the letter

I’m not sure if it would be a good idea to go actively looking for that letter again. The loft here is so full of stuff it might take years to find it. Perhaps when my husband finally buggers off back to America. No – skip that last bit; I’ll try again.

Maybe when I come home from my period of solitary reflection and tell him that, sadly, after hours of anguished thought I finally have the answer to the question he has been asking me, and that although I love him as a friend, I no longer feel able to give him what he has told me (so many times) is lacking in our relationship. That sounds better.

Maybe once he has gone and I can breathe again, I will drag everything from the loft into a room and go through it bit by bit. I think it must have been at least ten years since I last saw it. It was in the loft of another house. I can remember sitting on that chipboard floor, feeling the summer heat coming through the un-insulated roof.

I have no idea what I was looking for at the time – maybe nothing. Perhaps I was just looking. I can’t understand people who throw everything away. “Travelling light” is how they put it. They’ll never experience the thrill when you see something from long ago – when you instantly go back in your head to another place and time.

I don’t think it’s escapism. It’s not that I enjoy it because my life is so horrible now and was nicer then. I certainly don’t wish I were younger again. It was bad enough the first time. I’m happy being as I am now – more or less. Of course, I’d like to be more self-sufficient, brighter, shinier, whatever, but I know this is just the way I am. I try hard not to hurt people. I’m kind to animals and children. I try very hard to be a responsible adult.

It’s just that I love exploring old suitcases, and boxes full of things. I always have. Who knows what I’ll pull out next? In this case it was a small folded piece of paper. I can’t remember now if it was in a book, or an envelope. It was thin and dry and it felt very fragile as I opened it. Normally, as if by magic, my finds take me back instantly to a specific moment, in great detail. With this letter it was different. I still have no idea when it was written. There was no date on it. I don’t remember where I was when I first read it.

I know who wrote it. I’ll never forget his writing. It must have taken him so long – there’s not one spelling mistake and he had the most awful dyslexia. The only thing I can definitely remember is the worst; me saying “this is a joke right?” and him agreeing, and then neither of us referring to it again. Sometimes I say stupid things without thinking. That was an all-time low. Sitting on the floor of the loft, poring over the faded writing, it couldn’t have been clearer than a smack in the face that it was just about as serious as it could have been.

I remembered doing something similar myself, when I was much younger – maybe fourteen – to someone I had a huge crush on. I remember the feeling of desperation that drove me to it. I had no idea how else to say the things I was bursting with. I can still feel the heat rising up my face at the shame of rejection, wishing the pavement would open up underneath me, and feeling that I could simply not go on with my life after such humiliation. We are so fragile at that age.

Joel must have been older though; at least sixteen. There’s a huge difference between fourteen and sixteen. Why one earth didn’t he talk to me, face to face? I still can’t understand that. The letter was heartbreaking. It had the honesty and openness that we all kept well hidden beneath our breezy facades. Everything was a joke then. We certainly didn’t care about anything – at least that was what we said out loud.

That wasn’t what the letter said. He wrote that he loved me more than he’d ever loved anyone. He told me how it destroyed him each time I had a new boyfriend. He said it killed him dead. He asked if I thought I could ever possibly love him too.

I remember sitting there in the loft, feeling cold despite the heat, reading and rereading those words. There were a lot more, but it’s been a long time and I’m not going to guess in order to make this more interesting. I’m not sure I even want to find it again to be honest. I think once is enough to read something like that. Suddenly I didn’t want to go treasure hunting anymore. I wanted to ask him why the fuck he had said yes, when I’d asked him if it was a joke, but really it was obvious; what else could he have said after that dreadful killer question of mine?

There were times after that letter. After Joel died, it was the thing I was asked most often by people; “did you ever?” I never gave them a straight answer. It felt too private at the time. We weren’t strictly platonic the whole time we were together. We even made a stupid don’t care pact one day, that if we reached thirty alive and unattached, we would get married and have children, and he gave me a ring made of black onyx, set in silver. We made a joke of that too. I think possibly too many things were a joke then.

I have a lot to apologise for in my life, and I am slowly making my way through a long list, but of course this is something I never can apologise for. It’s too late. He’s dead, and I was too stupid to realise how much he meant to me until he was gone. So maybe skip the part earlier, where I wrote about how I wouldn’t like to go back there – to my teenage years. Perhaps I would, just for a day, to make my peace.