Other random stuff

Love letters

"Love doesn't exist."

Ever since you said that to me, I've been trying to prove you wrong. I tried to get you to fall in love with a guy you had had a crush on for years. You just flashed a coy smile and swished your blonde hair over your shoulder, laughing as you walked from the room. Aftr realising that this would never work, I changed my tactics. All's fair in love and war, right? My only option was to make you fall in love with me. Me? I hoped and prayed to God there was another solution, because I didn't want to do that to you. I knew how much our friendship meant to you, and I didn't want to take that away. But you were getting closer to the edge of the cliff; doing drugs, getting drunk at parties, and if I hadn't stopped you that one time, when you were walking off with that guy... I knew I didn't have enogh time to come up with an alternative.

I started off with a few innocent gestures, afraid of how you would react if you knew what I was up to. I dropped flowers on your bed, printed out funny pictures of us, with cryptic messages attached. Soon it was clear that nothing had changed, although you were a bit more confused than usual. I was getting desperate, so I talked to your mother, asking for help. She told me to get on with it, before you ruined your life. Your mother, the person who never rushes into anything, told me to, 'get a move on, son, this is taking too long'. Granted, she did help me in the end, suggested some innocent sleepovers, trips to the movies even. So, that's when you started to notice me. I mean, really notice me. We had grown up, and both of us had changed. I just don't think you gave it a passing thought when my voice broke, and then the rest of that ugly business. You finally saw my blue eyes, my tall figure, and how you were so small when you stood next to me. I, on the other hand, had noticed the changes that happened to you half a year before. I saw the way your eyes shined when you laughed, and how you seemed to observe everything around you, always looking for something new and exciting.

The sleepover worked, and bit by bit, your glass walls crumbled down, and I found out the real reason behind everything. The drugs; because nothing seemed bright without them. The drink; because you didn't know who you were without it. The parties; because it was the only where you knew how to be the person you had become. And as the walls around you crumbled, mine dissolved into nothing, weighed down by all that I had heard. And then I knew, I knew the pure, unadorned truth, the thing your mother had known with such certainty: I loved you, and that love could make you whole again.

We spent nearly every night together, just learning each other once more, both of us aware that something critical had changed. Most nights you fell asleep on me, your head snuggled into my shoulder. I would stroke your hair, just until I followed you into unconsciousness, where I dreamed of holding you, and leaving the pain you had suffered behind us.

You stared getting better, looking at the world with those sharp eyes, searching for excitement, ready to start fresh,

But, then you met your 'bad boy', as you called him, and thins went downhill. When he left you for a blond who knew how to hide her intelligence better, if she had any in the first place, I was there to stop you falling further off the wagon. You mother helped me pick up the pieces, giving me sympathetic looks every time you cried yourself to sleep on my shoulder.

You were like that for months, until I thought you had cried a large enough river. I took you out for dinner on my birthday, and you insisted on paying. We spent the whole day laughing, and even though you shed a few tears in the middle of those laughs, it was still an improvement.

The best part of helping you move on, was watching your face morph from crying your heart out, to laughing until you couldn't breathe, because I had done something absurdly stupid again.  

Like the time I was telling you about something one of our friends had said, and I walked straight in to a bus stop sign. Your face was the perfect image of shocked amusement, before your soft chuckles enticed a smug grin on my face. I took full credit, saying it was on purpose. But I wasn't going t tell you about the pain, too busy listening to your laughter to care.

Then there was the night of your birthday, when I pulled you out onto the roof of my house, a pile of blankets and my present for you set underneath the clear winter sky. You had forgotten your glasses again, and because I knew how much you wouldn't want to miss it, I brought them from the pocket of my jeans, and handed them to you.

We made a nest out of the blankets and cuddled, both of us staring at the bright stars. After a moment, I turned to watch you concentrate on the stars, holding your gasses in your hand. After about a minute of you narrowing your eyes at the velvety darkness, you pushed the glasses on your nose and gasped in delight.

You told me once what the stars looked like when you weren't wearing the glasses. "Fuzzy, indistinct blurs," was your exact wording, and then you compared it to with the lenses, where they were transformed into sharp pinpricks on a dark background. You likened it to a curtain that had been attacked by a cat, with the morning sun peeping through.

As you were letting out little gass and sighs of delight, I pulled over your present, and shoved it in front of your nose. You grabbed it in anticipation, pulling at the paper until it revealed it's secret. 

"To capture this night. I even specially requested perfect weather for you." I gestured to the cloudless sky, then groaned in pain when you elbowed me in the ribs, though your aim was off because you couldn't seem to stop giggling.

Opening the the already broken lid, you shot a suspicious glare that didn't go unnoticed by me. "I had to put the batteries in, or it wouldn't work," I explained, before you got violent. Your face cleared and you pulled out the camera triumphantly. You then proceeded to attempt to work the camera, trying to get it to the stage where you could take pictures.

You looked so cute struggling to get it working, that I absolutely had to laugh. You poked your toungue out at me in retaliation, which only made me laugh harder.

As payback for daring to laugh at you, you pushed the camera at me, demanding I 'make it work'. After fiddling for about five seconds, I 'fixed' it, and watched you gleefully run around the roof, geting different angles on the various patterns of 'holes in the sky'.

When you were finally finished, you cuddled back up next to me, wiggling until you were nestled somfortably in my side. We spent the rest of the night plotting and whispering, until the early hour of the morning, when we both fell asleep.

I woke to you trying to escape my gras, because you had woken up in and uncomfortable position. You had been lying on my arm, rpped around me like ivy around an old house. Before you could avoid the circle of my arms, I shifted my hands to the small of your back and your waist, and drew you back against me. At first you struggled, but when you realised I was awake, you just curled up next to me, and just enjoyed it. 

We dozed for a bit, and before I could fully think through what I was doing, I kissed your cheek and went inside for food. As I reached the kitchen, what I had just done finally registered, and a bright blush spilled over my face. Luckily, it was gone by the time you came down to find out what I was making.

I spent the next week huggin and touching you, trying to find the courage to say the words that were on the tip of my toungue. As usual, you did the gutsy thing, and told me first. I smiled so large it nearly cracked my face in two.

Even though you had said it in and uncharacteristically shy voice, I couldn't misplace the courage it took to say those three words, "I like you." So, I did the natural thing, and said it back before I lost my nerve, or you lost your patience. And the icing on the cake was when I asked you on a date.

So, two years on, and our big day is finally here. I love you, and I promise to try my hardest to not spill wine on your white dress. I know, it took me long enought to ask you to marry me, but at least you can't say 'love doesn't exist,' anymore. We both know it isn't true.

I have one last question. At a funeral, people wear black. At a wedding, people wear white. So, why is the groom always in a black tux?

In a matter of minutes, we will be husband and wife, and I can sweep you off you feet (again). 

I love you,

From your soon-to-be-husband (who will be wearing white)