March 1, 2025
Title: Don’t Get Too Close
Dearest Albert,
At the genesis of us, when your words first arrived in my inbox, you left a number, an invitation—call me, if ever you feel like talking. I remember how you spoke of my writing, how you envied the way I wove meaning from silence, how you sensed something in me—an inner fire, a spirit self-determined to emerge.
You said you were waiting, listening for something new. Perhaps the next voice I hear in my life will be yours, you wrote. So, I called. And so, it was.
Over a decade has passed, and still, I sit in the quiet, wondering why. Apart from these open letters I draft in the absence of your replies, I have been writing a book about us. Yes, I am. A book I am determined to finish, a story I hope—one day—will find its way into your hands, settling like a truth you can no longer ignore.
You left me in a silence that I never expected, a solitude I did not choose. And yet, I write. I write because the words remain, even when you do not.
Questions stir: Is this retribution? A quiet, deliberate withholding, a measured cruelty meted out in silence? Since the world never gave you a fair shake, do you now deny those who once stood near? Or is it simpler than that—do you feel you owe me nothing?
Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps you owe nothing to anyone. But still, I wonder—why be so heartless, so unrelenting? For a man, a veteran, one who once carried the weight of honor on his shoulders, should your word mean nothing?
And yet, I understand. The world has taken much from you. You have long since given up on fairness, on mercy, on the notion that anything is owed.
But tell me this—have you ever forgiven God? Or do you still, even now, wait for Him in the quiet chambers of your soul, unwilling to admit that you are waiting at all?
And why, I wonder, has He been so merciful as to keep you here? To tether you to an existence you find so miserable, so empty of meaning. Perhaps there is something He still needs you to learn, some truth you have spent a lifetime resisting. Perhaps the lesson lingers—just beyond your stubborn refusal to see it.
You once told me you would never write again—that the words were too bound to pain. Does it still hurt? Or have you grown used to the ache, wrapped it around you like an old, familiar coat?
Have you grown at all in the last fifteen years, or have you simply found someone new to fasten yourself to—some young, beautiful writer, eager and unshaped, someone you can mold, someone whose talent might give you a secondhand sense of pride? Is it the idea that you can still leave a mark, still shape a voice—that’s not your own—just as you once tried to shape mine?
And yet, I wonder, how you have managed to carry on beneath the weight of all that bitterness, with a spirit so heavy, so unwilling to bend.
I picture you now—still stubborn, still ornery—standing at the edge of yourself, a cigarette burning between your fingers, coffee gone cold in your other hand, arms folded tight against the wind. I wonder—has the world changed you, or have you simply retreated further into what you always were?
Was it your subconscious quest to find a close second to the love you once knew in Agnieszka nevertheless—the one you called true love?
It seems to me that you lost the fire for all that once mattered when loss first touched you—when God, in His unfathomable will, stripped away everything you loved. And rather than bear the ache of absence, you chose exile over attachment, severing yourself from anything that might one day slip through your fingers.
To outpace heartbreak, you became its architect, cutting away what was precious before it had the chance to wound you. A slow, methodical retreat. A quiet undoing of all that tethered you to the world.
‘Don’t get too close’ became your gospel—your shield. And so, piece by piece, you unraveled—until nothing remained that could be taken, until nothing remained at all.
Sincere Regards,
Terry A O’Neal
Hampton, Virgina
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