Letters

So I was an emotional wreck.

This fella had made himself completely and utterly my personal obsession. It was all his fault of course..I had found him totally repulsive only 2 weeks earlier. But he just had to ruin it. Maybe he didn't like the idea of being loathed by my awesome self? So of course he had become friendly, funny and interesting. He was smart, handsome and caring. I was only 17 now...and I was completely hooked. My thoughts were nothing, except him.

I had no idea what to do.

One: I was battling my inner self over feelings of guilt and betrayal. I had been helplessly, pathetically in love with another guy only a week before our encounter together. How could I get over him so quickly? (I now know it was because Lachlan was just...well....better)
Two: I wanted to be mature. Sounds stupid whenever someone says that. By saying i wanted to be mature, I was automatically saying that I was immature and foolish. But I wanted to be able to have him as a friend ONLY.
Three: I had no idea how to do that.

I found myself, once again in those delightful maths classes. They always seemed to be the times I most thought about Lachlan. Of course, it does explain why I failed at maths so much...

Anyways! I was sitting in this awful 45 minutes of torture, and I thought of an idea. I didn't think it would help stop me liking him, but maybe I could come across as more of a friend, than a hopeful wannabe girlfriend. Of course, thinking about it now I still think it was a stupid method. But it was all I could up with.

And a solution was becoming increasingly desperate.

*All mathematicians must now stop reading, because I am about to retell a detail which might break their hearts*

With the madness raging within me for a solution, I grabbed my hated grid paper in my book, and two seconds later....it was detached and in my hands. Grabbing a pen I began to madly write my first letter to Lachlan Pembroke.

You have no idea how hard that first letter was. So many times I stopped, re-read the whole two lines I'd written making positively sure that I was coming across as only a friend. Then I would have moments of complete anxiety where I would think about his reaction: would he freak out and think I was completely insane?

That letter was lucky to have been written. I nearly gave up so many times. But by the end of class I had finished. There it was...only a ripped, ugly piece of grid paper, with a few sentences about who knows what...asking him how he was, his opinion on maths and my delightful description of how much I hated it.

I folded it.

I drew some stupid picture on the outside.

I wrote his name in slow, deliberate and extremely neat handwriting.

Then I hid it in my pencil case, and waited until Friday.

Three slow days passed, and finally I had the chance of giving him the letter. Of course, how on earth was I going to give him this paper? If I walked up to him in public and handed it to him, I ran the risk of:
a) people humiliating me afterwards
b) him laughing at me and rejecting my writing
c) tripping over and the piece of paper falling out of my hands into someone else's hands and then dying on the floor from pure embarrassment.

If I asked him to come away privately I ran the risk of:
a) people seeing me lure him away and them begin rumours about us
b) him crushing me through rejection, and this time privately and more personally
c) tripping over on the way the 'private' spot and dying of embarrassment there, and him picking the letter out of my hand and laughing at me, while I slowly died.

So I went with the safer option: I left it on the windscreen of his car. If he read it and thought I was crazy, he could simply chuck it away and stay far away from me, because it would be too embarrassing for him to confront me over it. Of course he could tell his friends, and eventually it would come back to haunt me, but I needed to risk it. Of course, I hoped, prayed, begged to God, that he would read it, and perhaps considering writing me back.

Then it rained.

At first I didn't realise the complications of this situation, but when my mind finally caught up with my body, I FREAKED out! Forgetting all possible results which could arise from my actions, I ran up to him, and said,

"Go to your car NOW! I left you something, and it'll be ruined soon!"

And with so much enthusiasm and with the most confused, but excited smile on his face, he ran to get my letter.

And I knew in that moment, that I didn't need a letter in reply. His smile was reply enough. He was excited of my invitation to be his friend. To be his best friend.

And now I have a collection of reply letters.