Love Letters

Love Letters (Part 23)

                                                                  Tyler

The holidays were still a week away and everyone was starting to feel the strain of the long term. Ally in particular was stressed out big time. I put it down to her family issues and exam stress; she hadn’t done too well on the last exams and was worried about picking things up. I decided to take her out on the Sunday to watch a film and try and get her to relax a little. We watched a romantic comedy and though I didn’t like to admit it, some parts were relatively funny but Ally just sat there straight faced staring ahead at the screen.

The seats were very close together and at one point she had her elbow on the armrest and my arm brushed hers and she flinched away. I was stunned by her reaction, it wasn’t something she’d ever done before and I racked my brains trying to work out what it was I’d done wrong.

We’d been fine when she’d been staying round and even when she went home things were normal, I still called her and we still talked to each other on the phone every night. I remembered that the last two days that I called her she’d been off with me and had cut the call short because she’d had to revise or take a bath or go out with her family.

I hadn’t thought anything of it then but now it was starting to make more sense, though why she was behaving like that made no sense to me at the time. I hadn’t tried to force our relationship further and both of us had agreed we were comfortable at the pace it was going at.

I watched her from the corner of my eye, not even focusing on the film anymore and watched as she ate popcorn, a piece every few seconds. Her movements were almost robotic, she didn’t even like toffee flavoured popcorn.

I decided to leave her be, if there was one thing I’d learnt about girls it was that sometimes they just needed to be left alone. Pushing her for answers would get me nowhere and she’d tell me what was wrong when she was ready, like she always had.

After the movie I walked her home as the sun started to set. Usually she had something to say about how beautiful the sunset was in this part of the country, but that day she said nothing. She walked at a slightly more brisk pace than me and I found myself rushing to keep up with her.

‘I didn’t know you were so eager to get away from me Al,’ I said finally, unable to hold myself back anymore.

She stopped dead in her tracks and looked at me for a moment or two.

‘I’m not; I just don’t think it was a good idea for me to go out today.’ She replied, drawing out her response.

‘Did I do something wrong?’ I asked her, hands in my pockets waiting nervously for her reply.

‘No, no never Tyler, it’s just one of those days. I’m sorry.’ She told me, her eyes gazing at me forlornly.

We reached her house and she opened the gate and closed it right behind her, I was taken aback, typically she’d ask me if I wanted to come in for a while. It was a custom for us to kiss outside her house every time I dropped her off and no matter what her mood was like we always carried it out, it was like tradition.

I leant in to kiss her, eyes open and she closed her eyes. Just as our lips were about to meet she turned her face and my kiss fell on her left jaw, she let out a deep breath and I pulled back.

She shrugged at me sadly and walked in to the house without looking back. I turned to walk home in the dark and kicked every stone and every pebble I came across. I just didn’t understand what was going on with us that day, it had never happened before.

I wasn’t even in the mood to cheer myself up; the last few hours had completely ruined my day. I remembered what I’d written to Jem that other time, ‘Always look for the silver lining.’ Today there just wasn’t one, no matter how hard I tried to find one.

When I got home nobody else was home and I went up to my room and saw her letter and DVD on the desk. I wasn’t even in the mood to reply to her just yet, I’d never purposely put off writing to her before and yet that day I did.

I slotted the film she’d sent me into the DVD player but when I remembered that it was a love story, I turned the TV off and fell into bed with my clothes still on, all the lights in the house turned off and went to sleep.