Dear Aaron

by Mariana Zapata

Dogs or cats: Both, but mini pigs trump dogs and cats.

There’s only so much I’m willing to do for my country. Nudies isn’t one of them.

You’re fine until… you’re not. And you always kind of worry and wonder if it’ll happen to you.

I can’t believe I’ve been out of high school almost 7 years already. Like what have I done with my life since then? You know?

Feels

That term “wearing your heart on your sleeve” had been written with me in mind.

He had no idea how those words affected me. No idea at all, and I could never tell him.

I’d thought about it. He could basically look like a troll and chances were, if he was as wonderful in person as he was online, I would still be in love with him. Beauty fades, a good personality and chemistry doesn’t.

The way he hugged the hell out of me would be something that sickness and death could never take away.

“Like… the army should put you on their recruitment ads or put you as the face on their website. I feel like I can’t look you in the eye or I’ll turn into stone, and they’ll need to add my statue to a garden of other women who have made eye contact with you before and lost their lives.”

I was covered in invisible lava all of a sudden.

The words that make water into wine in the course of your life. But I would never forget the way his words made me feel.

That saying about God breaking the mold when they made someone had been written with Aaron’s birth in mind.

Each muscle looked like it had been chiseled, each bone perfectly sculpted. Even his nipples were perfect. How? How?

Here I had this degree, and I would still rather make a fraction of what I could and do what I wanted instead.

I reached for my phone and sent my mom a message telling her I was alive. It was three minutes later I got a response from her that said Good. Keep it that way.

Plenty of people didn’t figure out their lives for a long, long time. It wasn’t a big deal if I still hadn’t sorted out what I was supposed to do.

Was this a test? My mom always mumbled about how she was being tested: her patience, her wallet, her mental health. Then she’d start mumbling about how God never gave you more than you could handle.

Not totally like the Ron to my Ruron, but close enough.

“There’s more scary shit in the world out there than in the water, but it’s all about how you face the things that you’re not sure about, understand?”

“But I swear, if we become a shark attack statistic, and it bites me in the face, and the surgeon can’t repair the damage, you’re marrying me so you can look at my face the rest of your life and remember it was your fault.”

This man owned me entirely, and he had no idea.

What was love if it wasn’t just a single word people used to try and describe something that wasn’t easily explained or grown in one action or declaration?

Everything takes time. Everything that is important and good and worthwhile, takes time. I’m not the kind of man who doesn’t know that.

Look at me, I’d rather be poor and stressed out than have a steady job that I hate.”

When you loved someone, you told them. There was no other option.

“You’re the one who told me a few thousand miles wouldn’t really matter in the grand scheme of life, remember?”