Love Letters and Literature

Familiar Streets and Deciding

Fiona didn't bombard me with a million questions. She didn't try to control the radio. She didn't need an explanation or a reason, all she needed was to see me crying and she knew it was serious.

In the eight years that I've known Fiona she's cried a thousand times.

She's cried at movies and weddings. She's cried at kittens and puppies. She's very emotionally strong. She lets it out. She's in touch with the human side of herself but I'm not like that.

Fiona has only seen me cry once since we've been friends and that was when my grandma died. I didn't sob, I didn't fall to pieces, but I quietly cried in the pew next to my parents.

Fiona had tagged along for emotional support and she said it was the most haunting sight she'd ever seen, and that I must have really loved my grandmother to invoke such a strong response to her passing.

My grandmother always told me that it doesn't matter if other people like you, or if other people validate you. It doesn't matter if you're first or if you're last so long as you're still proud of yourself in the end.

I am not proud of myself.

Looking back on the day that I invaded my professors privacy makes me want to vomit. What was I thinking? That we could just be friends and that I would be satisfied with that?

You can't talk to someone every day and not expect to have feelings for them.

You can't call them pet names and think that it's harmless.

You can't pour your heart and soul out to them, and expect not to lose a part of both in the process.

I had a crush on Thomas when this started, that I know for certain.

But an even stronger certainty now is that I'm in love with him. I'm so in love with him it hurts but what's worse is that he can never know the truth.

On the off chance that he did return my feelings and wasn't absolutely livid that I lied, we still couldn't be together. The rules at Duke clearly state that student/teacher relationships are forbidden.

Trust me I've checked a hundred times.

I know that he's kissed me and I'm so grateful to have experienced that at least once.

I know that he has real human feelings for Lane but I have to trust that he can move on.

"How far out are we?" I ask with weakness in my voice.

"About twenty-five minutes or so," Fiona responds with a yawn. I know she's tired and I could never tell her how thankful I am for doing this, for our entire friendship.

"Did you want to call your mom before we arrive?"

The clock on the dash reads midnight.

"I don't think she'd be awake, let's try to sneak in like old times."

"Just like old times," Fiona responds with a reminiscent smile. "But if your dad shoots and kills me clear my browser history."

***

My bedroom is exactly how I left it before I moved to campus three years ago. I've visited since then of course and every time I walk through the door my mother makes sure to say "I left everything just how you like it."

She prides herself on her ability to be a perfect tv mom.

"I can't believe they didn't wake up, what if we were axe murderers?" Fiona whispers as we settle ourselves in my bedroom.

"Well I guess they'd die," I say with a smirk on my face.

The walls are a horrid pale pink that I picked out as a freshmen in high school and there's this awful trim about a fourth of the way up that's silver glitter. It goes around the entire room like a gaudy tutu.