My Dearest Love,

It's been raining and I've been pacing. I thought about cleaning this place. You'd be shaking your head at me. The cream you drink in your coffee has gone sour in the fridge. The sheets are the same ones I had on the bed when you were here. The coffee cup I used at breakfast is still in the sink with last night's dishes and the plant you gave me has withered and died because I've forgotten to water it. I don't think I'm the type to look after geraniums. Like me, they are a sorry sight.

I looked in the mirror this morning and I grimaced, thinking: She's right. I do have a hockey player haircut. Maybe I should let her cut these stupid tails off. Then I remembered that you weren't here to care about what the hell my hair looks like, or if my beard stubble will rub your fair skin raw. I've stopped shaving every day. But I think I'd rather have the shaving bumps that I complained about while you were still here with me.

Excuse my lack of eloquence and the penmanship. I have gotten out of practice. I'd hate to tell you the marks I got in school for my abysmal handwriting, my love. And I think that I am better with strategies and parameters. I am proficient in killing and death. I am not a poet. The words and the phrases I want to say don't seem to come at the moment. The last letter I wrote you was better, but as I recall I was half drunk on wine and anticipation when I wrote it and I never sent it. I lost it somewhere. I was proud of that letter. You would have liked it.

Now I'm just wallowing in self-pity. I am too tired of all of this hell to be well-spoken. I can only be honest. I can only be plain. Is that the English word I look for? Maybe not but it seems to fit.

I am thinking in French again and writing in English. There is so much I want to say and then I take the pen in my hand and spread out this clean white page and I lose everything I want to tell you. The deeper words don't come. Just the irrelevant little ones. All I can think of is that I miss you.

I miss you.

God, my Kita, my love, it is constant. Just another part of me gone. Taken away. My heart feels as if it has been shot full of holes. One hole, each raw and bleeding, for my parents, my sister, for my son and now you, my love.

And yet I continue to live. A man with half a heart.

I longed for you before, but this, this is a million times harsher. I see you at Section and all I can think of is how much I need you. I see you and my heart pounds so wildly I think they will see it burst from my chest. I don't care if they do know how I feel. I don't know which is stronger, my hate for them, or my love for you, Kita.

How long were we together? Three weeks, maybe a month. It seems like a lifetime. It seems like a moment.

I miss our conversations. I miss having your head resting in my lap as we watched television. I miss your laugh. I miss the cups of herbal tea you forced on me, though I hate the stuff. I even miss you waking me up in the middle of the night to tell me that I'm hogging the bed again. I've even started sleeping with the lights on like you do. I miss saying, " Let's go home, Kita."

I hate coming home alone.

I wish you were here to sing off-key in the shower. I miss watching you as you scribble in that journal of yours, the way you bite your pen and play with your hair. I miss seeing your beautiful toes hooked over the rungs of the chair.

I want to feed you and see you smile and savour each bite. I want to watch you lick chocolate off your thumbs. I want to taste your lips.

I see you at Section, with your bright hair and your blue eyes and your long legs and I think of holding you, of kissing you everywhere, until that soft, secret smile hovers at your mouth. I long to shape your body with my hands, to bury myself in your sweetness. I long to ask you to meet me somewhere, somewhere they cannot find us, so we can be together once more. Once more, my love.

I would give my life to be held by you once more.

I find the letters in my car. No envelope. Just a folded piece of computer bond on the seat. I read each one twice, then fold it and put it in my jacket pocket. I take several deep breaths and wipe the tears from my eyes with the heels of my hands. My makeup is ruined each morning.

He has written me a note like this every day. I sleep with them under my pillow.

I've thought of asking him to stop. I want to tell him that each lonely word is breaking my heart, but I can't. I have started to leave notes to him that he will find in the morning when he comes here. It's all we have really, these folded pieces of paper, and if this helps him I will not ask him to stop.

I watched him today, like I do each day. I think about him all night, in dreams, waking every few hours and looking over at the pillow he used, thinking that if I turned my head he might miraculously be there.

He's a mess. Not to say that when the man is a mess he doesn't look a hundred times better than anyone else. I was standing about four feet away from him yesterday. He turned his head and our eyes met. He winced as if he'd been hit, the pain in those lovely blue-green eyes was more than I could stand. I wanted nothing more than to pull him into my arms. The others were looking at us, some in scorn, others in pity. They all know about us.

He walked away. That rather arrogant, sexy saunter that used to send shivers of lust through me isn't gone, but it is different. He hangs his head a little. His shoulders slump just a fraction. I think that perhaps he has lost a little weight.

He is not quite the same. I can't say the lust isn't there when I watch him now. It is. I want him every minute. It's just that I know I won't be going home with him so there is no anticipation, just regret. He won't be giving me that angel's smile that belies those devilish green eyes, saying: "Let's go home, Kita. "

I think about the delights that awaited me there in that too temporary home we had created for ourselves. I think about everything we did, every perfect minute. Every not so perfect one.

How do they expect us to do this, continue on this way? Do they think denying us will make us better operatives? It makes no sense to me. I feel like marching up to Madeline's office and demanding to see his percentages. She can't tell me that was the reason for doing this to him. To us.

Sometimes I feel like a white trash version of Rapunzel. Madeline's the old witch who has me locked in the tower for no other reason than the handsome prince loves me. And he does love me. It's hard to believe it sometimes but he does.

I think about those last few words he said to me when he came to my door two weeks ago. " It's not over. We'll be together." I can't imagine what he means to do. What is he planning. Even though it scares me, I will do it. I will do anything it takes to have him again.

He knows that. It is what keeps us both breathing, moving. The thought that we will be together again.

I was sitting at my computer this morning. I saw him though the screen and smiled. He returned it with a fleeting one of his own. He seemed to be telling me: Soon. We'll be together soon.

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