I waited patiently for him to drop the bomb I had no doubt was coming.

“You got the Tate Modern exhibition spot. Vaughn dropped out,” he said.

I couldn’t breathe.

The sensation was foreign, unwelcome. I tried pulling air into my lungs, but I couldn’t accept any oxygen. My body rejected it. It seemed to reject the very idea itself.

“Vaughn told me about your assemblage sculpture, said it was gorgeous and far more deserving than another piece of stone. I tend to agree with him on that point. He packed his belongings and left the premises earlier today. I’m terribly sorry, darling.”

“Where did he go?” I jumped out of the bed, clutching Papa’s shoulders as I stood in front of him.

He shook his head. “He didn’t say. I don’t think he wants to be found, Lenny. But I found this letter under your door when I walked in. Must’ve blown over to the other side.”

He reached for his pocket and passed me an envelope. I wanted to scream.

How could he let him leave?

How could he let—no, force me—to fall in love with Vaughn, then watch as he left me?

But he’d never intended Vaughn to leave, had he?

And then the inevitable dawned on me, heavy as the rocks Vaughn fought with to create art.

I was in love with him, wasn’t I?

He was psychotic, erratic, eccentric, and completely unlovable in any way…and that made me love him more. Because I knew how completely doomed he was. How much he needed it.

Our love was so much more than love. It stripped us of pride and anger and hate and insecurities. We were bare and beautiful and pure when we were together.

And now he is gone.

I clutched the letter in my fist, my hand shaking. The rest of me, too. I was losing it.

Papa stood and brought his lips to my forehead. “All those months, I gave you time to figure yourself out, Lenny. But I never went away. I was always here. Always loving, hoping, praying. It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. I love you now. Then. Always.”

Len,

The first time I saw you, you were reading a book, your back pressed against the fountain. It was an impactful moment in my life. Not because you were pretty (although you were very pretty, but also very young—I don’t think we liked each other the way we do today), but because I vividly remember being appalled by the cover.

It was a fantasy book. As such, the cover was full of colors, silhouettes, and faces. The composition was all wrong. I remember looking at it and scowling. It offended me on a personal level. I think that was the moment I realized I wanted to create symmetric, beautiful things.

The moment I found out I was going to be an artist, like my mom.

Then I looked up and saw your face, and again, it wasn’t symmetric (I hope you don’t mind).

Your eyes were huge, the rest of you small, which gave you an almost infant look. Your nose was sharp, your lips thin. Your blonde hair twisted in curls that were not perfect or carefully brushed. Yet, somehow, you were more beautiful than any beautiful girl I’d ever seen in my entire life.

I would later stumble across a line from Edgar Allan Poe that made sense of it all—he said there’s no superb beauty without some sort of strangeness in the proportions.

That explained why I had to talk to you, even though it wasn’t in my nature to speak to someone when completely unprovoked. I approached you, casting a shadow over your face, blocking the sun. I remember the moment you looked up and stared at me, because once you held my gaze, I couldn’t look away.

It wasn’t a good or exciting feeling. It was terrifying. I gave you a brownie because I needed to do something. But when it came down to eating my part of it, I couldn’t do it.

I was too nervous to eat.

From that day forward, I wouldn’t eat much in front of people in general.

I always wondered where you were, if we’d meet again, and as crazy as it sounds, it always felt like we might.

You never came.

Until you did.

Until you showed up at my school senior year.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t surprised when you didn’t move with Poppy and Edgar. I took it as a personal offense. Was I not good enough? Were you disgusted with me? By me?

You were pure, beautiful, talented, and carefully tucked in your own rich world of art, books, and music. I was torn, miles away, in a rich beach town I hated, a kid who’d seen and felt way more than he should have.

A part of me wanted our worlds to collide so I could burst yours and tear it to pieces, and another wished we’d never see each other again.