Page 18 of Last Night

‘Oh my God, I didn’t think you liked me, like that,’ Ed breathed, when we came up for air, and obviously I didn’t replywell I didn’t know I did, until a few hours ago.

‘I didn’t know you liked me, like that!’ I said, which got me out of the trap and had the benefit of being true.

‘Oh, me and an army. Loads of ushave the “mysterious Evelyn Harris” crush and I’m no different,’ he said, which was mind-blowing on two levels. Everyone fancied Susie, surely? There was an Eve Harris constituency? ‘We don’t dare try as you’re so smart and aloof. The comebacks would be awful.’

I laughed, in complete amazement at how my world had completely turned on its head in seconds.

BEEP BEEP.

We looked over and his mum was flashing the headlights on and off and trying to peer into the murk over the steering wheel.

‘Write to me?’ Ed said, urgently, gripping my waist. ‘You’ve got my address?’

‘Yes, and you have mine. Write to me!’ I said.

‘OK, I will,’ he said, eyes shining in the dark. He kissed me again, fast and hard, and raced off to the car. I felt like my heart was going to explode with joy and my groin was going to explode with want.

Woah? What WAS that? I’d decided I was in love with one of my best friends, the night before we both moved to different cities for three years?

That evening, I laughed out loud in the dusk – the timing seemed so comical.

As opposed to what it actually was: catastrophically bad.

7

I still have the letter, the only proof – to be Ziploc bagged as evidence, or put inside an illuminated glass box in a museum. It’s on lined paper torn neatly from an A4 pad. When I’m feeling sentimental enough about old times – or angry enough to want vindication – I open the envelope and unfold the sheets, and I’m right back in my cupboard-sized room at Leeds, hands trembling. He’d sent it in the first week, no playing it cool.

There is the inscription, in black Biro, that proves Ed Cooper’s heart once belonged to me.

Dearest Eve, (E.R.H.)

As promised! HI. Wow, I couldn’t wait to write to you and now I’ve got writer’s block. Or whatever the equivalent is when you’re not a writer, but sat here chewing your pen in the Refectory worrying you’re going to sound like a total div. OK, so – I picked my moment, didn’t I?! Hope you’re settling in. Newcastle’s great but it’s cold, and there’s no Eve, which makes it seem colder.

You’re probably wondering why Ileft it until three minutes before we left to say something. I can answer that in a word: cowardice. I’ve been so terrified of rejection & I couldn’t find any clue or hope you felt the same way that I did. (You laugh at my jokes, but that could be sympathy.)

Also, I really cherish our gang. I didn’t want to do anything to harm it. I kept thinking: what if you’re (somewhat justifiably) repelled and weirded out, and it ruins everything? I knew it would change things between all of us, whether you felt the same way or not. Especially if not.

Then that night in the Trip, I looked over at you. You were talking to Nick Hennigan about his micro scooter, which takes patience and a big heart. I couldn’t stop gazing at you – the way you smile and lower your eyes when you start to crack up, as if you’re doing something you shouldn’t. I live for that smile. (Sorry I’m bad at this. This is how a love letter works, isn’t it? You just embarrass yourself horribly?)

And I realised – I couldn’t bear to let you leave without you knowing how I felt, whatever the consequences. I had to say it, just once.

By the way, E, I don’t want you to think it was some spur of the moment whim, faced with being apart. I’ve spent two years infatuated with you. (Does this sound creepy? I sound creepy, don’t I.) What I’m trying to say is: you’re *everything* to me. If you want to be mine, well, I am already yours.

Write back.

Ed xxxx

PS it occurs to me that if you are finding this too heavy and too much, and a quick snog – after 4 pints of Old Scruttocks Buttocks or Ferret’s Achy Hole cloudy cider at 6.5% or whatever it was we were drinking – didn’t mean much more than ‘yeah sure OK, bye Ed,’ – I get it. I also get that explaining yourself might feel awkward. If you want to go back to being friends, at Christmas – leave this letter unreplied to, and I’ll get the message that way.

Hah. I had already stocked up at Ryman’s for this task, with mint-green notelets, and immediately embarked on a five-page epic. Despite lots of rethinking and rewording, it was on its way, envelope flap tamped down with Sellotape for privacy and security, before the last post.

Ed never wrote again, and while I agonised about this, I already knew how he felt, and how I felt. And I rationalised: maybe he was both swooning, and overwhelmed with First Terming.

It added to the build-up of seeing each other. To be safe, I texted him short friendly updates about uni life, signed with a newly risqué ‘xx’. He always replied swiftly, in kind, an ‘xx’ at the end too. So it was OK? I thought. I hoped.

Sending another letter, when the last had been so febrile and detailed, seemed overkill. Was it my fevered prose, was it too much? No, surely not. I remembered the intensity of that kiss, and the look in his eyes. I was a nervous, insecure teenage girl but not so insecure that I could believe a man in love wouldn’t want to hear his bones were jumpable.

Maybe a phone call? I steeled myself on two lager and blacks, and got his answerphone. He rang back a day later and I missed it, though the whole twenty-four-hour lapse had already spooked me. Wouldn’t he have returned it when he saw it? Then lots of ‘What are we like!’ texts, Ed flannelling me that:lol, perhaps face to face chat was best?Still, two kisses.

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