you were always there for me (until you weren't)

your touch gave me something (that i didn't have)

You didn't really understand it, you're not sure if you even understand it now as an 'adult'. You don't really understand the reason why as a kid you were averse to touch. Remember the way you used to react? The way you used to recoil from the touch with an angry look on your face. The way you'd spit out those scalding words, "don't touch me", and the confusion and shock on their faces. Your friends - or at least something like that.

Why?

Was it embarrassment? No, not quite. It's hard to place the feeling because it wasn't just one - they were intertwined. You don't hate yourself for it, you don't think... but it's so confusing. You'll find you're still confused many years down the track.

It never stopped you from bonding with people really, but it was certainly a barrier to overcome (or at least that's what you told yourself).

You think you have an inkling now as to the reason behind it almost a decade later, but you're no psychologist (not that any psychologists have proven useful to you - at least western ones, they don't really understand your culture).

You couldn't understand your aversion to touch back then, but you were painfully aware of it.

You didn't mould yourself into a person who would accept her touch - or more like, to accept it.

You worked hard on it when you realised you were going to have a relatively fresh start - away from people who knew that part of you. She wasn't the reason but god was she almost like a gift for trying to fix that part of you.

You worked yourself up with people who didn't know it's weird for you to casually let them touch you - laying hand on your shoulder, briefly touching your arm when you say something funny or just outrageous (which is often).

It didn't take half a year until you could hug and receive hugs even though it still felt uncomfortable and your insides felt a little funny like maybe you weren't supposed to be doing that. It took a long time to shake the feeling like something was wrong and you were going to get in trouble for something, you're still not sure what that something is (or more like you kind of know). From then on you looked like a normal girl, you guess. From the outside.

But when she happened? You brushed off the flutters as the usual ones you get when you have to handle touching. You didn't even care at first but as you spent more time around each other, she grows on you. It's a simple dance, you make her laugh and she gives you soft brown eyes combined with a blinding smile.

It's very gradual but eventually touching her feels like second nature. You initiate and reciprocate in kind but things change sometime later. You're not sure if she was the best thing that ever happened to you or the worst.

The casual brushes of hands against each other, how you hold each other as you laugh at something no one else understands. When her attention is on you it's like everyone else is just third-wheeling. She's always been a special person that way - the way she commands attention. Or is that just how you feel?

Holding hands as you walk around having ditched your respective 'groups'. You always swing your intertwined hands as you walk through some random corridor. Sometimes you get nervous but there's just something about her that makes you want it regardless.

Wrapping your arms around each other - shoulder, waist, hips - almost absentmindedly caressing that area. You're always so pliable under her touch.

"Kiss me," she says. Two versions of you years apart take this very differently - feel very differently (or maybe you just became aware). One complies instantly without thinking too much about it and the other hesitates, passes it off as a raised eyebrow and looks into her eyes coolly.

You can't remember when exactly it becomes normal to drape yourselves all over each other. To lean and lie on each other's arms in a boring class. Write your names on each other. Sitting on each other even when there's other seats available. To fall on each other and cuddle. Just simple affection.

You're not sure why it was her that became that person for you. Is she the first person you felt fully comfortable around? It's a pity it changed later - you had to be stupid and feel things. Ignorance truly is (or more accurately was) bliss.

Even years later the list of people you feel fully comfortable around is very small, you think you can count the number of people on one hand. The more time you spend away from these people, however, the more nervous the idea of accepting their touch makes you. You can't help but wonder, will things change? Be different?

But like everything else in life you fake it until you make it. It seems almost foolish to question it. Foolish to think that she, in particular, would ever change.

It isn't her after all that has the stomach-dropping revelation years after you've built this part of you around her. Given her this part of you and she doesn't even know it. No one does actually, these new people you've spent the later years with only know this you and you hope the people who used to know you will forget as you intended.

Oh.

It's at this moment you're writing this that the meaning of the song 'Landslide' suddenly makes all the sense in the world. It's almost laughable.

Because yes, she does and always will have a piece of your soul.

If your love was sweeter would it be any different? Perhaps not. Probably not. Unfortunately not. It became an isolated storm in another dimension only you could feel. Not love in the truest sense (despite what others would insist on with raised eyebrows), but love for her as a person and as someone who means something to you in whatever way. There are different types of love and some of them are one-way streets.

Her affection is sweet but recurringly ephemeral. It's almost irritating (who are you kidding, it is so supremely irritating but it's not just about her affection, it's about how you think you're somehow as important to her as she is to you). But it's her.

One day you hope it won't always feel like it's going to be her. Growing up and wanting to let go is one thing, actually letting go is another. Not too far, but enough. She's always going to be someone to you, mean something to you. But you hope it will fade with time. If only you could choose your own emotions and the way you hold a person in your heart.