra? I trace them over and over again with my fingers while you rest beside me. I would give you 100 pages of my notes if it meant you would sleep beside me. I can tell when you are dreaming happy thoughts, the small lights dance around me like fireflies and fairies. They distract me from Shakespeare but I do not mind. Will I need to be able to recite hamlet where I am going? I don’t truly believe so.
Oh my starlight, my beautiful boy. I need to confess things to you that I should have said when I truly still had the chance. You were my salvation, my moments of peace in this cruel dark world. I knew a long time ago that they would never try to save my poor soul. I was never afraid of dying until I met you. I saw you that day and I felt a sadness I’d never felt before. I saw a life with you. There are things I will not get to do with you, not anymore. I will never be able to have you come home to me. I will never walk down an aisle to you. I will watch you read our children to sleep, I will never see you graduate, or see you be king. Perhaps that last one makes me happy. I know you don’t want it, my beautiful boy. I hope that in the next life, if there is a next life, I will get to see these things with you. Perhaps we will be the very stars and meteors that we looked upon that night. The one that truly made me know that I was making the right choice, spending my night there with you. You helped me resolve all my wishes.
Xavier, I must confess, finally. That I loved you, as deeply as the ocean and as vast as the universe around us. I am sorry that I was too much of a coward to say these things to you when I was by your side. I hope that you will be able to see me in the simple pleasures now that I am gone. I want to be a part of the trees, I want to be the wind that touches your face before it rains. I want to be the ray of sunlight after the storm passes. I want to be the first snowfall and the last night of summer. I want to be the warmth on your skin in the midspring evening. I want to be the cat you pet on your way home from work and the song you hum as you wash the dishes.
While I wish I was beside you, please keep me in your heart, as I have kept you in mine. You are my guiding star. I will follow you whenever you go.
I love you Xavier Shen. Thank you for seeing the meteor shower with me, and fulfilling a dying girl’s wish. Thank you for letting me love you even when I didn’t know how to love you. I think I do now.
I love you more than the cosmos allows me too and may it consume my heart and birth me anew so that I can return to you.
Dear Xavier,
Xavier, from the moment I saw you, I knew that I was in love with you. The way you lit up when the grandis knight introduced me is engraved into the back of my eyelids. I’ve never met anyone who was so happy to see someone they had never met before. I remember how you lit up the room as we duelled for the first time. The way you asked me about what I thought of the constellation libra, and the way you explained the star maps to me. You have always held yourself so high up, so above it all. I don’t know how you do it, even after all these years. After all we know now, how do you do it? I’ve never seen you look back, never seen you regret a singular decision? How do you not question yourself? How do you not linger when there is nothing left to truly say?
I know that you don’t love me, but please let me get this off my chest now that you’re going to be leaving the planet. You’re looking for your guiding star, looking for ways to save her without me. I will do the part that I swore to you that I will do, I will take the path of least resistance. I will break my heart into pieces so that I can make yours whole again. That is my duty as your grandis knight. You may never take the throne, but to me, you are my king. I have sworn my life to you. I will protect you, I will love you with my whole heart because that is what I have always been meant to do. What I have been taught to do.
Xavier. My dreams weren’t my dreams until I met you. The lightseekers, being a knight, being the grandis knight.. It meant I could stay by your side without anyone trying to take you away from me. So why are you removing yourself from me? I cannot fight you, Xavier. I do not have the stomach for it. I don’t want you to go, Xavier. Why can’t you just stay here with me? We could have a family. We could rule together. It would be beautiful. I understand that she is everything to you. I understand that she is living a lifetime of suffering…
You told me once that you never wanted me to serve another monarch. What if I want to be your only star in the night sky? What if I want to be the only person who has your affections?
Xavier, you are more than just my best friend. My closest companion. My partner in crime. You are the moon in the night sky for me. You light up my world when it is dark and you guide me to the places I’m meant to be. The places that keep me safe. I know I can do it without you, but I don’t want to. Please don’t make me go alone.
Let’s run away to Uluru, Xavier. Please. Don’t get on that ship. I will be lost without you, Xavier. I love you. Please. Stay.
“Xavier? Who are these from?” You called out to him as you held up a letter that looked as though it was about to crumble to dust within your fingers. The colour had faded and the ink was well worn. You couldn’t make out the words on the pages as you tried to read it. The stationery was cute, girly. A periwinkle purple and covered in stars. You’d never seen it before, but you and Xavier were moving in together after 5 years of being neighbours. Your lease was up and he suggested that you moved into his place. It was bigger and better maintained than your unit downstairs so you happily accepted. The other was a lighter more muted colour, seemingly clean paper. Understated. Big ink stains across the page as if it was written in a hurry. You read three words on the second letter before closing it again.
While you knew Xavier had skeletons in the closet, you did not know that perhaps there were past lovers in the mix. You frowned as you played with the creases in the paper. It had been well preserved over the years, clearly meant a great deal to him. You hadn’t meant to find it. You had moved a book that had led to a box. The letter and a small woven star was inside. The star was also well loved, battered and dirtied. You placed the things back in the box and took them to Xavier who was currently on the couch, going through old music that he had collected, trying to minimise the tapes and records to his favourites. It was difficult for him.
