ashes
lizz
This place reminds me of wind chimes. The silver that flickers sometimes bright, sometimes dull, always with a light, unobtrusive music that seems to be making a melody you've heard a thousand times but can't quite put your fingers on. It's nice, comforting. This place makes you drowsy. Keeps you half-awake and discourages the alert eyes that can find flaws and bring pain. I suppose that's how it should to be. No fire and brimstone, only soft music like the tinkling of champagne glasses.
That's the best description I can give you about what it's like here. Knowing you you'll analyze it and compare it to any accounts of heaven in your books. That's why I had to include that first. You'd probably just skim over this letter till you got to it anyway.
I've got limited time here so I'll make this short. I'll skip over the 'live every moment as if it were your last' speech. No one ever listens to those anyway. There are just two things I will say.
First, I'm so sorry I wasn't strong enough to stay by your side. That I couldn't provide the same shelter you gave me. You were my savior in so many ways. And the one thing- the only thing- you ever asked of me was that I accept you. I couldn't. I took the coward's way out and I'm so sorry.
The second is that you love Cordelia. You do. It's something you'll understand eventually. It was always her. I saw it everyday behind your looks of affection there was always her. Standing there triumphant, knowing it was she you were thinking of while we made love. My skin was her skin, my lips were her lips; that's how things have always been. She was the one you wanted to watch undress, the one you wanted to have breakfast with in the morning, the one you wanted to hold at night. She lorded over our relationship like some living 'Rebecca'.
And I hated her for it. I hated her for every look of love I didn't get, every opportunity for us to become closer that was squashed because she were on your mind. The unspoken temptress that has danced through your thoughts since I first touched your skin- since before I even knew she existed. A standard that I could never live up to- no matter how many worlds I tried to open up for you. I gave you wealth, glamour, and all the things that went with it but it wasn't enough. I wasn't enough. You would have rather stayed at the office with her, eating day-old take-out and listening to her complain about how the price of nail salons has gone up 5%. Forever the vice-president in the Cordelia Chase fan club.
I would have done anything to keep you with me but I just couldn't compare to- well, whatever it was she offered. And so I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough to break that bond. I'm a little ashamed I even tried. For whatever it's worth, I do love you. I couldn't help but. Even if it was never me you thought of when you closed your eyes.
I think it'll take her longer to realize how she feels about you, however. You'll both go through your days with all that sexual tension building up, both of you not realizing why you have no one to go home to, no one to rely on but each other until one day your hand will brush hers in just the right way. Your eyes will meet and what last memory you still held of me will scorch and burn leaving only ashes behind. Ashes are what's left of me now. Encased in an urn, sealed with wax never to be looked at again. It's fitting that that's what will become of my memory.