A Letter To You

It's difficult to know where to begin with this. I wish I could track down every minute speck of passion and goodness and humour and line them up shoulder to shoulder, like we sit, together on your bunk, to explain just what you do for me.

To start with, there's the obvious. You are so ridiculously good to me, far better than I deserve. You 'accidentally' whip up portions good for two, pay both our bus fares when I avert my gaze, insist the carrier bag is NOT digging into your fingers, no I can NOT carry it, get off.

It was possibly the most unconventional beginning. Bath University, Freshers’ Week, 2 a.m. Choosing not to emulate the masses, a few stragglers avoided the inevitable booze-fest promised in the Hall and danced at the Silent Disco, milling circles of rapt strangers, caught up in the spotlit surrealism. I noticed you and you noticed me. Because we both danced with a certain desperate energy, as though it was the last night on Earth, as though we had nothing left to lose. When it ended and we plunged exhausted into the black chill of the night, you didn’t have to turn at the foot of the steps. You didn’t have to walk away from your friends and, with a smile, introduce yourself to the sad little loner with the smudged eyeshadow and star-shaped rivets in her belt. You didn’t have to invite her anywhere.

But you did it all the same.

There is so much similar about us which initially drew us together, now draws us ever closer- our musical taste, the weird coincidence of our both having been interviewed- and rejected- by St. Hugh’s College, Oxford, our love of Stephen Fry. Yet our differences create a world of conversation- and sometimes fierce debate. Words are my thing; numbers make you tick. Your sense of direction could almost be called reliable; I sometimes get lost coming out of the shower. I’d come into your kitchen and replace your mustard with peanut butter; you’d yank my bedroom blinds open so that the sunlight could peep through in the morning. But it works. Like a key and a lock, we fit. We click.

The attraction goes further, creeps into the secret emptiness inside my soul and fills it with warm light. All those wonderful little things. The voice I annoy the hell out of you by calling ‘posh’. That childlike, incredulous smile. The scent of you- inexplicable, vital, incredible. Those perfect lips. The more of you I have, the more I want. I want to devour you, jealously feed on every single minute speck which makes up the miracle of you. Because, quite simply, my memories are not enough. My skin is forgetful and must constantly be reminded of your lips feather-light and teasing against my neck, the comforting solidity of your arms around me.

You are not only my lover. You are my mentor. You whisper that I am beautiful and force me to face my insecurities before they threaten to bring me down. You tell me constantly to love myself. To be honest, I don’t want to. I’d rather you did that part.

This morning I knew it was love when I woke up and already missed you.

Now I’m the stereotypical lovestruck teen. I check my Facebook, accidentally-on-purpose clicking on your relationship status to see your name connected with mine; I check my phone obsessively after lectures- or if it’s eighteenth century French history, during. I mock my own weakness, yet I can’t seem to go a day without at least attempting to contact you.

I am physically, mentally, emotionally drained by the sheer existence of you.

And you know what?

I wouldn’t change a thing.