Dear Ms. Jackson.

I’m probably the last person you wanna hear from but please read this until the end. I thought I would one day sit with Paul and tell him all I’m about to tell you. I wanted to wait for him to heal and to be less angry so we could speak in a civil manner, but your son never gave me the chance to do so. He never healed.

I’ll admit, Paul loved me like no one else has ever loved me. He loved me like his life depended on it, and to some extent I think it did. But I just couldn’t give him the same love in return. He didn’t mind though, he always said all he wanted was for me to be by his side, he said that’s all the love he needed from me. See Ms. Jackson, it was this kind of love that scared me, it overwhelmed me.

I promised him I would love him forever and he took it literally, but Ms. Jackson I didn’t realise forever would be so infinite. The more I stayed, the more he offered. They say love is to people what water is to plants, but I read somewhere that too much water can kill a plant. It’s not that I didn’t love him, I did. But the love he gave was so great that it had me questioning my own love for him. It suffocated me so much that I had to run from it and seek something familiar.

I had to set him free. He needed himself more than I needed him, yet he gave me all of him. I had to give him time to focus on his own needs, to get to know himself. Maybe I still have to learn to accept love and maybe he also had to learn that sharing meant he could keep at least half of the love he gave away for himself. Ms. Jackson I don’t know if I’m making any sense, but I guess what I’m trying to say is, too much of a good thing can be poisonous.

The last text I got from him read; “You promised me forever, and it is not forever until we die.” Love killed him, I killed him. Now he is gone, and he’s gone forever. I ask myself whether it was love or betrayal that was on his mind when he took his last breath. It probably wasn’t any of the two, it probably was the throbbing pain inflicted by the rope around his neck.