I don’t know how to explain that thinking of all this—enumerating all these mistakes, writing them out in the dusty chalkboard of my brain, even knowing I won’t ever be able to solve any of them—is the only thing comforting me right now. I feel closer to you with this word in my mind, I guess, because in spite of everything, your letters saved me. And while I am sure it doesn’t seem so now, the message you sent to me, or to Avery, or to yourself—in the end, it will have done a great deal of good for a lot of people who stood to lose so much.

It’s funny, isn’t it, what happens to a word when you write it over and over again? You see it differently. I’ve always thought of the word “mistake” as meaning an error, a miscalculation. But now that I’m finishing this letter to you it reminds me of something I should have told you before. For most of my life, whenever I wasn’t with my family, I felt, somehow, mis-taken. Mistaken as cold or rude or boring or distant. All my best intentions, in school, at work—mistaken. But you were the first person in this city who made me feel I was more. To be able to see this city through your eyes, to be able to play games with you and laugh with you, to have you tease me about my tea and my posture and my terrible couch, to watch you create so many beautiful things—it has been the only thing that has made me feel like myself in these last months. It is more than I have deserved, but I am still so grateful.

When I sat down with this blank pad of paper, I wished I could send you a sign, something I could hide in this apology that would tell you how much you have meant, still mean, always will mean to me. But I don’t suppose I have much of a stomach for hiding things anymore, and while there is not much I am looking forward to about the days to come, being able to be honest again—being able to say exactly what I mean—is one thing about this I do embrace.

So: I am sorry. I am sorry, and I love you, and the time I have spent with you has been the best time of my life. No matter where I go after this, I will never take a step without wishing you were walking beside me, and I will never see a sign without wishing you were there to see it with me.

Maybe there is one sign I could send you, even though it won’t be your favorite kind. But I’ve always been better with numbers, Meg, and the numbers I have written below—I think they should be easy to decode.