#goodbyeeeee

My mother never read to us, you see. My sibling never kept a promise. No friend has ever known me at all, let alone better than I do. Love is something for other people. I'm not nearly human enough to deserve it. I'm strange, of course; brought up wrong. Children need to be loved, don't they? Children need to be treated gently, with care and attention. They need their achievements praised and their mistakes carefully corrected. So where does that leave me? With a traumatised dad and a depressed mum who never learnt how to have children, who try their best but not in the things that matter? No, love is for the good children, who didn't talk too loud and could pronounce their R's and weren't born two days before their mothers birthday. So love was never mine, and I never thought it would be.

I'm used to the attempt at love. My parents aren't bad, they're just tired, and they always tried to love me. My friends, too, before lockdown. Nine years old, shut off from the world, away in a house with uncaring parents and an uncaring sibling. I stole a knife and so my parents sent me to school again. I cried and they told me to shut up. I complained and they told me I was wrong. So when I saw my friends again, they were perfect! They never told me to be quiet, they just said I was too much. And as long as I liked Taylor Swift and Imagine Dragons, they'd let me talk about my interests as much as I wanted! Life was good again! Maybe, I thought to myself, this was love. Not care or comfort, but a quiet acceptance of each others oddities, as long as they weren't too odd. Be silent, be still, try to say your R's, keep your birthday small so hers can be bigger. Then you might be one of the good ones.

So yes, love has never been mine. And I won't linger on the old parts of the story - I met you after a lifetime of knowing you four years ago and I wish it was far longer, you scare me, will always scare me, I love you with a ferocity I don't know how to live with, I know you and I know nothing about you - but the new parts. Oh, I don't talk about those nearly as much, do I?

It's a bitter thing, is love. It isn't the wavering trust I used to believe it was. Love is strong and everlasting. Love is you making me a keychain of my favourite character even though he's really bland design-wise and you sending me photos of seagulls and the way you look at me sometimes and long rambling conversations about nothing in particular and me wanting to tell you everything and having a vague idea on your favourite cake and mostly getting it right and earl grey and sugar before milk and for all I know everything is love, because you care about me in a way I've never known and it feels like every time I see you I die a little bit inside because if this is what Love, capital L Love is, then why has it taken me this long to find it? And sometimes I look at you and realise you have no idea what I see when I do and that just baffles me because how could you not? If given the chance I would list everything incredible about you because I could talk for hours about who you are to me. You said you reread the shitty things I write the other day. You like good music. You like good shows. You're a good friend and kind and funny and smart and you said you like to see how others view you? I would tell you any day, if you let me.