Dear Brandon,

We won't forget each other... right?

1,584 hours since I was able to hold you for the last time.
66 mornings I've spent looking for you when I wake up, as if habit alone could bring you back.
Countless nights waiting for you, and since then, time no longer moves forward... it stays with me.
My affection is greater than anything measurable. Stronger than this absence. As unbearable as my heart.
We will no longer exist.
I wish I'd had the courage to tell you what I felt.
That my life felt fuller with you.
That everything about you inspired me.
That I admired your strength. Your resilience. Your way of being.
If I could turn back time, I would.
I would risk losing you sooner just to have had you, but I am a coward.
I chose to let you go...
I called it freedom because I didn't know how to call it fear.
Sometimes I think you remember me, that something in you resists, that your heart hesitates.
But if that were true, I wouldn't be here... in this reality where you are not, where we are not, where there is nothing.
Every day I return to the last time I saw you-
to your silhouette beneath my bedside lamps,
to your long hair, your smile brushing against mine,
and those eyes lingering on me as if they could read me.
I would be lying if I said I'm going to forget you, even though you no longer truly exist.
You were platonic, an unfinished idea, a love without a destination.

And that is how I will remember you.