seraphic [h.s]

chapter sixty three.

1996
-

Harry,

You had so kindly chosen to write me letters and in time I've finally chosen to write you back. Your words brought me a sense of understanding I hadn't known I'd needed. And even though you know me already, maybe you'll get a deeper sense of me through this very paper.

Or maybe you'll realise how messily horrific my mind can be, and you'll think, 'well, shit'.

Either reaction is okay, I promise.

I have no idea what I'm even going to say first, or I guess it's too late for that since I've already started writing. You made your letters flow so easily I have no idea how you did it. It's much harder than I thought.

I wonder if you're wondering what I'm doing. You took us back to one of my favourite places — the spot by the beach. I'm not even sure how you know of it. But you do. I haven't been here in quite some time actually. But you're painting my toes, and you're painting them blue.

I wonder if you've ever painted toes before? You seem to be quite good at it.

I just checked and you seem to be making no mess, making it look perfect. You're a perfectionist, I think. The way you're nibbling on your lip means you're concentrating hard, and I don't have the heart to tell you that they're just my toes your painting. Toes that will be covered by socks most of the time, feet that will be in shoes since it's so cold.

But you look extremely cute and there's no way I would ever risk that smile fading.

If I'm honest, which I always try to be, I feel that I was made only to observe. I always think about it like this— if there were a room so crazily big, filled to the brim with people, I would be there only to watch. To listen. To take it all in. So in a way, I look at life like that too. To observe things in general, but mainly to really see the little things. To make note of them when nobody else does. To see things so small that they are almost microscopic. Stuff like that.

It's what I'm doing now. With you. And even though I'm writing this, you have no idea how intently I'm taking you in, but I am.

The specks of your hair that shine lighter with the afternoon glow casted down on you. The veins in your hands as you place each stroke of blue polish, how they twitch and become a lot more prominent.

And I'm noticing all of these little things about you but it's more than that.

And you, for example, you noticed things about me even years ago. Like my shaky hands. Nibbling lips. Even now, how you always know when my own head is crowded and loud. You observed me— an observer. You observed an observer. So... maybe we're torn from the same cloth. Maybe that's why you get me the way not many people do.

And there won't ever be enough words for me to describe to you how grateful I am that you get me, that you understand me even just by glance alone. But sometimes, I don't know why you love me at all. Sometimes, I think that if you saw the way my mind was made, how it was formed, how it runs, that you would understand my hatred for it.

And maybe if you truly saw it for all that it is, you would run. Far. So far away. And I really wouldn't blame you. I swear I wouldn't. Not again.

Sometimes I find myself wanting to take a peek inside of your head, behind your eyes, just so I can see myself the way you do. To see what it is that you love so strongly. I may not see myself that way, the way you can, but I see your love, and I believe it, and that makes me want to see everything.