When he left, the letter I’d written him was still at my place. I had to remind him that he’d forgotten it. He apologized, and I was left wondering why such a small part of the evening had become the part that hurt.
We’d been seeing each other for over a year. I’m 23 and he’s 27, and I’d put together a celebration for his promotion at work. I made the food, got the drinks, set the table and lit the candles. The letter was my way of telling him how proud I was of him, beyond everything I could arrange for dinner.
He appreciated what I’d done. That matters, because it would be easy to tell this as a story about making an effort for someone who barely noticed. That isn’t what happened. His appreciation was part of the evening too, even if the forgotten letter now makes it harder for me to hold on to it.
Food and drinks are there to be enjoyed in the moment. A letter feels different to me. It’s something I’ve made for one person, with words meant specifically for him. I suppose I imagined that taking it home would be the natural last part of receiving it. I hadn’t realized that expectation was there until he left without it.
What complicates this is that it’s the second time he’s forgotten something I’ve given him. I don’t want to turn two occasions into a verdict on how he feels about me. Still, the second time makes it harder to dismiss the sting as a reaction to one absent-minded moment. Now I’m noticing a repetition, without knowing what it means.
He could have valued the letter and simply forgotten to take it. He could also attach less importance than I do to keeping something like that. Neither possibility tells me that he didn’t enjoy the evening, and neither proves that he didn’t want my words. The painful part is how quickly I went from seeing the letter still here to wondering whether he wanted it at all.
I also feel a little exposed by having to remind him. The letter already said that I cared. Asking him to remember it feels uncomfortably close to asking him to show me that he cares about what I gave him. That may be more meaning than he put into leaving it behind, but it’s the meaning I’m struggling with.
I keep coming back to whether it’s silly to feel bad. I don’t need him to treat a letter like a precious artifact. I did want it to be something he wanted to take with him. He apologized when I reminded him; I still don’t know whether he understood why I needed to.
