Dear Ryles, 
I just want to start off with: How have you been? I hope you and your family are staying safe, and that everybody is happy and healthy. Hopefully your mom doesn’t hate me too much now. I honestly don’t know where to begin. I know, I am probably the last person you’re thinking about or even want to hear from. But this isn’t for you, it’s for me. To get closure, and to have no regrets. You don’t have to respond if you don’t want to, or maybe you already blocked me and won’t even get this message—honestly I don’t blame you, but at least I can say that I tried. It’s not my intention to hurt you or ruin anything or that I have some kind of ulterior motive. I probably look super stupid messaging you after all these months; maybe you hate me or you’ve moved on with somebody else or you just don’t want to hear from me after all the pain I have put you through. I really debated even writing this. I just regret how I went about the break up. I never really told you everything I felt when we broke up. I really wanted to tell you all of this in person, but I cannot. I realized recently I wasn’t going to be able to see you next year walking through the hallways with your friends trying to get to class, and that you wouldn’t be able to hear my horrendous laugh all the way on the other side of the courtyard. And that life is not a movie where I’ll see you again in a couple years and I say all go this and we get a happy ending. This might just be the last time I ever talk to you. Well no pressure, I just hope this is my best piece of writing to you yet. I just want to say I’m sorry. I was holding onto all of this anger, frustration, and negativity for a long time. I took a lot of that out on you. I blamed you for everything that went wrong in our relationship. I am truly sorry, you didn’t deserve any of that—especially because throughout all of that you treated me with love and respect, like you always do. 
Honestly, leave it to me to write a super overdue, dramatic, and long explanation. But a long time ago you said you liked it when I wrote to you, so here I am. Initially when we first broke up, I admit I felt nothing. I was numb. I thought I was broken. I mean I wanted to feel something, but I think it was just so much to process and we had been letting it go on for so long that I just couldn’t sort out anything I was feeling. I distracted myself and blocked it all out, convincing myself I was fine. But with quarantine it’s just a lot of alone time; a lot of time spent by myself, inside my mind. I think we both know how dangerous our own thoughts can be. I thought I moved on and that I was over everything that happened. I smile bigger and laugh louder now. It gets a lot easier as the days turn into weeks and then months, but sometimes when I just stare out the window or as I lie down and look at the ceiling thoughts just creep into my head. I think about you, and random late night phone calls and late afternoon notes. I deleted all of our pictures, but I just can’t bring myself to delete the ones from Halloween. We looked so happy, but maybe one day. And you know what especially sucks, listening to sad break up songs and being able to relate to them. To think wow they totally understand the type of pain that I am in. But something that’s even worse is listening to love songs that I used to listen to when we were together. But I think that’s so ironic how amazed I was that there were songs that fully understood me and expressed what I was thinking and feeling while I was in love, but also for when I was heartbroken.
When we first broke up I thought maybe it was me. That it was my fault for not being good enough, that maybe I wasn’t satisfying you in our relationship. And then I was angry at you. I was mad at you for pushing me away. I was mad at you, because no matter how bad you hurt me I was willing to overlook it and forgive you every time; I was mad because I loved you so much I couldn’t hate you. It is only now that I realize I was doing the same thing too. I never really let you try to explain yourself or apologize, I just shut down and tried to hide how much that hurt me. We never really communicated or talked about what happened. Then later I couldn’t let it go and would make you feel guilty for it, which was absolutely horrible of me. Even when you tried to make up for it, all I could focus on was myself and how I felt. I didn’t even stop to consider how you might have felt. I blamed you for not being there when I needed you, but it feels like you needed me even more and I couldn’t be there for you. I hate myself for not being able to recognize that. That day when I gave you back your mom’s birthday gift and we had that whole talk, I missed you so much. I miss you now even. While we were walking side by side, bumping into each other and talking it just felt so familiar and comfortable. Call me cliche, but I felt like I truly understand what people mean when they say that somebody is their missing puzzle piece.
