If I am to claim any guilt, it is only in my wish to forget myself. When I told you of my affection for you, it was a lie and the truth at once.

It was a lie, because I do not feel myself ready or able to carry on a relationship. I thought, on a whim, that this was the direction in which our friendship should go. But it would only partially correct to consider the whole notion frivolous. I have felt strongly about you before. I have racked my mind about you. I have said prayers about you. Sometimes you were night and day to me. I became intimate with and afraid of those thoughts. I would know them, should I ever have them again, as I would an old friend's (or enemy's) voice. That is why I admit, in part, that my affections were a lie. I feel, plainly, the absence of them. I feel nothing about you now; I feel no anger at your rejection of me, and I now know that I feel no passion about you either.

It was this apathy, not passion, that moved me to call you. I knew that if I revealed any attraction to you that I would risk the loss of the friendship entirely. Where passion would have burdened me to move in the face of that possible loss, apathy left me unblinking at it, though moving just the same. It didn't alarm me that the possibility was there. But my apathy has not been so kind as to extend to feelings about myself.

The present circumstances of my life have proved, ultimately, to be a burden to me. I have tried, in all hope of nobility, to carry my burden without complaint, for I can blame only myself for it. For the most part, I can claim success. The recent events of my life taste just as insipid as the past I willingly cast away. It is only within the last month that I have felt despair, and a longing for my life to change.

I've always enjoyed relationships because they made me more deeply aware of other people's lives. I "learned" anyone I ever came to care about. I learned what they liked, and what they didn't. I took it upon myself to know their dreams and to make known my own. I learned how to make them happy, to the point where my own happiness depended on theirs. In all cases I grew selfish over that self-appointed duty, and I can only assume this is why those relationships never lasted. In the end, I had spent my energy, money, time, and emotion for no discernible benefit to myself. When I finally understood the course of my actions within a relationship, I was not surprised. I was not even deterred-- I went to the task with even more zeal. I intended to play self-sacrifice to the hilt. A relationship became a sort of suicide, and I found myself all too eager to "die." This was what I was thinking when I called you.

I wanted to forget about myself, to "die" to myself. I felt I had become too introverted for life to be worth the trouble. If I was to live, to continue to allow my heart to beat and to think it good, I should try to immerse myself in a relationship. But even in this mood of self-disgust, I thought I should at least be prudent in what manner I would "die."

I have known you for many years, and have thought about this many times. My choosing you was by no means frivolous. First, you were my friend, and I would not say that if I did not respect you. You have an intelligence that does not exist for its own sake. You have made plain to me what pains you and what gives you joy. You have been, if nothing else, a person worth knowing.

In one sense I am offended by you, because in the least, we are friends, and I assumed that a friend would be able to speak frankly and tell me they are not interested, if that were the timbre of their heart. You have resorted to petty avoidance of me, when I know you are capable of much nobler things. But when inventory is taken, I feel it would be best if I carry the brunt of the blame.

I have meddled with a friendship, which I hold to be, in its finest form, to be a sacred possession. I assumed movements of your heart which are not nor were not there. I acted foolishly. We will probably not be friends (as we were) again; this is what Iam most sorry for.

je t'embrasse,