A Face In The Crowd
5:51 p.m.

Dear ____,

For a little while I thought it was impossible for me to fall in love. The man of my dreams couldn't possibly exist, and I wasn't willing to settle for less. I was resigned to the fact and it didn't bother me. In fact there was a certain security in it; if I never loved, I would never be hurt.

I passed it off as a crush at first, and was disgusted with myself for it. I hadn't had a crush in a long time and was proud of that; what purpose did it ever serve, anyway? So I denied it to myself, told myself to get over it. And for a while I thought I did.

I'm not sure exactly when I stopped denying it to myself, but when I did, I realised that it was more than just a crush. I realised why I had stopped even being attracted to other guys, why the idea of having a boyfriend didn't even sound remotely appealing to me. I realised that when I pictured my dream guy, I pictured you. To a "T". Every last detail. Except for one.

You've been married for longer than I've been alive.

I feel dirty just writing that.

But dirty or no, it doesn't change how I feel. It doesn't change the fact that everything I do now is motivated by my desire to be worthy of you, to mean something to you. That's all I really want. I don't even want you to love me back; I know that's impossible anyway. I just want you to feel that your life is better in some way because I was a part of it. I know mine is better because of you, in so many ways. And I want you to know that I'm doing my best to repay you for that.

That's what the song I wrote is about. I'm playing it for you in a couple nights. You won't be there to hear it, but that's just as well; I'm not sure how you'd feel about it, or if you'd be paying more attention to the chord I missed (and I'm sure I'll miss at least one - I'm not much for performance) than the time and thought put into it. But even though you won't be there, you're still the only one I'm playing it for.

I'm not sure what the point of this is anymore. I guess I just needed to get it off my chest.

Your friend always,

_____

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