She’s tall - a lot taller than me. And thin, too. When I hug her, my arms fold almost completely around each other. She’s got milky white skin that’s naturally clear, and full, pouty pink lips. Her hair is down to her shoulders and dirty blonde, and she pushes it back so that it looks a bit like a mullet. It’s very soft. Her eyes are small and blue, and her eyebrows are thin but full and the same color as her hair. Her nose is long and flat, and slightly upturned at the tip, in a way that makes her look like a forest elf. She has a freckle on her right cheek.

 Her collarbones are prominent as well as her shoulders, which lead the way down to her lanky arms and perfect hands. I love her hands. They’re strong but graceful, her fingers long and slender. Lots of days she wears rings. She always has on a gold necklace with a jade pendant on it, and she’s told me she only takes it off to shower so that it doesn’t tarnish. I haven’t seen her in anything revealing, so I can’t say for certain, but from what glimpses I’ve caught, I think she has a flat stomach and, despite being so thin, still has prominent hips and full thighs. Her legs are long and she has rather large feet, but that’s only because she’s tall. 

When she smiles, you can only see her top row of teeth. They’re rather long, a bit crooked, and stained from having braces for a very long time. I know she’s insecure about them, but I don’t really care what her teeth look like. I don’t think anyone else whose opinion matters would care either. She’s beautiful with or without perfect teeth. 

I love to have sleepovers with her because I get to see her when she’s at her most beautiful in my opinion. I’m a bit ashamed to say it, but I’ve sneaked several pictures of her while she’s asleep. She just looks so peaceful- her eyes closed, face relaxed, lips slightly parted. I love hearing her gentle breathing and seeing her roll over from time to time. I also like to see her in the morning, when she’s grumpy and reluctant to wake up. When her voice is low and scratchy and when her hair is a fluffy mess. She gets a bit annoyed at me in the mornings because I’m a light sleeper and can’t sleep in for very long, but I can tell that it doesn’t bother her a lot because she smiles when I tell her that productive people don’t sleep past noon. 

I don’t believe in astrology, but I’ll say this either way. She’s a Taurus, and despite the fact that zodiacs and such are so general that they apply to everyone, I think that Taurus suits her very well. She loves to eat, loves to sleep, and is a very hard worker. She’s dominant and dedicated, and very caring. 

She really does love to eat. It’s a wonder how she stays so skinny with all the ice cream she eats. But all that eating does make for good times we can spend together. Every time one of us is free for dinner, she picks me up and we bring a picnic to one of our special spots. 

My favorite spot of ours is on a little country road by the airport. There’s a field with hills in the distance to one side, and a landing strip on the other. It’s so quiet there. It feels like I can hear every cricket, every breeze. Our conversations are quiet, our activities are quiet. She drives a big white SUV with a wide trunk, so sometimes we’ll just park out there and sit in the trunk, enjoying the weather and each other’s company. 

When I go over to her house to watch a movie, she sets up her projector and we sit on her bed and watch it on a big white sheet that hangs in front of her closet. She’s very particular about how people are to behave when they’re in her bed. She won’t let me wear my shoes, she hates to see me under the covers without dusting myself off first, and she’ll only let me use the pillow that doesn’t touch her head. Once we get settled in, though, she relaxes. We’ll lean against each other or put our pillows side by side, legs intertwined as we make fun of whatever movie it is that we’ve chosen. 

She has many best friends, and she’s told me such. I completely understand- she isn’t my only best friend after all. But I’ve been around her and her other two best friends and I’ve noticed something different about our relationship. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, maybe it’s just because we’re the closest in age, but it seemed to me like we shared a connection that she didn’t share with the others. I could never know for sure, but I think she tells me everything, when she’s said that there’s some things she doesn’t talk about with the other two. We’re so close. We went a whole year without contact last year, but since we’ve reunited, almost a year ago this month, our bond has grown stronger than ever. I think in the year that we were apart, we both grew in ways that allowed us to push down whatever barriers were holding us back in the years before and reach a deeper level of connection than we’ve ever had. 

