Of Memories & Men November 2004 Click to view Table of Contents Click to view photo gallery Click to view cover story

Fiction

A Letter Unsent By Rasee govindani

Photograph by Shane Lavalette

March 25, 2004

We live in the same city, exist in the same time zone, feel the same wind against our skins and watch the same moon each night. When it rains, it rains on both of us.

I told you earlier this week that every time it rains I think about you. Every time. Ever since that rainy night almost two years ago when your motorcycle broke down and we went over to "rescue" you, a silly attempt to be part of a situation we had absolutely no way of dealing with. I remember that before we had even said more than a few words to each other, you circled the girl that was with me, the girl you had kissed, to stand beside me and ask me how I was. That was a difficult night because I had nothing to say to you, and watching you with her made my heart ache. But I got to stand in the rain and listen to you talk to your beautiful motorcycle and walk the muddy roads of one of the shadiest areas of the city to find you a place to stay, wishing that I could take you home and tuck you into my bed and be sure you were warm and safe that night.

Then there was that evening last year, on Mother's Day, when we met to see a movie we would both love so much. It was my second time and your first. When I was walking down my street towards Major it started to rain heavily and I was soaked to the skin almost immediately. My jeans survived, but my cotton shirt was damp and my hair wet. I was able to take a taxi the rest of the way, but you were on your motorcycle, and I knew you would have fared much worse. I was right. You were completely wet, down to your heavy jeans and socks. We both looked like puppies that had been left out in the rain--amused, annoyed and wet. I spelled your name out in alphabet crackers that day and you blushed and blushed. We held hands often during the movie because yours were always cold and mine always warm. When the credits started to roll you put your head on my shoulder and we sat in the dark theater for a while. It was one of the very best nights we have ever had.

The rain always makes me think of you. And you told me that the rain makes you think of me too. In the same city, at the same time, two people from different sides of the world hold each other close in their hearts. I wish that meant something. I wish you would come over to my house one rainy day and dance with me outside until we are both soaked, and then hold me tight and tell me you will never forget me.

Because I will never forget you. Hard as I may try, I will probably never forget the tall American boy that had my heart the instant I saw him and captured the rest of me the first time I saw him blush. I will never forget the boy whose scent always clings to my skin long after we have parted, whose smile can make everything right, and whose sense of humour matches mine so perfectly. You are everything I never thought I would experience ­ curiosity and quirkiness and passion and intelligence and kindness and courage, all wrapped into one very special boy that changed my world.

You are leaving this summer and it amuses me to realize that we won't be very far apart at all, with you studying in Mexico and me working in the country next door. We will not see each other for a while, perhaps a long while. I don't know where our lives are headed. Your plans change constantly and mine are never quite finalized so our journeys may take us away from each other, or bring us together. I am grateful that we were able to walk the same path for over a year, time that I never thought I would have when you left at the end of the summer of 2002. I thought I had lost you forever. You came back a few months later and you told me that I was one of the reasons you wanted to come back. That no longer feels true ­ it hasn't felt true for a long time ­ but I still hold on to it with a vengeance. It's a tiny part of your heart that you gave me, maybe unintentionally, and I intend to keep it for as long as I can.

We haven't been doing so well lately and a lot of times I think the rift between us is for the best because I care about you more than you will ever understand and be able to reciprocate. Unrequited affection is something I have become very accustomed to. I've missed you lately, though not enough to put my heart back on the line for you to accidentally break yet again. I've missed sitting next to you and the way you smell and listening to your voice and feeling like you will walk with me through absolutely anything. How did we drift so far apart? Sometimes I think I understand and sometimes I feel like the world was turned around when I was asleep, and now nothing makes sense. I shouldn't have told you that I had feelings for you. On that rainy full moon night we should have just talked about other things and you should have left before I decided to tell you what I did. You hugged me so tight that night and I believed we would be okay.

I was wrong this time. You lied to me.

I love you. I've never told you that and I may never tell you because I no longer have it in me to take that risk with you. If those words are to be said between us, you will have to say them first, or we will never hear it from each other. I can live with it. I feel much too bruised and battered to do any more than sit here and think about you in a corner of my mind, reliving beautiful times that sparkle like gems against other memories. One day, when I have the courage, those jewels will be wrapped in velvet and tucked away, with old love stories and boys that made me cry and others that taught me how to fly.