Dear Tristan,
        

Today I ventured down to the confluence. As I write these words I sit on a rock in the middle of the river. She is beautiful. She used to be ours. But now it seems that she is just mine. But she was not gifted to me, no, you forced her upon me and now I drown in her waters without having to step a foot off her bank. I drown in these memories of you. They are plentiful like the trees, they are strong like these mountains in which I am surrounded. They are now cold like the ice on the opposite bank. Most of all they are loud like this river I can’t seem to escape. These memories of you. Do you remember?
        

I remember. You left the past to me. You decided there was a future for you better than the present in which we existed together. In love. So you left me to the past, you left me to be consumed by what now only I seem to remember. Me and the river. These memories drift down her current and open up before me like pages in a book. Her frozen lips nip at the ends of my boots. I can hold the memories in my hand, a puddle in my palm. Bit of it leaks through the gaps between my fingers. I remember. And so does the river. She rambles on, her words hit boulders on the way down then disappear around the bend. She was always talking, I’ve just now finally begun to listen. She tells our story, the one we wrote at her shore.
        

It begins with a kiss. The kiss you gave to me. It was not your first, but it was mine. We were still young then, stuck at the end of one year and the beginning of another. Our eyes twinkled with the star of innocence and wonder. You begged me to come down to the river with you. It was not a surprising request, we were friends. Since we met, we dedicated our weekends to spontaneous adventures and our mutual love for what was unknown. We forged a bond through the unpredictable nature of the world and the burning desire to understand it. Finding patterns in spontaneity. Perhaps that’s what we were all along: impossible.
        

It was snowing but you insisted we go. So, we traveled down to where the two sides of the river met in a babbling confluence. We laid on the top of your car beneath one red, flannel blanket. Side by side. Faces so close. Shoulders touching. The only thing separating us was the tension of what we both knew but refused to share.
        

You said that we were there to stargaze although all that could be seen in the night sky was the moon’s faint glow from behind thick, winter clouds. Snow fell like gentle, frozen feathers from the sky and onto our faces. The river yelled at us from where she flowed a few yards away. I wish I had listened to her but I was too preoccupied with you. I was enraptured with you; with the way your chest rose and fell ever so slightly with every breath you took, with the way your foot flirtatiously played with mine and the way your arm felt beneath my head. I was enamored with the way the snowflakes lingered on your eyelashes, making your brown eyes look darker against their melting glow. We were not there to gaze at stars, we were there to gaze into eyes. Although a word was never said about it.
        

You told me you had a surprise for me. You asked me to close my eyes. I did and for a moment the world was devoured by the river’s angry voice. I might have listened to her if you granted me a second longer, but suddenly your shoulder shifted closer, your breath was on my cheek, and your lips were pressed tenderly against mine. There they lingered for a second more. And a second more. The snow was falling. My heart was throbbing. The river was yelling.
        

That kiss was just the first of many, but that one will always be mine. It was the beginning of something new. Just like the winter, our shyness melted away. Spring bloomed and so did we, and the river quickly became ours. We frequented down to her waters together, to hold hands and walk along her bank, talk about the future. A future that I thought would include me. You were on your way to college before me, but we still dreamed. I insisted on having horses while you insisted on children. I wanted Colorado. You wanted Boston. You wanted to go, I wanted to stay. But we were in love. Impossible, but in love.
        

We walked along her bank and kicked rocks into her waters. It was easy for our hands to find one another, our fingers would intertwine without a word having been said. It was that day that I told you that I believed that holding hands was more intimate than kissing. Perhaps that’s why I held so tightly onto yours. Perhaps that’s why you let mine go.
        

You gave me that name.
        

“Yes, darling girl. My darling girl.” You said it like you meant it and maybe you did at the time. I smiled and held your hand tighter. You kicked another rock into the river’s hungry current. She yelled.
        

Over the course of the spring, that name became one that I adored. One that I expected. It sounded sweet to my ears, like a bird’s spring song or the steady ripple of water over rocks. When it rolled off your tongue, I glowed. You could see it, you’d run your thumb along my blushing cheeks. I was your darling girl. It’s the same name that I hear this river mumble now in a voice different than yours. It does not make me blush anymore. Rather, it sends a shiver down my spine and makes my shoulders jump to my ears. Every night here and again it haunts my dreams. It’s whispered in my ear by the ghost of love past in a voice that so eerily resembles yours that I can’t help but believe for a moment that you are there. Beside me. But then I will open my eyes and find only absence at my side. I’ve learned to stop opening my eyes. Darling girl. Do you remember?
        

There’s another piece of you which the river remembers, it dangles around my neck. That necklace you gave me rests upon my collarbones, the ones you used to trace with loving, gentle fingers. My hand will wander up there here and again and I will roll the pearls between my thumb and index fingers. Sometimes the chain finds its way into my mouth and then, out of oblivion, I will attempt to suck the memory from it. It always leaves a metallic taste in my mouth. It stings my tongue. Yet, I still wear it. I’ve worn it since the day you tied it around my neck. I promised you I would. Do you remember?
        

You also gave me a promise of your own. It came with the necklace. You gave it to me on a moonlit summer night in the back of my car and on the bank of this very river. We sat, shoulder to shoulder, giggling over jokes and little kisses. Our feet hung off the edge, just inches off the rocky ground. Mine swung back and forth, flirtatiously hitting yours. There was nothing but us, the moon, and the river.
        

