I think I made you up. I must have right? Because there is no evidence left of you. I didn’t realize the efficiency of modern day gadgets. There was no time to watch and reflect as your letter (one, you only sent me one) and personal info went through the shredder. I guess burning is more poetic. I should have burned that one envelope. But I’ve seen enough burning this past year. I realized watching things go up in flames is sometimes the opposite of cathartic. But I got to hold the pieces in my hand though. That was liberating.

I guess I could search you out. But you’re a John Smith. You’d be hard to find. I’m sure if I wanted to I could complete the task. Find one email I forgot. Google imported you number into my phone again that one time. But I made sure that never happened again. But you were just a figment of my imagination anyways.

And no one ever really met you. They never once heard the sound of your voice. They only know all those details I recited endlessly. But maybe it was just a novel I was writing. Maybe I accidentally got the fiction of you mixed up into the story of my life.

People cry over films. They yearn for characters they’ve never met who are lost in stories. I can not keep mourning the loss of you. I can’t feel my stomach drop as I read over chapters full of details of all the pretty things I wish someone would say to me one day. I can’t keep skipping the parts that contained all the tell tale signs that you were just a dream. I did what every great writer does sometimes. Embellish.

You were real. I just think I made us up.