This is the only piece of you I own. A torn receipt from our first date, when I took you to a crepe place in Chelsea after coffee gone rogue, talk for hours that led to wandering the city in the rain, that led to watching a show about love on a whim, that led to this. And when you asked me how I liked to communicate I said I sometimes wrote letters, so you wrote me your address on the back of this receipt.

It's the only thing I have left that you've touched, because I refuse to go back to anywhere we've been. Not the bakery where we had hot chocolate. Not the theatre where we saw that love show. Not the subway stop to your apartment. Not this crepe place, where you told me you've never felt such an immediate connection with anyone. Nor have I.

So by the time I went to your apartment two nights later and you told me you've looked me up, and you told me you could tell you were just scratching the surface, I fooled myself into thinking you knew. You must know. And when you kept reassuring me, kept telling me how much you loved parts of me others have thought unlovable, that others needed to grow to love, I thought, you must know.

So I took this shred of paper and used the address on the back to write you a letter. And in that letter I told you that I knew you knew.

But it turned out you didn't. And it turned out you couldn't take it. And it turned out you never wanted to see me again.

I want to let it go so it would land in this flowing creek and dissolve as it leaves me but I can't. It's the last I have of you. Apart from me, it's the only shred I own that you've touched.