Was I prepared to wait until the new school year – again?
Did I want another Christmas break with a broken heart over Maddie?
I had to be braver, and I needed to fix things as soon as possible. The longer this went on, the worse it was going to be. It had already been almost a year and a half. I was not proud of how I had dealt with everything.
I felt like an arsehole.
Right near the end of the year, I decided that I wasn’t going to wait – but I still needed to find the right words – I had told her multiple times that the feelings I absolutely did have, weren’t really there. I would need to pick and choose the right words. Very carefully.
It was then I remembered that I had considered doing this whole thing right from the start with a love letter. A couple of anonymous ones, perhaps then a “clue letter” so she might figure out it was me and come to me anyway. Finally a “reveal all” letter if she’d not come to me already.
I decided back then that it might have seemed a bit cowardly to do it that way – but right now, I wished I had gone that way. Right now, it seemed like the right thing to do.
Nothing anonymous. Something truly honest. I had to explain myself, and just put myself out there for my possible execution.
In many ways, it no longer mattered to me if she felt the same way or not. Obviously, I was craving that she still did feel something for me, but that wasn’t my first priority.
I finally had to be honest with her, and whatever the outcome – her loving me, or her hating me – I had to accept the outcome. I had fucked it up, but I needed to fix it either way.
So with about two weeks to go in the school year, I started to work on a letter every spare moment I had. I had a scribble pad – (that I no longer have, but dearly wish was still around) – and I filled its pages with random thoughts and paragraphs that made sense.
An explosion of thoughts that I would then pull together into what would hopefully be an honest, coherent letter full of humility and grace. If this was going to be my last chance to impress her, I was going to get it right.
With a couple of days remaining, I had basically 90% of how I wanted it to be. I spoke of how I felt, how I was so massively sorry for lying to her, how I would accept whatever her position on all of this was. I could not ask her to be with me.
I could only tell her how I felt, and leave the rest to her. She deserved to be in control of the outcome, I owed her that much.
On the night before the final school day of the year, I decided to type the letter up – then I could edit and trim and tweak it, then print it out. All I had to do then was find a way to get it to her the next day.
Did I get it perfect? I’m not sure, and I’ll never know – because I didn’t get a chance to have her receive it.
I tried to find her school bag in the locker area, but she’d not brought her bag to school that day, and her locker was already open, empty and had no padlock on it any longer. I found no moment where I could be close to her to even just hand it to her.
I was devastated, because I had poured my heart and soul into this letter – and it was going to go to waste. It was written in the specific context of that single day. It would have made no sense the day before, and no sense the day after.
I was broken.
I trudged off to the school room in which my final session of the year was going to be held. It was still some minutes before the bell to start that session, but the room was already open – so I went in, alone.
I needed to be alone for a bit. The cacophony of that final day with everyone excited and letting their hair down was too much for me, and it was overloading me. A few minutes of peace in an empty classroom was exactly what I needed.
However, the room wasn’t as empty as I thought. On a desk in the middle of the room was a single school blazer. I thought that the owner better not forget about it, because it was going to be a long summer break where they wouldn’t be able to get it back for weeks and weeks if they didn’t collect it now.
A few other people started drifting into the room as the session start time approached.
Luckily for the owner of the blazer, they remembered it and came to collect it.
It was Maddie. It was Maddie’s blazer.
She bounded into the room, and asked one of the other people in the room to pass her her blazer.
“Damn, nearly forgot that!” she said.
I had been alone in this room for a good five minutes – just me and Maddie’s blazer. The letter was in my pocket.
But I didn’t know. I didn’t know it was her blazer!
I had all the time in the world to catch my breath, pop the letter in her pocket, and start the journey to my hopeful – (but unlikely) – redemption.
It was right there in front of me! If only I had known!
I pushed myself through that session in emotional anguish – the perfect chance was there, and now it was gone.
I got out of there as soon as I possibly could when that final bell rang.
I caught the bus home, and bawled my eyes out the whole way.
It really was going to be another Christmas break full of pain – and Maddie still didn’t know.
This was going to be my last try.