I just wish there was a way to know when the good times are before they are over. I wish I had done a lot of things differently and let you know just how much you had meant to me. I wish I held your hands more, and hugged you more. I wish I told you that I loved you more so that you didn’t have to doubt it. I never told you this, but the day I remember knowing I felt strongly about you was the day after I asked you to the spring formal freshman year. I remember thinking way before that how much I would love for my boyfriend in the future to wear my hair tie on his arm. Maybe for him to tie my hair with whenever I needed help, or to explain to other girls that asked about it that he had a girlfriend. Anyways, I tied the poster up with my hair tie, and the next day at school I saw you wearing it on your wrist. Even though it was all stretched out from the poster, it was sitting on your wrist like it always belonged there. I knew then that it must have been some kind of sign. But also it just showed how much you cared and thought of me. I wish the day after school you begged me to stay I didn’t walk away and leave you there. I wish I wrote you more notes and walked you to class. I wish I called you more. I wish that I wasn’t such a nervous wreck around you, I felt like I ruined a lot moments for us because of that. I wish that I could be able to tell you all of this in person without having you stand facing away from me and covering my face. I just mean I took all of those things for granted, because now I can’t do them anymore it’s all I can think about. 
I heard about this theory recently that there are alternate universes. Infinite versions of ourselves and our lives based on the different courses we take. Maybe what if out there somewhere, some version of you and me ended up together. Us being strong enough for each other and not giving up. We ended up doing long distance when I go down to San Diego in the fall and me coming back for prom. You attending San Diego with me and we spend the days at the beach and the nights dancing under streetlights. You driving us around and me changing the radio while we hold hands. I’m not sure if you remember but a while ago I told you I was obsessed with looking at wedding stuff. This is definitely childish and naive, but I would think about and plan out our wedding. What kind of dress I’d wear, the flowers, the music. I even wanted to reenact the iconic dance scene from Dirty Dancing when Patrick Swayze lifts Baby into the air. I don’t know, maybe alternate universe me gets to live out that dream. 
All of that kills me. It kills me to know that I am just going to be a stranger one day, somebody you used to know. You’ll forget my laugh, and the way my voice gets higher when I get nervous around you, and all of the secrets and things I shared with you. It kills me to know that I don’t remember how it feels to hold your hand in mine. It kills me to know you don’t need me anymore, that you won’t need me anymore. It kills me because I understood we had to break up because we kept hurting each other. We kept making mistakes, but I want to clarify that it wasn’t because I didn’t love you or we didn’t love each other enough. We were both young and stupid and we didn’t know how to stop hurting each other, but the love that was there was real. It kills me to think about the potential, what we could have had and wondering what our relationship would look like now if we hadn’t broken up. Thank you for teaching me what it meant to open yourself up and love somebody unconditionally. It’ll hurt the day you stop talking about me and thinking about me. Maybe I’m selfish, but it especially kills me to know that some other girl is going to get to end up with you. And she is going to be so lucky. You need to promise me that you’ll treat her better. You won’t be scared, and you’ll let her in and talk to her. But it’ll all be okay as long as you’re happy. I could live with that if it meant you were happier. You deserve happiness.
Sometimes I wish I just said fuck it and took you back the day I gave you the gift back. And then you gave me my scrunchie back and it felt like a slap in the face. I didn’t know what to say and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to reach out to you so badly, but I was scared of rejection and I don’t know if I could take it if you hated me. I knew I shouldn’t do that and put both of us through all of that over again. But it just feels wrong that you and I don’t end up together. But I understand now that it was for the better. At first all I could think about was those last couple of months starting from summer. The tension and unspoken words that poisoned our relationship. It just felt like we weren’t us and everything was wrong. But I moved past that, I have learned to look back and be thankful. I think of what we had and smile now. I can see all the love and growth, and I only want to think about those times. You really taught me so much, and you will always have a place in my heart as my first love. I will always love you. I just want to remind you, whatever you need I am always here for you to talk to.