Dear... Nicholas
I don’t know if you’ll ever know any of this. Maybe that’s why I’m writing it.
It’s strange to think that something that lasted such a short amount of time could stay with me for so long. We talked for only two weeks, three years ago. Maybe to you, those two weeks became a distant memory. Maybe you’ve forgotten them completely. I don’t know. But somehow, a small part of you stayed with me.
And then, three years later, in Paris, I saw someone I believed was you.
You walked past me.
And I did nothing.
It’s funny really... I am in YOUR city while being YOUR age. I don’t know if you remember but I said when we said our goodbyes maybe we’ll run into each other again years later in Paris.
I wish I had said your name. I wish I had been brave enough to say, “Hey, sorry, this is really random, but is your name Nicholas?” I rehearsed that stupid sentence so many times afterward that I lost count. I imagined every possible answer you could have given me. I was so afraid of embarrassing myself in front of you and your friends that I let the moment pass, and only afterward did I realize that not knowing hurt me more than any answer you could have given me.
I wanted another chance.
For days, I hoped I would see you again. I prepared myself. I promised myself that this time I would be brave. And somewhere along the way, I started imagining what could happen if you remembered me. Maybe we’d talk. Maybe we’d laugh about how strange it was that our paths crossed again after three years. Maybe we’d get to know the people we’d become.
Maybe there could finally be an us.
I know now that I let myself dream too far ahead.
But I need you to know something, even if these words never reach you.
You mattered to me.
I don’t know exactly what to call what I feel for you. Maybe you were my first love. Maybe you’re the person who taught me what it feels like to carry an unfinished story. Maybe I fell in love with the boy I knew three years ago, and part of my heart kept wondering who that boy became.
I wish I could have known you now.
There are so many questions I will probably never have answers to. Did you ever think about me again? Would you have recognized me if you saw me? Did those two weeks mean anything to you? What would you have said if I had called your name that night?
But I think I have to stop searching for answers that only you could give me.
I also want you to know that I prayed for you.
I asked Allah to protect you. I asked Him to guide you and give you a beautiful life. I even prayed that you would find someone who loves you the way you deserve to be loved. A woman that will give you everything I couldn’t. That is better than me in every aspect. I also asked him for forgiveness for you. After seeing you I started talking a lot to Allah again and I begged him for forgiveness for you.
You once opened about your past and your family. I prayed to Allah that the family you will build one day will be more blessed than the childhood me or you had. That your children will grow up with you as a great father because neither of us got that privilege.
That prayer hurt the most.
Because if I’m completely truthful, I wanted it to be me.
A selfish little part of my heart still does.
I wanted to be the woman who gets to know who you became. I wanted to hear about the last three years of your life. I wanted to sit across from you and realize that somehow, despite everything, we had found each other again.
My heart is thinking ‘I am full of love and I want to love him so why can’t I be that woman?’
But love if that’s what this is cannot only be about what I want.
So I am trying to let you go.
Not because you suddenly mean nothing to me. Not because those two weeks meant nothing. And not because seeing you again meant nothing.
I’m letting go because I cannot keep living inside a conversation that never happened.
I cannot keep waiting at the same imaginary door, hoping you’ll eventually walk through it.
Maybe our paths will cross again one day. Maybe they won’t. I have to learn to live a beautiful life either way.
So wherever you are, Nicholas, I hope you’re happy.
I hope you’re loved.
I hope you’ve grown into someone you’re proud to be.
I hope life is gentle with you.
And if you ever remember the girl you talked to for those two weeks three years ago, I hope you remember her kindly.
Because she remembers you kindly too.
I wish I had said hello.
I wish I had been brave.
I wish we had gotten one more chance.
If I could go back to that night in Paris, I would call your name. Even if you turned around and told me you didn’t remember me. Even if I was wrong and it wasn’t you at all. I would still do it, because I have learned that sometimes the questions we never ask hurt more than the answers we’re afraid to hear.
But more than anything, I’m grateful that, for however brief a moment, I got to know you at all.
Maybe you were never meant to be mine.
Life is cruel. Our love was ‘forbidden’ to begin with. Different religions with no future.
Maybe I was only meant to meet you, love you in whatever strange and unfinished way I did, pray for you, and eventually learn how to let you go.
I don’t know yet.
But I’m going to try.
Goodbye, Nicholas.
And for everything I never got to tell you:
I cared about you.
I remembered you.
I prayed for you.
And a part of me really did love you.
You were loved from far away.
I hope you have a beautiful life.