23.07.15 We liked each other. I have shed too many tears for that to be untrue. There was a time when two anxiety ridden teens, terrified of eye contact, could stare into each other’s eyes and not feel the pangs of self-consciousness. There was a time when I could feel our hearts beating to the same rhythm. We forgot about the unavoidable awkwardness that hounds young love, and we could just be. It was a fleeting time. Some girl in a different country stole his eye for a moment, and he forgot about me. It was fleeting; but minutes don’t measure the timelessness that surrounded us when we kissed. It was honest, it was equal, and it was real. I thought I’d found it. I’ve never fallen for anyone before. No matter what I did, my mind wandered to him. He could make or ruin my day with his words. Most days are ruined now with his silence.

25.07.15 He’s asked to see me... He wants to talk. It’s hard not to get my hopes up. I am wearing all black to feel scary and I’m thinking about the time that Kate Nash said, “WAKE UP EVERY MORNING AND TELL YOURSELF THAT YOU’RE A BADASS BITCH FROM HELL AND THAT NO ONE CAN FUCK WITH YOU AND THEN DON’T LET ANYONE FUCK WITH YOU.”

27.07.15 I’m a bit drunk, I can’t really see the lines on the page. Erin is passed out and all I can think about is you. The way you smell, the way your smile is crooked. The right side always goes up a bit higher. I love your teeth. Your mad, blonde hair. Untameable and perfectly imperfect. The way you kiss. The way it feels when you hold me.

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13.09.2015 To you, who gave me a map and a destination and watched me as I found my way home.

Before I met you my life was grey. I thought colour was a myth. I didn’t believe in love; it was something found only in fairy tales and I thought happiness was a pipe dream.

You changed that, on the day I first met you I knew you were going to be more than human to me. I looked into your eyes and I saw deep blue and suddenly everywhere I looked was saturated. You filled me with an excitement I hadn’t felt since I was seven and you made me believe in happiness.

You taught me what it means to love. To understand someone and to be understood in return. You taught me the importance of honesty. How sometimes it hurts but never lingers, like taking off a plaster and airing a wound. You taught me the power of intimacy. When two people are one and for the moment, become a single beating heart. You taught me friendship. How words can hurt more than knives, but how they can also heal. You taught me beauty. How it comes in the form of comfort, in the form of insecurities and confidence. You helped to ground me, to make me realise that I don’t need anyone. But that I want someone. Someone who I can love through every pore on my skin. Through the cracks and folds of their being. Someone who I can see in every sunset and hear in the waves of the sea. I found that someone in you.

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[...]

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04.05.17

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It's been a long time since I wrote in this book. I found it under my fireplace (where I used to hide my cigarettes). I'm basically a new person now. I still think about you a lot, but I don't miss you anymore. I moved to a new city and met someone else. He also has blue eyes, but his smile is straight, and he doesn't have any hair.

I don't know why I didn't feel anything when I read that last entry again. I guess I really am a new person now. Or maybe because you showed me it for the first time and I thought it was everything, but really it was a candle lit by a small spark that cast long, dark shadows that hid entirely the parts of myself I not yet knew existed. It was altogether incomparable to this forest fire he's set off inside me, one that burns so bright all shadows cease to exist, and with smoke so thick and heat so strong it chokes anyone who tries to smother it.

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06.05.17

I see a heartbreak on the horizon.

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