But I think there is a magical link between you and me. A bond that not even distance can break.
I don’t want to wake up when I’m seventy-four only to realize I haven’t lived.
You mentioned the other day that you think I’m only here to ‘outshine’ you. But that’s the furthest thing from the truth. I broke my engagement, quit my job, and traveled six hundred kilometers into war-torn land to be with you, Iris.
He found me on my darkest day. He followed me to war, to the front lines. He came between me and Death, taking wounds that were supposed to be mine.
And yet I keep moving forward. On some days, I’m afraid, but most days, I simply want to achieve those things I dream of.
But I realize that people are just people, and they carry their own set of fears, dreams, desires, pains, and mistakes. I can’t expect someone else to make me feel complete; I must find it on my own. And I think I was always writing for myself, to sort through my loss and worry and tangled ambitions. Even now, I think about how effortless it is to lose oneself in words, and yet also find who you are.
They would be friends until they both finally acknowledged the truth. And they would have everything that other couples had – the arguments and the hand-holding in the market and the gradual exploration of their bodies and the birthday celebrations and the journeys to new cities and the living as one and sharing a bed and the gradual sense of melting into each other. Their names would be entwined – Roman and Iris or Winnow and Kitt because could you truly have one without the other?
Even in the silence, I hope you will find the words you need to share.
But time will slowly heal you, as it is doing for me. There are good days and there are difficult days. Your grief will never fully fade; it will always be with you – a shadow you carry in your soul – but it will become fainter as your life becomes brighter. You will learn to live outside of it again, as impossible as that may sound. Others who share your pain will also help you heal. Because you are not alone. Not in your fear or your grief or your hopes or your dreams. You are not alone.
She has to survive this, Roman thought. He didn’t want to live in a world without her and her words.
You remove a piece of armor for them; you let the light stream in, even if it makes you wince. Perhaps that is how you learn to be soft yet strong, even in fear and uncertainty.
And I’m not afraid to be alone, but I’m tired of being the one left behind.
I am so afraid. And yet how I long to be vulnerable and brave when it comes to my own heart.
How do you make your life your own and not feel guilt over it?
My Iris,” he said, “there is no question that you are the brave one, all on your own. You were writing to me for weeks before I roused the courage to write you back. You walked into the Gazette and took me and my ego on without a blink. You were the one who came to the front lines, unafraid to look into the ugly face of war long before I did. I don’t know who I would be without you, but you have made me in all ways better than I ever was or could have ever hoped to be.
I don’t think you can even begin to understand what your words mean to me. Even if they were addressed to Forest in the beginning. You were a sister writing to her missing older brother. And I felt that pain as a brother who had lost the only sibling he ever had.
She realized this was her family now. That there were bonds that ran deeper than blood.
You don’t waste time worrying about things that won’t even matter in the end. Rather, you take a risk for that light.
Write me of hope and love, and hearts that endured. – EMILY DICKINSON.
A bond that not even distance can break.