You took the box out from inside your jacket and set it in my lap. After a quick, coy, glance, I pulled gently at the ribbon around it, undoing the knot. From the box I pulled the necklace: a single, silver chain with three pearls suspended in the middle. It glowed like treasure in the moonlight. You strung it around my neck and latched it in the back. That’s when you gave me the promise. You promised me forever and you knew it was cliché, but you promised it anyways. Because that’s what you do when you’re in love. You promised me forever and let the necklace fall over my collarbones where it remained for years beyond. It is made with silver that will never rust, with pearls that will never dull, and with a latch I can’t seem to undo.
        

And it came with a promise you couldn’t keep. The river remembers. I don’t want to. I hate this part of the past; it’s the part I’m always trying to escape. It’s where you left me, forgotten in what has already occurred, sitting on a rock in the middle of a river I can’t seem to escape. Do you remember? Do you remember that day? You brought me down to the confluence. It was sunny, not snowing, but you insisted we go. After all, you came all the way from college to see me. You didn’t have to beg.
        

We sat in my car on the bank of the river. We didn’t dare step out, we knew the river was yelling and we didn’t want to hear. The sun was shining in gently onto our faces through the windshield. There was a new tension between us, one I could hardly stand. You told me then that forever came suddenly. You found the end of it while you were at college. You found it in a girl named Mea. You found it, grabbed onto it, and gave it to me there.
        

“But I’m your darling girl,” I said. The river said it too, but you didn’t hear either of us beg. You simply watched me wither away in the past while you sat in the future. It was silent. We were silent, our fingers not intertwined. Your hands sat clasping one another in your lap, mine gripped the steering wheel until their knuckles turned white. You sat in a future that you refused me, in a life in which I no longer existed, in a promise that no longer mattered. I sat on first kisses, on darling girl. I sat sucking on a necklace you had tied around my neck.
        

I got out and ran to the river’s bank. I let you sitting there. No, you let me go. I went down to the river and kneeled down in her damp soil. I pushed my palms into her waters and let her nibble on my wrists. Pebbles rolled against my fingers and brown weeds wrapped around my forearms. I listened to the river’s voice for the first time and I wondered what she was saying. Why she was yelling. I let my tears run off into her waters and be pulled along the current. They crashed against boulders and then disappeared around the bend.
        

I returned to the car after a while and all you could do was stare at me. We drove together in two separate places: you in the future and me in the past. Side by side until we reached your home. You gave me a sad smile and shook my hand. Our fingers didn’t intertwine. You looked at me with those brown eyes that I had come to long for. That I waited each and everyday to stare into. That I dreamed of. They were better than the stars. You didn’t kiss me. You didn’t say that name. You didn’t take that necklace off from round my neck. You just closed the door and walked off into the future, leaving me in the past.
        

I tried to follow you. For months I tried but you always pushed me back. You yelled at me like the river and drowned me in her current. You pulled me out only to shove me back under. I gagged on these memories; they filled my lungs. You’d return long enough to let me come up and breathe the thick air of friendship because there was no longer love. Then you would leave again and the river would take me back under. You’d walk along her bank as I was swept along by her waters, kicking rocks at me as you went. You held hands with another girl and stroked her cheek when she blushed. All the while I drowned in these memories of you. They are plentiful like the trees, powerful like the mountains. They are loud like this river I kneel down before.
        

I succumbed to the river just like I succumbed to the past. I returned to her bank months after that day without you by my side. I took with me the box in which I kept all your letters and all your poems. All the ones I had collected over the years. You always were the poet. You understood the power and beauty of words as I do. Your cursive was sweet; your rhymes were delicate. I read each and every page as I sat on the bank. The river yelled at me and that time I listened. I sent every letter and poem afloat in her current and watched each word melt away in a cloud of black ink. The confluence swallowed those memories while I sat there wishing with all my might that the rivers would separate and never touch again.
        

I thought I had been rid of them then, but those memories followed me wherever I ran. I ran to a place devoid of you the fall following my last year of high school. A place, I thought, devoid of these memories. But the river followed me out there. She followed me east and brought with her those memories I fed her in March. Perhaps that is why I am here now, at the very spot in that river where I sacrificed our love. I can’t escape her.

There is one more piece of you that I still carry with me wherever I go. It’s that necklace, the one hanging around my neck now. My fingers are wrapped around the chain. I pull ever so lightly and it digs like a knife in the back of my neck. The river wants it. I look into her waters and imagine what it would look like to throw the necklace in. I wonder if it would sink and roll over the pebbles on the bottom or if it would be swept away by the hungry current, accepting the same fate as the memories. Disappearing around the bend.
        

I sit here, on the edge of this rock in the middle of the river and I take off the necklace for the first time since you gave it to me two years ago. I don’t toss it into the river, no, instead I put it in my pocket where it will remain until I can make it mine someday. My neck feels bare without it. I run my hand along those collarbones you used to trace with loving, gentle finger and I breathe in the air of solitude. I remember it all, and I know that you’ve escaped the river. There was never a necklace binding your neck. You’ve kissed other girls since the one you gave me that winter night years ago. I know that name no longer brings you pain. And this will be a letter you will never read, no, it will have the same fate as the rest. It will gather dust in the bottom drawer of a vacant dresser. It will remain in the past just as I do, stuck in a time where I once loved you. Perhaps I still do, but like the river’s waters and the stories they tell, that feeling is disappearing around the bend.

Love, your once darling girl,
         Maddie