Dear A, 

We almost didn’t meet. I was going to hit the snooze button on my alarm, roll over and forget how excited I had been the night before. But I didn’t hit that snooze button; I woke up, pulling on jeans and a top, pulling my blazer sleepily over my shoulders. The moment I met you was a blur of red, blue and gold, friends dashing around, and your arms around my waist. Later, I would think it was ironic how you literally swept me off of my feet.

You were smart, and funny, and boyish. The night you kissed me (or did I kiss you?), I was so high on life. I had spent the whole day, watching you, wanting you, so sure that you wanted me back. When I asked you to dance with me, I knew what I wanted. I wanted that feel of your arms around me, your lips on mine, your attention solely on me. I hoped that it would carry on. I hoped that it wasn’t the one night. I got what I wanted.

Exam term, my first: and I was always by your side. I didn’t work, I didn’t eat, I barely slept. Everything became about your texts, when you would see me next, how happy I was when we were together and how desperately sad I was when we weren’t. I fell for you so hard, so quickly. How could I not? I had never been in love before, and it was intoxicating. You were intoxicating. Your sleepy smile first thing in the morning, the terrible way you danced, your insistence on quoting along to the movies we watched. The nights we spent playing cards with your friends, the nights we stayed in and played video games. Shooting nerf guns at each other in your bedroom, cheering on your rowing team, drinking those massive mugs of strong coffee you loved so much.

You broke my heart. I should have known. I think, deep down, I knew. I confronted you because I knew: because it was May Week, and I didn’t know what would happen if we both left Cambridge and I hadn’t asked. So I asked. And you told me that I never meant anything to you. You told me that I was “interchangeable” with any other girl (and god, did that hurt.) I spent the night with you. I knew what would happen when I left the next morning. I broke. It hurt, so much, I thought that the pain would never go. You filled up my senses with everything that you are, you imprinted your touch into my skin, and then you left.

The truth is, I wrote you another letter two years ago. It was a very different letter, full of curse words and pain and hurt. I read it back over, and I ache for the girl who wrote it. I finished it with these words: “I miss you. I hate you. A tiny part of me (hopelessly, foolishly, painfully) still loves you.” I wrote that, still longing to see you again, still dreaming of you when I fell asleep, still comforting myself by the thought of your arms around me. I thought that my heart would never heal, that I would hurt this way for so long. I was right about the second part. It did hurt, for so long. And then, the summer came. And I found myself walking through Oxford with another boy, one so different from you. It’s taken me so long to trust him, to trust that he won’t abandon me like you did. He’s different in every way from you. And I love him. When I look back at what I wrote, I am comforted by the fact that none of it holds true anymore.