36 Letters, 3 Poems, 2 Stories

36 Letters (Part 1)

36 Letters

In a beige envelope I kept 36 letters and a dried rose. For two years I had been writing to him. Things that I could not, did not say. Things that I wanted him to hear without my having to say them. Things that he never found out because I never gave him any letters. Letter that my selfish heart had me kept locked in a drawer in my cupboard.

He met me at a most fortunate time in my life: I was sixteen and heartbroken. He was seventeen and in love. He was in my class in school; we weren't that close, just class mates. I always thought, (always being the few minutes in class when I would chance to look at him) there was something in his face: the look of love. I always thought, whenever I thought of him, he was in love. I couldn't think who it was though. There was a strange grief in his eyes, a beautiful despondence in his smile that only love allowed.

I knew there was something about him.

I was also in love. But I wasn't in love with him. I was very far from being in love with him. I had been in love with the guy I was in love with for four years. I had never told him but I did tell myself that it would never happen. Love was cruel, hateful, and miserable and it liked to watch people suffer. So I don't know how or why, as it was saw me being dealt with cruelly, being hated, being miserable and suffering and decided to let me not be any of that, feel any of that.

So, I was being sixteen and being heartbroken when one night he changed that and said "Hey". I didn't think that those three letters would change everything, change me when he first said that at 11:23pm. But I liked how those three letters grew and became words, beautiful, smiling, loving words. "We started talking". Isn't that how it usually goes? Because we did start talking and I realized what the despondence in his smile was, what the grief in his eyes was. He was troubled, like me.

He told me about his family, he told me about his childhood, he told me what made him happy and what made him sad. He told me what food he loved to eat and even though that's all he said I secretly went into the kitchen to learn to make it. We were talking every day, and I told him about my family, my childhood, what made me happy, what made me sad. I found we had something in common; we both had never lived for too long anywhere, in his seventeen years he had lived in 7 different cities and in my sixteen years I had lived in 5 (a figure I used to be proud of). We were both like that: we found a safe happy place, we found friends and then we were uprooted. I also found, he like me, now believed himself to be happy despite the way his life was.

And then we didn't talk. For three days. And it made me mad. It made me restless and it made me unbelievably angry when I found it only amused him.

"I missed you." He said, and changed everything. I wasn't going to fall in love with him. I had decided, I was in love with that other person, but was I?

Yes! Yes, I was. No, of course I was in love with the other person, I was.

"I missed you too." I said, stubbornly, unwillingly but I said it. And so I let him in. I let myself be vulnerable, I let myself be willing, and I let my heart fall for him. I let my soul forget whoever it waited for, and love him instead. If I am to speak of this and be utterly honest, we didn't fall in love. It was a very beautiful walk into it. It was a walk under a canopy of high, proud trees that allowed in sunlight only to light his eyes, to make my heart ache. It was a walk hand in hand, talking and laughing, falling yet walking.

I still laugh sometimes when I think of how he actually said it. He made me laugh when I thought I would definitely be crying myself to sleep that night. We were speaking of love, and I asked him if he had ever been in love. He said yes. He said, "I think I'm in love with you." He told me he had loved me for four years. I asked him why he never said anything, he said, "I was afraid you would hit me." And I laughed.

Two days later, at 11:29pm, I said, "I love you too." He was happy, very happy. It felt incredible to make someone happy simply by being in love with them.

I wasn't as in love with him that day as I was the next day and the one after that. I was more in love with him every day. I didn't know I could love him as much as I did. 16 is an age for exploring potential maybe. But I was never good with words. I told him had there been a device that could measure the intensity for love, I would make a new record each day, for him. But there wasn't any such device. So I wrote him a letter. Every time I felt I could have really used the device well, I wrote him a letter. Sometimes very long and sometimes very short. But I liked it. I felt maybe he could read them. I felt maybe I would give them to him someday and then I wouldn't need the device.

I was wrong.

(To be continued...)