hello

Kate,

It has been nearly two weeks since I last wrote. I hope everything has been well with you since then. I now need to write this email because I have been holding on to the hope that you might write me. I need to let you go and I need to let you know that I am. It is important to me that you know I am profoundly sorry for my actions. Please understand that I wasn't rejecting you as much as I was rejecting myself. I know that is very little comfort, but I do realize that I hurt us both and, as much as I am sorry for that, I have to forgive myself. You were so perfect and I was so intimidated.

When we talked on the phone, you made me to understand that I should not feel responsible for you. I want you to understand that you should never think that you'd have to be responsible for me. I am very much like you. I see the things in me that need improving. I can look at and know what is important. Like you, for instance. I will find a way to be unlike I have been, because there is so much that is good about me. This makes me different from most other people. I can examine myself. I never suggested that I was perfect. I never wanted you to think that. But you did. Or something like. You had this image of me that was unfairly imposed. I am much more than that. I am a man who is capable of tripping over his fears. This is all I mean to say with this: I very much deserve another chance. However, if you don't, please don't ever look over your shoulder and wonder what might have been if you had. I am a man deserving of another chance.

And you deserve to give yourself another chance.

There are other things I want to say, but in this email I won't. I will one day if we ever get that chance we both deserve. But I want you to know this anyway: I never wanted to die. No, Kate, I never wanted that—for so many reasons I never wanted that. It had only been a thought to hold onto, for lack of anything else, if that makes sense.

So if you are reading this, this is goodbye from your friend always.

All my love,
John.