"More than a stunning debut. It is the announcement of a bold new literary voice"
—Stephen Chbosky, author of The Perks of Being a Wallflower

So you aren’t really gone….but sometimes I feel like you’re gone from my life. You told me to read this book, actually handed me the book and told me to read it. So like every other thing you have suggested to me, I did, and like everything else, I loved it. I met you under the worst possible circumstance, but I also didn’t realize how much I would end up liking you either. When I started this job I understood that I wasn’t allowed to pursue a relationship with anyone within the same store. I had this mindset that I wouldn’t like anyone that way it would make everything easier. However, as time passed, and I grew to know you more….I couldn’t help myself. I constantly caught myself looking at you, smiling when you walked by. My heart nearly stopped every time you hugged me. Right now, in this moment, I can still imagine the way you smell like home, safe. When I finally gained the courage to tell you of my feelings, you told me you felt the same way, which ultimately, in the end, sent me into a downward spiral because of the way it has all turned out….but at the time, I was in my own personal heaven. The conversations we shared to one another about our feelings and the code word we had to signal when the other was being too cute, they never failed to send my heart rate soaring. Work wasn’t the same, we knew. Therefore, the 5 second hug that used to occur, became a 30 second, 45 second, even minute long hugs. I made sure you noticed when I was looking at you, and when you did notice, we would both smile. I found myself at the store even if I wasn’t on the clock, just so I could see you. Then, one day, it all stopped. A screeching halt. No text messages. No hugs. No words exchanged. You separated yourself from me, because we thought we couldn’t be together. So until the holiday store meeting, I was left in the dark. That night, sent me straight back to my heaven. We sat outside our cars in that parking lot until 1 in the morning, just talking. After finding out we could actually be together, we just talked. Talked about our feelings, our lives, our future. It was a chilly night, you took your jacket off and put it around me, even though I told you I had a blanket in my car. You drew little hearts on my windows. When you went to leave, we hugged again, this one longer than any other hug. Then you pulled away, looking at me. In that moment, I wanted to kiss you. But I let you turn around and half walk away before you turned around and almost said something, but revoked the thought and said “nevermind”. Later that night, I found out what you had wanted to say, you wanted to kiss me too. My heaven lasted about a week before you said the one sentence that still runs through my mind today. The one sentence that sent me into tears. The one sentence that sent me into depression. “Do you really like me, or just the idea of being with me?”

As I sit here and type this, out of everything I wish I could have said or shown you, it’s this: that present I gave you for Christmas, that canvas…one was you and one was me…but I wasn’t going to tell you that after everything though..it brought you to tears. The birthday gift I told you I was working on back in October, even though your birthday wasn’t for another 8 months, was a journal that I wrote in…every day. Addressed to you. I also printed off our conversations…it’s hidden between my mattress now. I still walk by you, hoping you’ll hug me, or even smile. My heart still skips a beat when you’re around. I still hope that you will tell me one day you still like me. Everything you have ever written is on my wall next to my bed…all those cute notes you left for me when I opened. The canvases you painted me are on my wall too…

Most of all, I want you to know, I still like you…I can honestly say I like you more than I have ever liked anyone else…hopefully one day I will have the chance to show you that..