Thank you for yesterday. It was incredible. No one has ever done anything that nice for me before. It's not just the money spent, but all of the time and care it must have taken you to plan it all out... honestly, I'm amazed that you thought I was worth all of that, and I'm sorry if I didn't seem very grateful for it last night. It meant more than you could realize, honestly, even if I didn't say it. I wish I hadn't ruined the evening with that conversation, but... I can't change how I feel, and the truth is I've been feeling like this is too much for a long time. Last night was the first time it all came out, but it's been building up ever since you first told me the news. I should have brought it up sooner, but I kept thinking I wouldn't have to. I was so convinced you'd call it off before I would. I don't know. I guess I made all of these assumptions about what it must be like to be an expectant father, and I thought you'd be so focused on the baby that either our relationship would fizzle out or that you'd end things. Maybe I don't really know what being a father is like. I've never been in that position, and don't expect I ever will be.

That's not the point. I'm rambling.

---

I'm writing this letter to tell you two things: first, I love you; second: this is the end for us.

I don't want it to be. I hope you can see that. I know what you're thinking. Writing this I can practically hear you ask "if you love me, why end it?" I wish I didn't have to, really I do, but at this point I don't think there's much choice. I think after our conversation last night I understand your relationship with your wife better than I did before, but I'm still not sure about the pregnancy. I'm not sure I can say that I'm right and you're wrong about it, because we clearly have a different impression of how things will change for you after the baby is born and it's not as though either of us have any experience to draw on. Maybe you're right, and there's no conflict between being a good father and having a love affair with someone, but I don't know. It still doesn't sit well with me. It hasn't been sitting well with me for months, and even though when I'm with you it doesn't bother me so much it's been nagging at me all the time since you told me: this idea that somehow I'm contributing to someone's — your child's — life being more difficult. Maybe you're right and I'm wrong, but if you're not, I couldn't live with that. I know too much about bad fathers. I couldn't.

But the other thing is that this has always been risky, right? We've always had to be careful to not let anyone else find out, and... I just don't think we're capable of keeping it up. And it's not for lack of trying, because we talked about all of this before, right? We planned it out before we started, and I thought we had everything covered. But we haven't been as careful as we should have been, because we're too much in love. I just can't be logical around you, or about you, and — and we don't have the luxury of losing ourselves to emotion, because of who we are and what's at stake.

I wish we could stay together. I wish you weren't married and I didn't have so many obligations to my family. I wish no one cared about whether we were together or not, and we didn't have to hide from anyone. But wishing doesn't make it so. I wish we could have what we deserved, but life isn't fair for people like us.

I'll miss you, so much, every day. I know because I missed you every day the last time we were apart, and that was before I even knew I loved you.

I hope you're a good father. I hope you're happy. Truly.

---

Valerian had read the letter twice over, unsure how to wrap his brain around the facts.

1. Greengrass loved him. He'd written it right there, in the first paragraph, and then again in the second, third, and fifth. He'd even signed the letter with Yours, always, which didn't seem very accurate because:

2. Greengrass was leaving him. It had been less than a day since they'd seen each other in Paris, less than a day since they'd had this discussion and Greengrass had seemed to understand for long enough to fall back into bed with him. When they returned home the next morning Valerian assumed all would be well, that Greengrass understood what fatherhood and marriage meant to him, and how their relationship would affect neither in any negative light.

Of course he should have known that Greengrass' mind could not be swayed. He'd always been prone to nervousness, to doubt. When worry poisoned his mind it seemed at times that there was no antidote, and this poison was one that would ultimately kill their love. No matter how many words of affection Greengrass had sewn into the letter, it was impossible for Valerian to look upon it with anything but bitterness. He'd wanted Greengrass to prove him wrong, that relationships like theirs could last, and yet—

He couldn't write him back. He couldn't, because any sentiment he could convey would only read as bitter and angry and heartbroken as he felt, and he didn't want to rope Greengrass back in by manipulation or guilt. He'd done so last night—just a smidge—to keep from getting his heart broken in Paris, and now it seemed it had come back to bite him.

Valerian balled the letter in one hand, feeling all of the muscles in his face clench with heartache. Almost immediately he unfurled the balled parchment, smoothing out out on his thigh, as suddenly unable to fathom the thought of disposing it as he'd been able to crumple it. He couldn't keep it, though—not where anyone could find it—so with great care Valerian began to tear it. He tore it slowly, carefully, starting  beneath the words I hope and continuing in a straight line. The parchment wasn't strong nor were his hands steady; it tore unexpectedly, ripping downwards and straight through the word Always but taking the initials F.G. with it.

He stared at the letter for some time, not knowing where it could go and how to keep it safe, but eventually he settled in a spot where servants knew better to go and no one out to get him would think to snoop. The second piece of the parchments—

Yours alwa
F.G.
—found a home in his pocket instead, just for a time. He'd figure out what to do with it later.

---

Here's a poem for you, if we're back to that:

I cry your mercy—pity—love!—aye, love!
Merciful love that tantalizes not,
One-thoughted, never-wandering, guileless love,
Unmasked, and being seen—without a blot!
O! let me have thee whole,—all—all—be mine!
That shape, that fairness, that sweet minor zest
Of love, your kiss,—those hands, those eyes divine,
That warm, white, lucent, million-pleasured breast,
Yourself—your soul—in pity give me all,
Withhold no atom’s atom or I die
Or living on perhaps, your wretched thrall,
Forget, in the mist of idle misery,
Life’s purposes,—the palate of my mind
Losing its gust, and my ambition blind!

It's Keats.

It reminds me of you. Or maybe it doesn't. Maybe it reminds me of me. I've been thinking about it (much as I try not to) and I've realized part of the reason I miss you so much is that I miss the person I got to be when you were around. That will probably offend you, so let me add — of course I miss you, too. But what I miss most is the fantasy world I had when we were together. You know that I lied to you about some things at the beginning, but even when we started telling the truth in the summer there were still so many things I never told you. At first I didn't think I could — I still didn't think you'd care, despite what you said about feelings and everything. It wasn't until September, after my sister was kidnapped, that I realized you really meant it. I loved you for that, but I still didn't tell you anything. By then I didn't want to. If you didn't know about my mother overspending and my brother drinking poison and my friends having breakdowns and all of that, then that meant I didn't have to carry all of that with me when I was with you. I could pretend for a few hours that it didn't exist and I could be this different version of myself who didn't have to care about so many things. I could pretend I only cared about you.

You were pretending, too. We didn't talk about your wife except when we fought about it over the summer, or your child except that day in Paris. Maybe there were other things. I guess that's part of why things had to end; there was just too much dissonance between our little fantasy world and reality. It couldn't sustain itself. 'One-thoughted, never wandering, guileless love,' but there were too many things pulling at it, too many ways to wander, and eventually it had to.

I knew it had to end but I don't think I realized what that would mean for me. I imagined I would miss you. I didn't think about how much I would miss all the rest of it. 'Withhold no atom's atom or I die,' — well, I did; the person I got to be when I was with you died when I left, and now I'm just left with the person I am. I don't like him very much. He's terrible company.

---