Loving you has always been a bit like trying to catch a fist full of smoke. The inability to pinpoint anything in the vast cloud of grey fog is frustrating at times, the taste is heavy on my tongue and it stings at my eyes to the point of near blinding. But I know it’s there, slipping through my fingers and caressing my skin.

I love your smile. The way it crinkles all the way up to your eyes and pushes at your cheeks. Your voice, the way it dips and curves, it sends chills down my spine. I love the way you move around me, peals of laughter warming the otherwise fridged air when we run into each other in our too small kitchen or the heavy weight of the surrounding air when you press against me in the shower as you insist that there is enough room for two.

It drives me crazy when you tuck my body against yours at night. Your arm curled around my waist and your breath hot against the back of my neck as your scent surrounds me. Your presences protects me from the darkness and fear, the haunting bad dreams shrink into nothing when you are around and I vaguely hope that I offer the same protection against your demons too.

I sometimes think that the mornings I spend with you are my favorite. The quiet chirps of the birds in the trees outside of our window is the only alarm we need. You have this way of rolling over before your eyes have ever even opened and sleep still clings to your eyelashes. You greet my morning with a kiss, lips chapped and the taste of your toothpaste from the night before is faint and the lingering taste hours of sleeping with your mouth open is heavy, but I don’t mind. Kissing you is like heaven to me. It sends a tingle down my spine and curls my toes and my heart never knows which rhythm to follow.

Some mornings your hands wander, your warm palms pressed to my bare hips as you let the slow dawn of the day be your guide and I match each lazy movement with a sleepy grin of my own. The sun just breaks the horizon in hues of gold and pink against the early morning grey when you collapse next to me with love in your eyes and promises on your lips and my name is the first sigh on your tongue as you savor each syllable.

Breakfast is always nice, the coffee strong and sweet as your fingers play with mine from across the table. Your voice is soothing as you mindlessly fill in the void of silence, going over whatever schedules we have for the day. “You work today from 11 to 2” you would sometimes remind me, as though I might have forgotten. Your smirk is always sweet as you scoff at my “I know”s.

I like the way you remind me, though. I like the fact that I am important to you. I like the way that you care enough to memorize my life as I have memorized yours.

In the evenings, silence is comfortable between us. Sometimes we’ll watch TV, your head in my lap and my fingers in your hair. Other times, we do nothing.

I know you are lost in thought when the silence is too heavy, the memories of your past are bitter.

It hurts when you look up at me and smile during these times, because I know you aren’t looking at me. That smile is not mine nor is the love and adoration in your eyes. Your heart only knows of him in these moments, and there is no room left for me. Your touch is cold and foreign and I hate it.

But I understand.

I smile for your sake, so you can lose yourself in those memories and ease the pain even if just for one night.

In bed, it is not my name on your lips, but his. You don’t feel my body beneath your finger tips and your mind is filled with nothing but thoughts and memories and the hallucinated senses that are never actually there. It’s okay though, because, I understand.

I know no amount of love and care and duct tape will ever be enough to put back together those pieces that he shattered, and I have known that since the beginning.

You have always been broken, a man that can no longer look at the world without the pang of heart break, whose own name sends chills down his spine because all he can think about is the way he said it.  

And I accept this.

I accept that this is who you are and I know that I will never take his place; I am mere seconds because your world still revolves around him.

But I also know that you are someone else entirely. You are the pages in the books that you immerse yourself in, and the songs that get stuck in your head when we are driving around town. You are your thoughts, dark and silent, and yet, so warm like the coffee we share each day. You are the name you choose to go by, and the one that you have left behind. You are a thousand things more than those million things that you are not, and I can see that.

You carry this pain with you every day, in hopes of finding a way to kill it. Or perhaps you are waiting for it to kill you?

I would still understand if you were, you know?

I’ve loved you since the beginning, since before him. From the first time I saw you, I felt the strings of my heart pulling and I knew that you had me within your grasp, but, I missed my chanced.

The happiness in your eyes when you looked at him and the joy in your voice when you spoke to him, I always knew that I’d never be able to compete… and I didn’t want to.

You two were perfect together and even I, a love sick fool, could see that. I was content with being your friend, as long as I could be selfish enough to have you in my life, I was happy. I didn’t need anymore because I hadn’t had the addicting taste of your love, I couldn’t long for something that I had never experienced. I could smile with ease and laugh and joke around because you were my friend and nothing more and that was all I had ever needed.

But that night, you came to me with tears in your eyes and a voice long gone.

I fell even harder that night, when you came to me for help, for comfort. I held you close, your head on my chest as I whispered the only things that could come to mind as my heart raced beneath you. This was never how I imagined us; I had never wanted this to happen.

But, I couldn't shake the feeling, or clear the thoughts within my head that told me to make you better. To fix you. To put back together those broken pieces even though the thought was almost laughable because you loved him with every fiber of your being and I knew right then that this wouldn't be the last time you cried.

For a while you were just sort of there. You followed me, you lived your life and people thought you had moved on, that you were ready to start a new relationship with me, to have fun and do stupid things and dance and be yourself, but I knew better. How could you move on when his fingers prints were all over your heart and his voice still echoed in your head and every time your mind would so much as stray, it would go directly to him. His love was like a vice, and you never got away.

The night that Do Kyungsoo died, Kim Jongin did too.

Sure, you existed, but you didn't really mean anything anymore.

But, I wasn’t willing to let go. I fell in love with you harder than ever before. I fell in love with Kai, with the way he would smile at me and treat me as though I were the best thing to have ever happened to him. The way he loved me, it was all I had ever wanted. He was never you though, and you were all I had ever wanted.

I should have known better. I shouldn’t have let you get this far. I should have told you to stop. It wasn’t healthy for you to love me and Kyungsoo. Your heart wasn’t ready to let go, and you weren’t ready to give up.

But you still did.

God, there is still so much I have left to tell you. I have so much left to ask you.

I love you.

I love you.

I…

I brought daisies today. I thought they would look nice. I’m not sure if you or Kyungsoo liked them, but he said they were pretty and the weather is nice today and the white petals against the blue sky looks nice. I think you would have enjoyed them.

Then again, I wouldn’t have grass stains on my pants and flowers in my hands if you were here to see it, now would I?

I’m not mad at you, by the way. I understand, I really do.

I think that’s why I’m moving on. I’m letting you go. I’m not going to continue this cycle, it’s unhealthy. I am holding onto something that was never mine, harboring on feelings that belonged to another and all I’m going to do is cause a wider circle of pain.

This is the last day I’ll visit you, after this… it will just be you and him. Forever. And that’s okay. That’s the way it should be.

Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.

At least, I think I will. I gave him my hand, and he gave me his heart and… I think I know what you and Kyungsoo had now, Kai.

I really do.

Not quite what I had planned for, but I hope you like it nontheless. 

Cuddles,
Lynn