“Xavier…?” You asked carefully, holding the box out. He glanced up. His eyes changed as he saw the box, for just a moment before he looked away again. Xavier was hiding his true emotions.
“You should put that back.” He murmured, as he sorted through the box.
“Are they important to you?” You replied, your eyes narrowed on him, watching his every reaction.
“Yes.”
“They are from women.”
“Woman.”
“You loved her?”
Xavier took a deep breath and stared at you.
“I love you. She isn’t here anymore.”
“oh…I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright… please put it back…”
Dear Xavier,
The day you came into my life was the day it truly started. I thought that whenever you appeared it meant trouble in the beginning. That you were aloof, distant, cold. I realised quickly that you aren’t those things. You’re always trying to play a role, a role you don’t truly fit. You have so many masks that you’ve forgotten the man inside, but i see you. I see that you are hurting.
I don’t want you to feel as though you have to hide yourself around me. I want to get to know you, I want to love you, Xavier. You are a part of me that I never knew I had lost until you walked, well you were asleep… but walked into my life.
Your blue eyes are my whole sky and my sea. Your smile is my star. Your hair, my moon and my sun.
You stand so firm so tall and reliant in my life that I don’t know what I’d do without you. My little star prince. No matter where you go your light touches me. The day I almost lost you, I was scared. Xavier, my life isn’t complete with you. You look out for me and I look out for you, okay? I need you to let me know when it’s okay to rest and to make sure that I am not getting overwhelmed. Will you let me do that for you as well?
You know I don’t think I’ll ever be truly able to say I fit with anyone better than you. I’ve never had someone truly try and get to know me before, and I’m honestly so grateful to have you in my life. I don’t think anyone will ever replace you in my heart. I look at you and I feel home, like this is exactly where I am meant to be... and even after everything, it’s still you. Just know that I am always going to be looking out for you because I care and appreciate you so much. I really do love you. I love everything about you, and yeah, sometimes I wish I didn’t because everything would be simple then, and I’m sorry to admit it and maybe ruin the perfect balance that we have.
I know you have your walls up, but I truly think that one day you will understand that I love you and I have been drawn to you since the moment we met. Everything about you is so wonderful to me. Everytime you step into my life you have made my life significantly better. Please let me lift you up when I am down, like you do to me.
When my gran died, you were there to help me clean my apartment. You fed me, you helped me shower. You did my laundry and held me when I cried. I truly. I owe you so much Xavier. You are the kindest, sweetest soul I have ever met. And I love you. Xavier I love you. I love you so much. You have got me writing diary entries again, love songs and poems. I could never read them to you. They’re so embarrassing, nothing like the ones you recite to me under the stars when I can't sleep.
Maybe I can show one to you….
You and I
Have so much love,
That it
Burns like a fire,
In which we bake a lump of clay
Moulded into a figure of you
And a figure of me.
My dearest guiding star,
You orbit me as though I am the sun and you are the planets, and yet I see oppositely. You are my sun. I am cold and dark without you. You make me feel seen and whole whenever your rays touch my soul, it is like the first time you touched me again, I relive it then and there. How warm and real your hand felt on my wrist as you dragged me under those bleachers. I could have kissed you then and there, but I was scared. I was scared you would evaporate under my touch, I did not want to scare you.
Everything I’ve ever done is for you, I would burn everything to the ground if it meant you would be warm. I would take my bones to hell and bring you back out alive just to spend eternity with you. My light, my stars, my universe. You don’t get it, you never get it. There is no end to my love.
I will love you with my every breath of my meaning. I offer my soul, my life, and my existence to make sure that you, you are never in suffering or in pain. I hate what they did to you on Philos. They made you a martyr for their own salvation. When I realised it was you, I was sick to my stomach. I wanted to tear my hair out, I couldn’t face you for so long, not without finding a way to save you. I would trade all of philos, all of earth to keep you alive and well. I don’t care. Take them all away, they do not matter. YOU. matter.
My beloved you remind me of warm winter days under blankets and hot chocolate. You remind me of meteor showers and secret birthday cakes in the school locker rooms. The countless duels, the bloodshed and perseverance. You are so stubborn so strong willed, my queen. Your majesty, I want your forgiveness. I, I left you there on that planet. Alone. I’m so sorry. I thought I was doing the right thing, I still think I’m doing the right thing. I know you were waiting for me, and I never came home and that must have hurt so much. You wanted me to stay and I couldn’t.
This is the lifetime I refuse to mess up. I won’t mess up this time. I won’t lose you again through the cracks in my fingers. I would rather fall on my own sword than let the backtrackers hurt you. I would rather destroy ever for every scratch on your head.
I love you, my guiding star.
Those letters you found. They’re all from you, pleading with me, confessing your love. I orbit you and you let the light rise in my life whenever you smile. Please guide me home to your arms. I miss the scent of my home.
You will always be my home, the one who sees the man through the fragments that are left from my countless lives. You are the glue that holds me together.
And I will love you. I will love you and I will love you.
Forever and always.
Your beloved,
Xavier Shen.