We come from different places.
I was born in New England, to wealthy, well-educated parents. I inherited my mother’s blue eyes and skinny eyebrows; my father’s loud laugh. I feel at home when I see hydrangeas or taste a lobster roll. I can sail; I can ski. My favorite pastime in high school was going to the Brandy Melville on Newbury Street in Boston. Now they have one in Newport, so I go to that one religiously instead.
You were born in Donegal, directly across the ocean from me. We both grew up by the beach—one of the few things we ever had in common. I’ve never been to Donegal, but I used to look at pictures of it on my phone all the time—it’s as beautiful as you are. You say things like “just messing” and end your texts with “xx”. You’d tell me that you “fancied me” and “wanted to shag me”. You joked that I would never go north of the River Liffey because you thought I was “too posh”. And maybe you were right, too, because I only went to the north side a handful of times and I was in Dublin for four months. You have a gorgeous accent, a mix of north and south Ireland, as you say. You always smell a little bit like cigarettes—I don’t smoke because my parents always drilled into me that it causes lung cancer. People don’t care about that so much in Ireland. You struggled with school; you were, in your words, riddled with ADHD and unmedicated. I’m a really good student. I get good grades and never procrastinate anything.
I guess my point is that we were probably too different for this to ever work. Our worlds were too different, and so were we.
So you told me it was over and that nothing would ever happen between us again.
When you told me this, I said “okay thank you for telling me I think you are a really special person and I hope you have a beautiful life”, but I wanted to say that I would swim across the Atlantic to see you again if you’d asked. I would peel the skin off of my body if you asked. I would light myself on fire if you asked.
I am destructive, just as my mother is. That’s another thing I inherited from her.
You can be hurtful, like both of your parents are. You hurt me the way they hurt you.
There’s another life out there, I imagine, where it didn’t matter that we were so different. We’d be together anyway. Maybe you would want kids; maybe I would want them, too. We’d adopt, but they’d inherit your kindness and softness. I don’t know if I have any characteristics that I would wish to pass along to a child. I would just want ours to be exactly like you. I don’t know, though. We would definitely have a cat, however, and perhaps a dog, too. We’d take turns cooking. You’d make me try Guinness again; you’d convince me to like it. I’d make you watch all my favorite music videos and you would pretend to care, because in this parallel universe, you love me enough to lie sometimes. We would have lived by the beach. And we would go to the beach together when it’s warm, and we’d write j+m inside of a heart. It wouldn’t matter that we came from different worlds. We would have made this sweet little world of our own.
We will never get to go to the beach together, but I hope you still have the seashell I gave you. I hope it’s in your nightstand. I hope your children eventually inherit this seashell, and you tell them about an American girl who found it on the beach in Portugal and gave to you in Ireland. You will marry a girl with an accent like yours, and your children will speak Irish.
I’ll be on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. We’ll both end up back where we started.
