Chapter 33 #2
But I think my biggest regret is never telling you that I love you. Because of course I do. I did when you were here, and I still do now. I just didn’t know how to say it. I wish I could go back and say it.
I still miss you, sunshine. My life has been colder without you in it.
I love you.
Merry Christmas, Sunshine.
Today kind of fucking sucks, if I’m being honest. It’s the first day in months where I’ve thought it would be really great to just get blackout drunk and skip the whole holiday.
And I know I should reach out to someone, but I don’t want to bother my therapist or my friends when they’re spending time with their families, so… I’m writing to you instead.
I got a Christmas tree, and I pulled out the boxes of decorations you put away last year, but I couldn’t bring myself to open them.
So I have a naked tree in my entryway for no reason at all, other than the fact that when I look at it, I think of you.
Before you, holidays were just another day on my calendar, but this year hits different after getting to spend them with you.
I miss you every day, but today feels extra hard.
I can’t help but think of last Thanksgiving and how incredible it was to feel like I was a part of a family for the first time ever.
Or about how you forced me to get a Christmas tree (and the little bit of bondage fun we had with the extra string of lights after), or our slow, lazy Christmas morning together when we slept in late and watched movies on the couch all day.
We didn’t even exchange gifts because our relationship was too new for something like that, but everything about that day was perfect.
I wish I could call you today. I would give anything to hear your voice. I want to say hello to Nancy and Whit and Mandy and close my eyes and pretend I’m there. I want to eat cookies and watch movies and be wrapped up in your arms where I feel the most at home.
But instead it’ll just be me and Aggie watching movies on the couch by ourselves.
And you know…it’s in those quiet moments that I have learned to fully appreciate the gift that you gave me by loving me.
Before you, I didn’t even know I had access to that kind of love.
I thought maybe it just wasn’t meant for me.
But even after all these months, it echoes deep in my soul—that steady, enduring love that was so very real, and changed my life for the better.
And I know that no matter what, it’s something I’ll carry in my heart forever.
Thank you for loving me, Riley, even when I was so hard to love.
And thank you for showing me that I could love too, in a way I never imagined in my wildest dreams.
Hey Sunshine,
It’s been a while. Next month it will have been a whole year since I’ve seen you, and I have a lot of feelings about that.
I think I probably need to stop writing these now.
Part of me was hoping that maybe one day you’d see them somehow, and reach out…
but you could have done that with a text or a call or even a DM, and you never have, so I don’t know why I thought you might ever see these and they would change anything.
I feel a little embarrassed that I wrote them now, but it helped me process some of my feelings, and my therapist said that’s a good thing.
I don’t blame you at all for not reaching out, by the way.
With the way I left things between us that last day, I wouldn’t have reached out either if I were you.
I’m so, so sorry Riley. After nearly a year in therapy, I finally realize all of the things I did wrong from that fucking collab with Cooper to that last day in Palm Springs.
I’m so sorry that I didn’t know then. My therapist has told me over and over again that because of my past, I didn’t have the tools to be able to deal with any of it in a healthy way, and that the only thing I knew was toxic avoidance…
it’s hard for me to not feel like that’s making excuses though.
There’s no excuse for the way I treated you, and you were absolutely right to leave.
As much as I wanted to believe that it all would have been okay if we could have just ignored the bad parts and started over, I know now that would have only made things worse eventually.
You deserved so much better, and I’m glad you recognized that.
I’m sorry I couldn’t get it together before it got to the point that you felt like you had no choice but to leave.
I don’t think I’ll ever stop missing you, but I think I have to accept that you’ve moved on.
Your travel blog has been a huge hit, and it’s incredible that you’ve been able to turn something you always wanted to do into a job.
It feels a little like redemption, after you tried to do that with content creation and I fucked it all up for you.
The content you’re putting out now is reaching a much wider audience, and it’s so fucking cool to see.
I’m so proud of you, and it’s so obvious how happy you are.
I don’t know what’s going on with that Scott guy that travels with you sometimes, and I know I don’t have any right to be jealous…
so I’ll just say that I hope you’re happy and that he’s treating you well.
So…I guess that’s all. You deserve the world, Riley.
I will love you forever.