We see each other nearly every week, and talk every day. I’ve developed a bit of separation anxiety with her, if I’m being perfectly honest. She’s always on my mind. When I’m away from her, I’m just thinking of when I’ll see her again. When she leaves town for a few days, I’m thinking of what we’ll do when she gets back. When she falls asleep and doesn’t respond to my messages, I worry that she’s annoyed with me for bothering her so much, which I know is very unrealistic because she’s a very direct person. And when we’re together, all I can think about is how much I want to kiss her. 

Oh, what it would be like to kiss her sweet lips. I’ve thought of kissing her in the car, on the couch, on her bed, in a field. I’ve been blessed with a vivid imagination and a clear subconscious- we’ve kissed many times in my dreams. The dreams are so vivid. I remember in one, we were in a closed thrift store. The lights were off, the only light coming from a large window on the wall. We hugged for a very long time, and then she leaned down and kissed me, gentle and slow. These dreams are constructed mainly of my own daydreams and the day’s events, because I haven’t yet had the pleasure of kissing her beautiful face in reality. I desperately want to, but I know there’s a very good chance that I never will. 

I love her, but I’m afraid she doesn’t feel the same way. We say it to each other often. When I get out of her car, or when we say goodnight over the phone, we say that we love each other, but she doesn’t know that we mean two very different things. See, she loves me like a close friend, might I even say like a sister, but me, I love her in so many more ways than that. I love her like a friend, yes, but I also love her like an artist loves his muse, like a singer loves a song. I love her like a husband loves his wife and like a wife loves her husband. I love her like I could love her until the day I die. I could love her even if she never spoke to me again. But I cannot truthfully say that I am in love with her, because we are not in love. We are not in it together, we aren’t sharing that wonderful experience. Because she doesn’t love me the way I love her. 

I’ve never been a jealous person. It’s not in my nature. But oh, I am so jealous for her, and only for her. Because she is giving her love to someone else. I’ve tried so hard to understand. I’ve met the girl. We’ve talked, even spent the night. But I just don’t understand how my sweet love could ever feel about this girl the way that I feel about her. I want so badly to like the girl. I want to do it for my love, and if not for my love, then for my best friend. But I just can’t. Every time I see a picture of them together my heart burns with jealousy because I just don’t understand. I want to like her, but how can I when I know that she will never love my darling the way that she deserves to be loved. She has never and will never experience the things I have that have made me fall so easily into love, so how could she possibly love my darling the way that I do? The answer is that she can’t. And I’m so jealous of her because even though she couldn’t begin to understand just how special her girlfriend is, she’s receiving the attention that should be given to me. 

This girl was not here years ago when my love was just a child. They didn’t grow up together. They’ve never worshipped together, never shared a song. They’ve never had to wait together while their parents chatted away in the church lobby. They’ve never babysat children together, or dressed up for halloween together. My love hasn’t held her hand while she cried about problems with her family. They haven’t shared the experience of drifting apart only to reunite stronger than ever. In fact, they haven’t even known each other long enough to have done so. So why does this girl deserve the affection of a relationship that I spent years pouring into? Why does my darling love her instead of me?

I suppose that’s not for me to know. Perhaps there is something between them that I simply can’t comprehend. 

When I was younger, I didn’t think that this would be what love was like. I didn’t think I would be able to know that I loved someone unless we’d been in a committed romantic relationship for a long time. But it hasn’t turned out that way. No, not at all. I was just thinking one day, thinking as I constantly do, and I realized that I love her. And the longer that I’ve known that I love her, the stronger that love has grown. My heart aches for her. I feel like I’m going to burst. But I can’t tell her. I couldn’t do that to her. 

So maybe that’s why I’ve written this letter. Because I have to be honest and tell someone how I feel about her, and exactly how I feel about her. I just think it’s a shame that that person had to be myself.