Blue Aegean Eyes...

Dear Juliet

Bit late, sorry. Spent too long getting stuff ready for my tax return, which was fascinating.

Not.

No emotional upheavals at work, thankfully. Unfortunately, it's all confidential...

I'm still a bit wary of going too deep, particularly at half-past-two in the morning when I have to get up later on and light a candle for you.

But perhaps that's the point. That I've been lighting a candle for you for over five years. That I didn't forget about you, or think you weren't good enough. I worried about you during the Covid pandemic, thought endlessly about what I would say if I got back into the arena in front of you in Telford, got a copy of A Place Among the Dead and really had to struggle with myself not to email you when I was on Hydra while L.A. burned...

Yes, I did worry about you. I'd far rather you'd been walking up cool Greek streets of white stone than smelling smoke wafting through cypress trees in the Hollywood Hills. I wish you'd seen the boy on the dolphin and the blue of the Aegean, blue as your eyes.

I wasn't all right without you around. I was scratchier and a little emptier inside. How could I explain to anyone what it was really like and how much you meant to me? How indeed can I even explain it to you, except to say that it was true.

I feel better these days, now that you're around again. Nobody could replace you, not even Dru.

That's the only thing that's true.

I guess, tonight, that'll have to do.

Love,

James