the girl knocked on his door and went in, with a curious mixture of excitement and nervousness at seeing him again after the week away. they'd parted suddenly; her train would be here soon, she had to pack and get to the station, and so there was no space for words, just parting kisses, goofy smiles and squeezed hands. nothing had been suggested which would have led her to believe that the boy was no longer interested, that for him it was purely a drunken snog. conversely, neither of them had mentioned keeping it going.

he was sitting in his chair next to the window, right leg crossed over left, ankle on thigh. he'd been crying - she walked over to him, smile fading. he handed her the letter in his hands and smiled, a sad, quivering smile which threatened to consume his entire face and produce fresh tears.

she sat down on the boy's lap sidesaddle-style. she wiped the boy's tears away with her pointer fingers. when more tears formed in the boy's tearducts, the girl shooed them away with warm kisses. the tears didn't take heed of this warning and strutted their way down the boy's soft cheeks. the boy wrapped his arms round the girl, criss-crossed his fingers round her waist and continued weeping.

the girl lay her head on the boy's left shoulder and closed her eyes. the train ride over had made her so sleepy. she almost forgot that there was an envelope housing a letter in her right hand. she took a deep breath and asked the boy if she should read the letter in front of him. he nodded that it would be alright; that he could handle it; that he was a big boy.

she recognised his childlike scrawl, letters arranged higgeldy-piggeldy, following no pattern. few capitals, little punctuation. the letter was written in blue pen on orange construction paper, and without any lines to guide him, as his words approached the right hand side of the page they slid down the page, causing the line underneath that to follow a similar path, and so on, until at one point the text was almost at a forty-five degree angle.

"hey you,

i know this is going to sound weird and freaky but don't be scared. please. its nothing bad. i just needed to get these words out of me today cos they were going round and round my head i couldn't concentrate.

i'd been thinking a lot this week. about you, me, us, relationships. i don't think i'm capable of articulating how ecstatic i was during our time together, and how disconnected and lost i was when you were seeing your friends for the week.

i also know this sounds sudden.

but we've known each other for a time now and youve come to mean a great deal to me. how could you not? all the time we spent together - walking and talking in the park, on the streets, lying on your floor listening to records - it was impossible for you not to become someone special. to me.

i was scared at first, after that night, i thought 'please don't let this wreck everything we've spent so long building' but now i realise it won't. it couldn't.

we have something so special here. it feels so right, like an old comfy sweatshirt. or a towel just out of the dryer. we fit. i know you feel this way too - dont ask me how, i can offer you no explanations.

whats shredding me up inside is the deadline imposed upon us. you going away. i know it's in 2 months and i hope, hope with every part of my being that these two months are going to be effervescent, but the thought of you leaving is already tearing me up - i don't know what i'll be like when that day rolls around. "

she stopped reading then and looked at him. he'd stopped crying but his eyes showed he still didn't have control. she reached down, stroked his face with her fingertips - how can he feel this strongly? her attention returned to the letter.