Letter to Dana
He saw her again when he least expected it.
There she was, sitting by a fountain absently staring at a spot in the distance, looking as radiant as he has always remembered. He was still in shock, completely unaware that his breath was stuck in his throat, when they locked eyes for a single moment.
She quickly averted her eyes, but that moment of recognition was more than enough for him to confirm what he had known for years: the girl he had fallen in love with was not there anymore. And even if she was, she was like a needle lost in a haystack.
He has lost her to the mundane world of the sane and the sober, to the world of lunch dates and small talk. A world where “how are you?” had turned from a legitimate question to a social convention without meaning or purpose, a world where free thought was dead and buried under layers upon layers of celebrity scandals, social media trends, makeup tutorials and reality shows. He has lost her to the blind unshaven beast called “reality”.
He had thought about this moment millions of times. He thought about what he would do if he were to see her again. However, nothing had prepared him for the anguish that he felt. He knew what he wanted to do, the letter was in his wallet: a letter he had carried with him for the past three years hoping for exactly this moment, a letter that was written on the day he found out that he had lost her forever — one out of hundreds he had started, but the only one he was capable of finishing.
Grow up, he thought to himself, the girl you are looking for is dead, and a few pages written by a drunk lunatic half-crazed with grief are not going to bring her back. It was a reasonable thought, one he would have considered had the situation involved anyone else, but reason was never part of the equation when it came to her.
Thoughts were flying through his head. He had no idea how to start that conversation, he was not even sure that he would be able to go through with it. He felt the panic rising to his throat, but none of it mattered. If there was even the slightest chance that the needle was still there, he was damned if he didn’t try to find it.
And so, he took a deep breath, and started walking towards her.
