An open letter to a boy:
Hi.
It’s me.
The girl who is (hopefully) on your mind.
You’re unlike anyone I’ve ever met, as cliché as that sounds. Being around you, whether it’s just us or in a group, makes me feel like I’m walking on air. I remember the exact date we met. I know how long it’s been since you last kissed me. I realize that your hugs are one of my favorite things in the entire world.
You are an enigma, a puzzle, something that I’m trying to figure out, but I can’t. You’re quite the opposite of me; I wear my heart on my sleeve, and my emotions are incredibly transparent. It’s so easy for you to read me, but I can’t say the same about you.
There’s so much I want to say to you, but to put it quite simply, I’m scared. I know there’s been some miscommunication because we’ve never really talked about things before, and I feel that right now, we’re good, even if it is ambiguous. Maybe this is just infatuation, and it will blow over soon, but maybe it’s not.
I don’t have expectations with this; I’m not expecting something specific to come out of this. I’m learning from my past mistakes because I really don’t want you to end up as one. Of course, I think about the potential of us and what we could be, but I’m not putting you on a pedestal and expecting you to live up to the image in my mind. All I know is that I love hanging out and talking with you. I love the way you make me feel. I love that the first night I met you, I was so comfortable talking about my family, my hopes and dreams and aspirations, my biggest fears and everything in between.
Whenever I walk into a room and you’re there, my eyes and thoughts automatically go to you first. When you sing to me, my heart pounds ridiculously fast. You’re the first person I think about in the morning and the last person to cross my mind at night before I fall asleep. When you put your hand on my waist or my leg or playfully push me or throw an arm around my shoulders or even just look at me, I feel like I’m being set on fire. But in a good way.
(If, you know, there’s a good way to be set on fire).
That night when we were all standing in a group and you smiled at me for the first time, I knew I was a goner. That damn smile. And your eyes. It’s the way you get fake mad at me when I run my fingers through your hair and mess it up. It’s how when I told you about something traumatic going on in my life you listened and didn’t judge and emphasized that none of it was my fault. You’re compassionate and funny and smart (much more than you give yourself credit for) and charismatic and gorgeous and goofy in the best way.
I hope you’re having a good day.
I hope that me being in your life makes it better.
Maybe I’m not the only girl who is feeling like this because of you.
Even if things don’t work out and everything changes in a month, in a week or tomorrow, I’ll still be grateful to you. I know that we’ll be able to be friends if this specific thing ends. But I’m also grateful for the people you’ve brought into my life. Being friends with the guys in your suite is such a lovely experience and every late night all of us are together is so much fun. A couple weeks ago, when my best friend was dealing with something distressing, you and the guys helped me to distract her and lift her spirits and reassure her that everything was going to be okay. It meant so much to me that you did that, and it just confirmed what a genuinely good person you are.
I know we don’t agree on things that other people might think matter, but it doesn’t bother me, even though I always thought something like that would. I’m pretty sure I could talk to you about anything, banal or interesting, and be completely invested in what you have to say. I want to know your opinions on everything, from music to politics to food to sports to religion. I want to figure out why you believe what you do and what the most important things in your life are.
Reader, as you can probably tell, I’ve never felt like this about someone before, and that scares the sh*t out of me.
Please don’t hurt me.
This is me, in a surprising show of vulnerability, declaring that I like you a lot.
But you already knew that.