Yours

November 19th

Dear Sophia,

I love you. It’s worth getting through anything to see you. The amount it was raining today was actually a bit scary. It’s stupid that the whole country stops whenever the weather turns bad. The weather is bad every year. It’s not a surprise. Today was especially bad though. It was like the whole sky was falling down.

Seeing you makes me not worry though. I didn’t care that my hair was heavy on my head or that my trousers were sticking to my legs. I was only a bit concerned you might get ill from being cold in the rain. I was relieved when I saw you had an umbrella with you. That’s really sensible. I don’t think I own an umbrella. I’d always forget to bring it with me anyway. I’m glad you had yours. It wouldn’t be good for you to go back to the office with wet hair and spend the rest of the afternoon all soaked and freezing.

It would have been nice if I could’ve driven into town today. It’s not much of a walk but it would’ve been nice to not have to walk in the rain. Then I could’ve driven you back to your office and kept you out of the rain too. I can’t drive yet though. I’ve never had a driving lesson. I’m sure I could drive if I had to but at the moment I don’t know how.

When I was at school I never had the money to get driving lessons. I walked to school every day and never went anywhere else so I didn’t really feel like I needed it. The same was true in Sheffield. I had to walk everywhere in the city so having a car wouldn’t have helped anyway.

When I was in my last year at university I started to think about learning to drive so I could drive wherever I wanted once I’d finished my degree. Then in January my mum died in that car crash and I started seeing car crashes everywhere. Whenever I saw a car pulling out of a junction I’d be convinced it wasn’t going to stop and a car coming the other way was going to smash into it. Whenever I heard a car horn or brakes screeching on the road it would make me feel like something terrible was happening.

I wasn’t there so I don’t know exactly what happened to my mum but it made me realise how easily something like that can happen. It wasn’t a disease or something specific that killed my mum. It was a car crash and a car crash can happen in a million different ways for a million different reasons at any time at any place. You can’t be immune to a car crash. You can’t stop them happening.

I don’t think about it quite as much anymore. I do still feel a bit funny if I imagine being behind the wheel of something I know can kill people. I wouldn’t like knowing I had that power. I’d have to feel completely in control.

It’s something I’m definitely going to work on though. Then I’ll be able to drive us around wherever we want and keep you out of the bad weather. I’ll learn as soon as I can. I promise. It’s no good being scared of it.

Usually I’d just ignore anything I’m scared of. Like spiders. I don’t know why. I’m not good with them. It’s just something about the way they move. And when they’re not moving they’re just as creepy. If I see one run under a cupboard or something I just leave the room and close the door until I feel comfortable going back in. I have to convince myself it must’ve gone out of the room after a while. That’s not quite as important though obviously. It just shows how I used to be with things that scare me. Not anymore though. You’ve changed that. You make me want to take care of everything. If you’re scared of spiders I’ll have to be the one who gets rid of them. I want to be able to protect you from everything.

I hope you got home warm and dry today.

I love you.

Yours,

Andrew