Hey Chinchin,

This isn't like the usual letters I write to you. This one is a bit more serious, and a lot heavier, but I want you to trust me. Sit down, take a deep breath and then you can continue.

On the 8th of February, 2020, my life changed. It was the first time I had ever laid my eyes on you and it was the moment I knew I loved you.

It was a Sunday, and the pastor had just announced that all the youth should wait behind after service. I had no intention of obliging him, but I saw you. Your hands were intertwined with a creature I later found out was your boyfriend, and you had the most dazzling smile on your face directed towards him. You looked happy and that was the most jealous I had felt in history. There was someone who not only beheld your smile, but was the cause of it. I wanted to be him, but I couldn't, so I waited like the pastor instructed because I wanted a chance to keep looking at you. In that moment, I knew you owned me, and I had never been happier to be property. That day, you became my god and my religion, but to you, we became friends.

When you told me you were breaking up with him a couple months after we became friends, I tried not to be too excited, but I wished I could scream from the rooftops how he didn't deserve you and I was the only woman you needed. I couldn't, but I really wished I could. You needed a friend, not someone who would take advantage of your emotions. That's why I listened while you told me you didn't love him, but loved the safety that dating him presented you with, while you told me about the woman you had kissed at a party a week after they had lifted COVID restrictions, while you recounted in explicit detail how sex with her was the most alive you'd felt in years, I listened. That’s what friends are for? Are they not? It doesn’t help that you could talk about murdering children and I would listen. I cried myself to sleep that night, hoping you'd one day see me the way you saw the woman, but that day never came.

You broke up with your boyfriend and dated this woman for a year. I could tell she didn't love you right, but there was nothing I could say. You loved her like she taught the birds near your windows how to sing and you enjoyed every off key note that came out of their beaks.

It felt like everyone could tell how much I loved you. All the women you dated never liked me, because they could tell when a woman loved another woman in a way the church would not approve of. They could see how your smile disarmed me and how your voice controlled my movement. I could follow the scent of your perfume to you, and when you start drinking and dancing, they watched how my eyes followed you, like a thirsty man surrounded by a clean body of water. I needed you, and it was obvious to everyone just how much. Everyone but you, I suppose.

I wonder if maybe you had pushed me so deeply inside of the friendship zone that you did not tell when desire was at the tip of my tongue or how I held you a bit longer or could draw your face from memory, not missing a single spot, not even the beauty mark on your eyebrow that's covered by the bushiness of that section.

Honestly, you've never been the most perceptive one. I'd tell you about all the women who wanted you in their bed and in their hearts but you always brushed it off with a laugh. "They're just being friendly" you'd say each time. It made me realise you saw my actions as friendly too. Was the kiss friendly? That night, a couple months ago, when we had taken more drinks than we should. That night when I was bold and confident and I asked for a kiss. We used to kiss a lot before then as friends, but never like the way we did that night. We had kissed like lovers trying to create our own language. We were not in a hurry, we took our time as though we had never known each other before. Well, we had not, not in that manner. I discovered things anew. I learnt how my name sounded on your lips when your breasts were in my hands. I was intoxicated. You were intoxicating. Your hands inched closer and closer to the hem of my bra but then Ada knocked on the door and you flew off of me and stayed silent before you started laughing. I had not heard that laugh from you before. You didn't look at me the rest of the day and I was panicking, but the next day, you said what we did was funny and we never spoke about it again. Like you had tried to brush the memory away and I had let you, because I am a coward.

Coward enough to stay beside you and love you in all the ways I know how. Your house was over an hour drive away, but I got there at least 3 times a week, more when you had episodes and you needed a hug. There's no road I will not pass if you're waiting for me at the end of it. That's why I showed up. Day in and day out and even some nights when my parents thought I was fast asleep. Everyone knew I was in love, but did you?

There's a part of me that believes you did. In fact, she thinks that not only do you know, but you refused to say anything for fear of ruining our friendship. I try to console myself with the fact that it means our friendship matters to you. It means a lot to me too. You, in all your forms mean everything to me. I would have you as an enemy as long as it meant I have you. I want to run through your mind and take space in your thoughts. I want you to have things that stir up memories of the both of us. Some emotion towards me is better than no emotion at all because I know what it is to be at the receiving end of something from you. It means I am human, because you are the reason my heart beats and my soul sings. Ideally, I'd be able to kiss you like that day once again. I'd want to do more than kiss you. I'd want to trace you with my mouth and drug you with my words. I want to show you how five years of lust can manifest, how worship is given, and how it truly means when a woman fucks another woman. I want you heady and floating and needy. In my head, you are. In reality, well...

If you're wondering why I'm just saying all of these things now, it is because I am no longer scared. They cannot reject dead people, my love. I know we made promises to each other and we have plans, but as much as your love has brought me to this point, it will take more than love to keep me alive.

Let these be my parting words to you, my love. In this life that you have left, you should live. Especially, knowing fully well that I relieved your current guardian angel from their post and taken over. I will look after you from the grave. It is my promise to you and although you may not have been in love with me, but you loved me and let me fall in love with you. Thank you.

I love you, Chinchin, in this life and in the one that is to come. Whenever, Together and Forever. Our own WTF story

Your best friend, Nutty ❤️