Ah, Sh. We never met, and already I think you hate me. I tried to tell you something but got a little tongue-tied, and you hushed me brusquely and turned away; I stood there after for a while and stared at nothing. I couldn’t tell you how ripe my love for you was already, because you could never agree to understand. No honest woman ever will. But that, often times, is love: a man looking at a woman through a window, and while he is struck, falling, wounded, she never sees his shadow on the floor.

Now I heard you went with a man from the top floors, and I am glad; for suffering things no honest woman should ever suffer, you are now better than honest men. We’ll meet some day, maybe waiting for the elevator. I’ll be the man looking down and trying not to cast a shadow.