Baby It's You

Chapter 3.

You had been coming up the street, back to your apartment and the comfort of your bed, when the letter came. Leaving the library a little later than usual, you caught the evening post in front of you as you walked, the postman with his shiny bald head and neat uniform driving up beside you, stopping here and there to duck into buildings and empty out his bags. By the time you had got to your apartment block he was already in front of you, opening up the letter-boxes and sifting through his piles and piles of letters. One by one by one, the pile dwindling quickly until at last one went into your box, and then another minute and he was leaving, the front door banging shut behind him. Unlocking your box, you took out the letter, turned it over in your hand. 

There was your name on the front, messily written in some strange handwriting that you did not recognise at all. The right apartment address, all the same. And then, in the very corner, the stamp of some hotel address, from where it had been sent. Dover. Why would you be getting a letter from an unknown sender in Dover? You locked up the letter-box and hurried up the stairs to your apartment. Opening the door, you found the apartment all but quiet. At eight thirty on a Friday night you really shouldn't have expected it to be, still you felt your heart sink at the crowds of people in the sitting room, draped all over the sofa and coffee table and spilling out into the kitchen and the bedrooms. You knew better than to try and go into your bedroom - you didn't want to know what you might walk into. 

Turning on your heel, you backed out into the corridor, retraced your footsteps down the stairs and through the front door, out onto the street. The light was dimming quickly, the streetlamp on the corner turning on as the night drew in and the warm ebbed from the city that never slept. You were beginning to think you would not either. Under the streetlight there was a bus-stop which was really only a narrow bench and an awning, a poster of the bus-times plastered on the post of the streetlight. Sitting there, you took a deep breath and opened the envelope, closing your eyes and only opening them when you had unfolded the letter in your hands. 

Dear (Y/N), 

You read it all, and then read it through one more time when you were done, a little surprised and a little more amused. It seemed like a silly thing that you would do, and you might have laughed at yourself if you weren't outside, in public. That might be a bit weird, even by your measures. There was something about it that was so very strange, so very endearing. You felt all at once like you were doing something very secret and very wrong, a dirty secret or a love affair. You had never done this kind of thing before. 

When you looked up from the page at last it was all but dark, the street deserted as the last of the students walking home from college had disappeared into the buildings along the way. There was a glow of lamplight from each window opened onto the street, the leaves of the trees painted an ethereal gold. All at once the night was beautiful, New York not so bad. All at once this little letter had made things so very complicated. 

You knew this was the end of it. You had written, they had written back. No more to make of it, nothing else you had to say. You'd write to your boyfriend tonight, tell him what a foolish thing you'd done by mistake. By tomorrow morning you'd have forgotten about all of this entirely. Still there was that part of you that buzzed with questions they had left unanswered in one letter that was nowhere near enough. You could not be satisfied, and deep down you knew that this was never going to be only one letter. 

Rubbing your tired eyes and standing from your bench, you walked a little way down the street, over to the park a few blocks over that you had coffee in sometimes. You needed to clear your head, you needed to come to your senses. Your head was filling up with thoughts you had never seen coming, never thought you'd have to deal with before, and the truth was you did not have the space. You needed your head for thought of space, for thoughts of astrophysics and houses and rent and employment and affording a plane ticket back to London in four months; not for random letters from strangers in Dover who asked you about your day more than anyone else had this past eight months. After all, it was just a letter. So why did this feel like something so much more?