To The Next Girl He Loves

You must have brown hair, because he’s partial to brunettes.

Updated 9 years ago, March 25, 2016

We have more in common than you think.

You must have brown hair, because he’s partial to brunettes. And you must be hardworking and sassy, or a combination of both, because those are the type of girls he goes for.

You must love his laugh, and that little half-smirk he makes when you say something funny. You must love his hair, and how he always runs his fingers through it, just like that. You must love his eyes, and how they look both at you and through you somehow. You must like the way his hand feels on your skin, cold and warm and dangerous and comforting because somehow he makes all those things possible in a single brush of your waist.

I hope you always tell the jokes that make him laugh and watch the shows he likes. I hope you don’t cook anything with spaghetti sauce because he hates it, and if you make chili, that you take out all the tomato chunks. I hope that you stay up late telling each other about your pasts and count the stars from the ledge outside his roof. I hope he tells you he loves you one day, but that it’s romantic. That it makes you wonder if it’s real. I think it will be.

I hope you argue, but I don’t say this out of spite. I hope you challenge each other with your opinions and make each other think. I hope things don’t come too easy, but that you fight and choose each other every day. That you force each other to answer the big questions—love, the future, what it all means. And I hope you don’t take of those half-smirks, nights curled on the couch, dinners with the tomato-free sauce for granted. Because those will always be the best nights. The simplest nights.

This is my love letter to the both of you. I hope you find happiness. I hope you tease and laugh and travel together and that when you kiss there’s tiny fireworks that erupt in the back of your brains like electric shocks.

I can’t hate you. I won’t. Because no matter how much I can’t stand the thought of your lips on his, I’d rather see him happy. And because we’re more alike than I thought, you and I. And I really can’t hate you for that.