With Love Always

Alyssa,

When we first met, I didn’t realize you would become my best friend and confidante. You were standing there outside the dorms, handing out flyers for Lucy Gray’s candle light vigil, and the way you talked to each and every person made me think, “Wow, I wish I were that friendly.” At first it was a passing thought, some stray thought that I didn’t think would come back to be relevant to me later. When you got to me, I just grabbed hold of one of the yellow papers, expecting to crumple it and throw it away when I got up to my room. But something in your eyes made me pause. Your dark eyes accused me, as if you could unravel every single thought I was thinking.

But that was just my guilt ready to eat me up before I had a chance to fight back. I muttered something, I’m sure, and expected to flee past you without rebuke—but you grabbed my wrist and stopped me right in my tracks. I stared back at you, only for you to smile at me and say, “Be kind to yourself.” Those were words I hadn’t heard in a long time. Each one sent a sucker punch to my chest.

Of course, I still fled. Just because we shared a moment didn’t mean I wasn’t a scared idiot, bolting at the first sign of danger—or basic human contact. Sometimes it was hard to tell.

I did show up at Lucy Gray’s vigil that weekend, but at the very edges where I could have been mistaken for just waiting for someone. I watched you light your candle and close your eyes, as if you were sending a special prayer just for Lucy to be found safe and sound. I was wishing her guardian angel had heard you, even though I would have said—if pressed—that I didn’t believe in those kinds of things. But even then I felt like you would have been able to see past my shell enough to sense the lie behind the feints.

I didn’t see you all semester long, but then again I was pretending not to look—to search through a crowd just to see if I could spot your face in the masses. It wasn’t impossible to think I might find you in the waves of movement among a student body of over seven thousand people. Maybe I thought it would be fate if I did spot you easily again. Judging from the organization of the vigil, I suspected you were pretty actively involved with the goings-on of the university.

But really, I did not expect a sign like your school picture blown-up, your name—Alyssa Song—right below, hanging in the lounge area. You were being recognized for volunteer work you had done for a few weeks during that semester. No wonder I hadn’t glimpsed you across the campus quads. You were out there being Wonder Woman while I was playing Animal Crossing in my dorm room or sneaking weed out in the student parking lot. Even then, I knew that you were too good for me—don’t look up at me and say that’s not true, you know it is—but I wanted to be near that kind of glow you had. If you could help other people, maybe you could help me too. That’s selfish, I know, but we can’t deny the truth that’s at the heart of us. But I wanted to be better. I really, really did.

A name, though. All I had was your name. Social media might have helped me out, but I wasn’t that brand of desperate. Instead, it was simple: I planned it, that I would just go up to you at one of the student soirees (yeah, okay, social media helped me out on that one, I’m not gonna lie) and talk to you. Just like normal people do. Chit-chat, small talk, whatever you wanna call it.

What I didn’t expect was to find you crying outside the building right when I had been expecting to make my fashionably-late entrance. Mascara was running down your face—no, you didn’t look like a raccoon—and you were crying in that kind of way that travels through your whole body—chest heaving, arms shaking, the whole gamut. If I had been your friend, I would have hugged you. But I was nothing. Nothing to you then, anyway.

“Uh, you okay?” I asked. (You’re probably smiling now because you’ll remember the tall girl in a hoodie and leggings, blonde hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. I was trying to look like I wasn’t trying to impress anyone. Not my best moment, I’ll confess. You probably thought I was a freak—or a stranger danger. But maybe it was okay ‘cuz I was a girl. I seemed nonthreatening in your vulnerable moment.)

You glanced up at me before dismissively looking away, a scoff falling from your lips. “Yeah. Just trying to forget about my asshole boyfriend.”

"Whoa," I thought. You hadn’t seemed like the swearing type. It was like watching a kitten try to hiss and be intimidating. (Sorry, Allie, you weren’t fooling anyone.)

I should probably have minded my own business and walked right past, ready to try this all over with you another day, but I’m so glad I didn’t.

“Do you want to go grab a cheeseburger or something?” I asked.

Your next sound was a hiccup. I could see the question in your eyes. "What? What’s up with this chick?" But then you kinda smiled—a score for me—and wiped at your eyes with a crumpled tissue. “Yeah,” you said. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

From that one night, sharing a combo meal in the parking lot of the nearest MacDonald’s, you and I realized a few things: we could make each other laugh pretty easily (you liked my impression of Donald Trump, remember?), you and I were both Leos (can’t decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing even now), and I think you noticed how I couldn’t keep my eyes off of you. Like, I took being attentive to the max. But I wasn’t thinking of being your girlfriend right then—hell, I thought the “asshole boyfriend” thing took me out of the running entirely. I was just trying to understand you, this person I had turned over and over as more of an idea in my head for so long. The least of it, though, was that I wanted to be the reason you smiled rather than a reason why you cried.

So here we are a year later, Alyssa. What do you think? Are you still smiling?

Kiss me if you are.

(I know. I’m a bigger sap than you thought I was. Sorry, not sorry.)

With love always,

Abigail