Dear Aaron

by Mariana Zapata

Loneliness even when you’re surrounded by others is something I understand well.

I saw there had been a hurricane heading toward Texas a few days ago. You make it through all right?

If a little distance is all that it takes to tear a relationship apart, that should tell you something.

It’s easy to forget how uncertain life can be.

I hope you know you’re the best person I’ve ever been paired with. This tour would’ve been a whole lot shittier without you.

“What are you nervous over? It’s me,”

“You could’ve told me your mom and sister are the ugly ones in the family.”

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

“I’m really damn happy to see you, Ruby.” His voice was quiet, not hesitant but more cautious. “I look at you and I can’t stop smiling. That’s all. You’re adorable.”

Looking back on it, it’s weird thinking about the moments you don’t realize are important. The sentences, the touches, the actions that seem so innocent in that second, you take them for granted. 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. The way he made me feel right then.

“I think I want to wake up every day and watch this,” I whispered to him, pulling my knees into my chest so I could settle my chin on top of them. “It would be worth waking up early for.” And all Aaron said, in his low, soft-spoken voice that he’d been using on me since yesterday, with something in the notes I couldn’t classify that sounded almost like hope, if hope had a sound and if a promise could be made without vocalizing it, was, “Any morning you want, Rube. I’ll watch it with you.”

“We’ll make it work,”

was a goner from the first time you gave me hell.” Aaron smiled. “Maybe even before then.”

“You’re not crazy. You’re the best, and you deserve better than me, but I hope you don’t care.”

“I know I told you I don’t know about marriage and all that, but…” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “The idea of you being with somebody else… even just texting them… him… even before I saw your face or heard your voice, Rube… I don’t want you with anybody else. You’re my Ruby, and you have been for a long time.”

“A business isn’t successful overnight. You don’t get promoted in a week. Everything takes time. Everything that is important and good and worthwhile, takes time.

“You and me, we’ll figure this out. We’ll make this work.”