Twenty-Eight Stamps [#Wattys2017] || ✓

the f i f t h letter

Dear Hunter,

Every time I saw you at school, you were with someone else, whether it was one of your guy friends, or your girl friends, or your girlfriends. When I saw you, I couldn't help thinking that I should be with you instead. I wanted to be around you constantly.

To me, it felt as though we were connected in a way that required us to be together at all times. You probably didn't feel the same way in those early days. Now I come to think of it, you probably never did.

Within a month, I sat in my windowsill every day, trying to see if you were out there so I could just catch a glimpse of you. That sounds horrifyingly creepy, and it probably is depending on how you look at it. I'm not sure whether watching someone through your window to attempt to figure them out as a person is flattering or terrifying. I'd like to go with the first option.

No matter how hard I tried to get you to notice me — and believe me, I tried everything I could think of — by the time summer rolled around, you had barely spared me a single glance.

The holidays came and went, and we returned into Sixth Form. By fate or destiny, you lived in a house just across the road from mine, so I was not short of catching looks at you over the six weeks of freedom.

On the first day, you said the first thing you ever said to me in person.

"I like your hair," you said, across the corridor, and we were swept apart within seconds.

Over the summer, I had plucked up the courage to replace my blonde locks with a cotton candy shade of pink, partially because I had been planning on doing it for a while and partially because I hoped it might make you notice me. I was so elated after those four words that it was enough to brighten my spirits for the remainder of the day.

That dye has faded now, unlike my love for you. That is something I have grown to believe could sustain the wrath of all the time in the world.

All my love, always,
Maia.