What happened to all of the things that I gave Phuc?
The day he broke up with me, he gave me back my shirt. But during the school year, I mailed him literally every two days. The last time I visited him, he had a huge pile of just letters from me. I wonder what happened to them. Are they still there? Did he re-read them after breaking up with me, remembering a past life? Did he throw them all away, or did he tuck them into a box somewhere in his closet? Did he burn them as the remnants of a girl that he never wants to think about anymore, or are they retained as fond memories of the girl that he used to hold tenderly by the waist? I gave him a "music box" -- it was a musical carousel with a globe as a centerpiece, that I gave him as a promise that we would travel the world together someday. It was huge, and last I saw, it was on his desk. Is it still there, or is it in the garbage bin outside his apartment complex now? Is my huge bag of food still in his pantry closet? Will I see that bag of food again before it all expires? Are my gloves from senior ball still in his car? Is that little sticker still there, where I put it on his dashboard? Is Toast still under his bed, the loaf of bread made of felt that I handmade for him? Does he still have all those DVDs and PS1 games that I loaned him? Is my Metropolitan Museum of Art cup still on his desk, serving its previous duties as a coin bank? Am I still "Pretty McPretty" on his phone, and is his netbook log-in name still "Handsome McFine?" Am I anywhere anymore? Did I ever exist?
I've seen it on television, I've seen it in high school, where ex-couples exchange boxes full of thing that the other person gave them. Is he going to give me all this stuff back? Because of course what I really want most in the world is to keep all the things that will just remind me even more about him after he dumped me and broke my heart. ...Obviously.
Ever since he broke up with me, I know literally nothing about his life. I don't think seeing his random-ass pictures count. So I know nothing. I say this often because it befuddles me often. It befuddles me just how much I don't know who Phuc is anymore. I don't know if he misses me or or if I'm yesterday's news now. I don't know if he's moved on to all the girls waiting in line for five years or if he's single. I don't know if he's on a huge "Things I Could Never Do Because Christa Held Me Down All These Years" bender, or if he's just been low-key since that day. I don't know anything. I don't know if he thinks about me, if he thinks about my day, or if I'm just a blur now. I don't know if he remembers my voice. I don't know if he remembers the fragrance of my perfume, I don't know if he remembers my face. My eyes. My smile. I don't know if he's still the same boy whose hand I held a month ago, or if he's a different person, like me. I don't know anything about his days. I don't know anything about him anymore. It's like he's a stranger now. Even though I just want to give him the world, he's just a stranger now. It's this stranger that keeps on stealing my heart and keeps making me laugh without ever knowing.
My situation, it's as if my heart is longing for a stranger. I just want to catch the moon and put a bow on it for him. I want to plant daffodils as far as the eye can see outside his bedroom window, just so his heart would flutter when he looked outside. I want to have so many conversations with him, a thousand more conversations with him, until our hearts grow old and weary. All of this, for a stranger.
Does he know me? He is a stranger to me, but am I a stranger to him? The occasional rejected call from me during my moments of weakness. The heart that keeps being thrown on virtual pages, nearly everyday since the day that he broke up with me. I don't know anything about him, even though I have so many things to tell him. I just want to tell him about my lab, about all my new friends, about my life. Sometimes, it still doesn't sink in that we don't have that kind of relationship anymore. "I really want to give you closure..." Closure. He said the word "closure," and I felt my heart rip apart, and I broke down right in front of his eyes. I sat there, crying my heart out, unable to look at him. "When you leave, I'm never going to see you again, you're going to leave and that's going to be it, I'm never going to see you again, and I'm not ready, I'm not ready, I'm not ready Phuc, I'm just not ready, I don't want you to leave, please don't leave, because when you leave I'm never going to see you again." Closure. And I really wonder, will I ever have closure? Is there some phrase that he can magically say, then poof, I'll move on? Will there really be a day where I'll stop missing him? Will there really be a day where I'll just fall out of love with him, the way that he fell out of love with me? Closure.
The doorbell rang the other day, and for some reason, I thought it was Phuc. I knew I gave him my address before he broke up with me. It was stupid. It was so stupid, but I really thought it was Phuc. And my heart broke when it wasn't.
"When you leave, I'm never going to see you again." Everyday that passes, everyday that I know less and less about Phuc, I keep feeling like I had it right all along. I say it everyday, I say it every bleeding moment that I think of him: I miss Phuc so much.
All for a stranger.