I swear I didn’t mean to send him that letter.

Yes, I revised it fifty-seven times, spent eighteen days fretting over which envelope to buy, and paid for first-class postage, but I didn’t really intend to drop it into a postal box. 

It was supposed to be a simple “cathartic exercise” to heal old wounds. Yet, after penning letters to every person I’d ever hurt, I set aside several blank pages for him. 

I wrote down all the ways I missed him and asked if he missed me, too. I told him that whenever I’m lying in bed at night—despite whatever guy may be sharing my sheets—I can’t help but remember all the times he handled me better. 

So much better.

He bent me over our high school bleachers after the home games. Made love to me in the backseat of an old-school Mustang. Devoured me in his father’s office while the mistress cooked in the kitchen downstairs. 

I penned rambling paragraphs of things I never wanted to forget and others that were better left unsaid. On page seven, my teardrops marred the lines so terribly that the sentence “I was so lonely,” read like “I was so horny.”

Then again, page eight featured nothing more than a drunken drawing of the time we were thousands of miles apart during one summer, so he’ll probably interpret it the proper way. 

None of those things concern me, though. 

The problem is on page eleven. 

Sixteen lines down, in the second to last paragraph, is a sentence that unravels every lie I’ve ever told him. It’s the one thing that will obliterate ‘us’ the moment he reads it. 

The post office sent me a delivery confirmation minutes ago, so I’m standing outside our old meetup spot with gasoline and matches. 

It’s almost time.

I’m prepared to set our world on fire before my words can beat me to it…