Last night, as I turned out the lights and walked to my bed in the darkness, something caught my eye. It was a dim, but distintintive green glow coming from a small table at the foot of my bed. Curiousity piqued, I walked towards it with my hand stretched out impatiently in front of me. When I picked it up, I realized what it was.
Glow-in-the dark stars! Not just stars, but also 2 Saturns and a comet with it's tail curving back behind it.
I stood there motionless in the dark, for several moments. Something had just occured to me. I climbed naked into my warm bed, still holding my glowies in my hand.
Right upto that moment, I'd always secretly wished that I'd been in love at least once in my life. Don't get me wrong, I've fallen in and out of forbidden love more times than I can count.
No, what I mean is ... I was thinking how I had never been "The Only One" for anyone. I'd always put myself into impossible relationships where the chances of something permanent were a million to one. It was always 'no strings attached', and that always suited me just fine.
Except that I was wrong. There was this once ...
He was my sister's friend's younger brother. He was six years my junior, so at first, we all laughed it off as a boyish crush.
He wouldn't dare tell me directly, but he'd confided in his sister who told my sister . Big mistake.
But it was there. In his face, when he smiled, when he looked at me, when he heard my name, the softness with which he said my name.
He sent me bars of Kit Kats from his school canteen.
He made excuses to hang out at my house, just so he could be around me.
He got drunk on my birthday, just so he could rest his head on top of mine while we danced (yes, he was a giant) and say "I love you, Ri"
He carried a huge teddy bear past all his friends on Valentine's Day (so brave, and only just 16) to give to my sister to give to me.
He made me cry when he announced that he was over me, and was finally seeing someone his age.
He came back to me, the second he found out that I cried for him.
He held my hand and kissed it 23 times in 3 hours while it was wrapped around him and his little black kitten snored contentedly on my chest.
The other night we spent at their house, I was so fascinated with the constellation of glowy stars on their ceiling, I could barely sleep.
He came home the next week and stuck glowy stars above my bed. A whole constellation of them.
As I lay in my bed 4 years later, a hundred years older and not a second wiser, I held what was left of my glowies close to me. The glue had dried up and most of them got lost when I changed bedrooms. Except for these.
My dear, sweet you. Thank you for loving me the way that you did. It may have just been a boyish crush, and we may have outgrown each other, but for that short while, I was The Only One for you. And for that, I will be forever grateful. Love always, me.
