My Dearest Ann,
Joseph wrote in his hesitant, back-slanting left-handed scrawl, smearing the wet ink as he added the aborted tail of a comma. He wiped the heel of his hand on his bare thigh, cursing his clumsiness, but the words were still legible and he didn't want to start again for fear of losing momentum, so he let the blurred letters stand. The August heat made him feel drowsy and somber, the moisture in the air threatening to drown him. He slapped both cheeks briskly, felt the impact but not the sting.
This is important, he thought, and the words sounded good, the best to begin a letter of such far-reaching significance. They seemed to say "if you have never believed a word that I have said to you, if you've counted everything nothing more than the daydreams and rainbow palaces of a manipulating bastard, pay attention now." This letter, he knew, was what would matter. What would be remembered. Not the six months of the agonizing purity of her love and his complete and utter indifference. Not her dawning realization that his romance was merely a gift for poetry and a liar's golden tongue, not even the fading of her passion as his finally ignited far too late to make a difference. He skipped a line, indented.
This is important:
An eighteen-wheeler rolled past three stories below his tiny apartment, and the yellowed ivory pool of light from his reading lamp quivered on the scarred surface of the old writing desk. The empty blue lines on the page mocked him, daring him to try to fill them with something that would make a lasting impression upon Ann.
this is my last chance.
Good enough. No need to say that it was his last chance to never fade from her memory, as he was fading now. She would know. The important thing was not to think too much, to just write what came out and let her make sense of it. He didn't need to spell everything out. He assumed she knew him well enough to finish his sentences, read his thoughts into the words. And if she didn't? So much the better.
I used to dream of you every night,
She always found a way into dreams, in both the most bizarre and most commonplace stories she was there. A stranger in an intergalactic airport, a lover in a cheap hotel, an angel, a devil, a tree, a doe, a waitress -- but the worst were the times when she was just Ann, and he just Joe, and things were as they never had been. The waking was the hardest part of those dreams; she would dissolve in his arms and he would be alone, a ghost kiss lingering on his lips and a sob caught in his throat.
but now I don't dream at all.
That was both a blessing and a curse. His place of strongest longing and his only escape route were sealed up at the same time. "They say that if you can't dream, you go crazy." he said aloud, and thought about writing it, but didn't. He wasn't crazy, and she must not think so. But what to say next?
I know
What? What did he know? Joe placed his elbows on either side of the page, rested his head in his hands and framed his eyes with his fingers. It was an old habit that usually jump-started his creative impulse, but the wheels refused to turn. The only thing he could think of was "Jesus Christ died for my sins," a line from an old Sunday-school song. He chopped the sentence in half, and it seemed to somehow fit with what he wanted to say, so he wrote it.
Jesus Christ died.
The floodgates of his subconscious opened with that, and other dissociated phrases washed over him, snatches of popular songs, poems and stories, all disjointed and unworthy of his letter. He decided he shouldn't quote anyone else, lest she think he was using someone's else's words to express someone else's ideas. He leaned back in his chair, looked around the room, and his glance fell upon the dried remnants of the buttonier he had worn at their senior Prom.
Flowers fade...and so will I, but I don't want to.
There. She ought to understand that, if nothing else. It was simple but not obvious. He looked up again, studied the picture taken on that magic night: he looking more dashing and dapper than he ever did in day-to-day life, she looking even more beautiful than she always did. Her hand was on his chest, his around her waist.
I held you -- but you touched me.
And that was the basic problem, wasn't it? He had held her by his force of will, his turn of phrase, his adeptness at sleight-of-hand with flowers and candlelit dinners. But he had never really known her enough to touch her deep inside, the way she had gotten inside his head and planted her fatal hook. "I owned you, you loved me." he said out loud, and tears welled up in his eyes. Which was no good, no good at all. This wasn't the time for crying, it was the time to make sure he'd stand like an angel in her memory, to let her know how much he loved her. To make her miss him.
What is a body without a soul?
Too existentialist? Too maudlin? Perhaps. There is a thin line between depth of feeling and melodrama, but given the circumstances he thought even a touch of melodrama would be excused. No one would laugh at this letter. Especially Ann. "There is a hole in my heart, and it's shaped like you..." he said. No. That sounded too much like a line from a bad country-and-western song. It didn't have a poetic texture, didn't feel right on the tongue, and he suspected it wouldn't look right on the page, either. He glanced at the clock/radio: 2:23, it said, with the red LED lit for a.m. The night was slipping away. Joe turned off the reading lamp.
The page before him glowed in the light of the waning moon. He turned the radio on, leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes as music scratched tinnily from the clock's tiny speaker:
"Don't have to be your only one
Don't have to be something from now on
Don't have to be what I want at all
Just have to be unforgotten."
Exactly. The sobbing guitar and morose singer seemed to be performing for him alone. The song was about the letter and its planned postscript, about Ann, about everything. He decided to break his promise to himself not to quote anyone else, and wrote the line he thought most poignant, then added the brief refrain.
The truth is my one regret. I just have to be unforgotten.
Hopefully, she wouldn't know the words weren't his own. But even if she should find out, their meaning and impact wouldn't be erased. It was time to end the letter, he knew, and get on with the next step before it got too much later and he lost his will to either fatigue or nerves.
Someday, you will understand.
Nearly a quote, from Creedence Clearwater Revival, but also a valid thought. She would understand, of course. And it would be engraved in her memory for the rest of her life. She would be touched, the way she had touched him.
Love,
Is a curse, he thought, but only wrote the first word. He signed with his characteristic oversized "J," considered adding "u-d-a-s," but rejected the idea as crossing that fine melodramatic line. He picked up the page, surprised at the trembling of his fingers, and read the letter from top to bottom.
My dearest Ann,

This is important: this is my last chance. I used to dream of you every night, but now I don't dream at all.
I know Jesus Christ died. Flowers fade... and so will I, but I don't want to.
I held you -- but you touched me. What is a body without a soul?
The truth is my one regret. I just have to be unforgotten.
Someday, you will understand.
Love,
J.
Perfect. He pushed the chair back, walked into the bathroom and took off his clothes. He did not turn on the light. Miraculously, the water he ran into the rust-stained bathtub was hot from the first and remained so until the tub was filled. He eased himself into the bath, the heat relaxing his muscles and seeping into his bones. He didn't use the soap or shampoo, just sat until the heat and darkness had calmed the trembling in his hands. Then he picked up the gleaming metal chip he had placed there, using his ill-favored right hand. "Ah..." he said, as the blade slid into his wrist just below the palm; then a sharp "Sssssssssssssss" of indrawn breath as he drew it upwards to the crook of his elbow. He had always heard that it didn't hurt, but it did. He quickly did the same to his right arm, then slipped them both beneath the calm surface of the bath.
Ribbons of black began to cloud the water, and he let his head fall back and hang over the end of the tub, staring at the gloom and the dimly phosphorescent ceiling. It's an act of love -- to touch her the way she touched me, he thought. But as dizziness unfolded black flowers behind his eyes, the self-deception fell away. It wasn't about love, it was about power and deception, smoke and mirrors. Another way to hold her.
"Damn." He said, half-smiling. "The truth is my one regret."
Then the dark, warm tide enveloped him and he was swept away.