I miss her, though, and can still feel her here most nights. Everywhere another reminder, the bottle of shampoo in the shower I’ve yet to remove, the café I pass most days where we had first said “I love you” in front of the open fire and afterward had laughed so hard my stomach ached and coffee shot from her nose, the memory of having ice-skated at Millennium Park exactly one year ago tonight, after which I bought the ankle bracelet I gave her Christmas morning, the one she left behind. I guess I’ve grown sentimental. That’s what love does to us. That’s what losing love does, too. It makes us sentimental.

But I hope she’ll remember me, as I know I will her, the way she’d growl when I was playful in the early-morning hours when she still slept and wanted to be left alone, or the way her heart seemed to break when we were unable to keep an adorable puppy with more fluff than body one lazy afternoon in a pet store. And then there were the late nights we’d whisper through the dark while drifting off to dream in each other’s arms, the nights I reveled in having her near enough to touch. When I picture her, I see the way her eyes shone green after the spring rain had fallen, the asphalt glistening in the fading dusk as the sun dropped beneath the horizon while along the lake the skies lit up in orange and red with hints of blue and purple, everything darkening at day’s last light, still and quiet. The good times. That’s what I’ve chosen to hold on to.

And then there’s Thomas, who now sits a single foot away, purring loudly while watching my hand work across the page. It took me a long time to figure it out. Carolyn once promised she’d never leave me alone, and she made good on that. She left me Thomas.

Over three hundred pages in and yet I’m still debating the true point of this letter. Maybe nothing more than a feeble attempt to put it all behind me and move on, some semblance of closure. We’ll see if it works. I think part of the reason is to apologize to Carolyn, even while it’s to you that I write. But truth can be a funny thing, often muddled and made more complicated than it really is. Just try asking somebody why they love you and you’ll typically get a long list of qualities you may or may not possess. But the truth is much simpler than that. You love somebody because of how they make you feel. It’s the true reason you love anything.