Reminisce: Dear O,

November 6th, 2015 cont.

November 6th, 2015 cont.

        "She loved it. Her face lit up when I was home, something that still makes me feel like I've just met her and we're recently infatuated with each other. I've never cared about someone as much as I do Ophelia, never in my life have I wanted to be around someone this much, have someone this engrained in my life. I didn't tell her that I was doing anything for what I wanted to be a birthday celebration, not right away. We lounged, something we don't do often; the way she leaned against me on the couch, just draped her body over me with her legs propped up on the opposite arm, it felt so normal. We made a simple pasta dinner together, and then afterwards I gave her what I hoped to be a gift she would love.

        A blank journal; similar to mine only nicer. Mine are cheap, they get so filled up and scratched out, pages ripped right out. No sense in spending a pretty penny on mine. But for her, I've seen her write before, and I don't know if this was the right gift entirely, but with it I also bought an expensive pen. Spending that much on a pen -well, let's just say if Ophelia knew how much I spent she'd lose it. She wrote her name in the journal, pausing after the 'a' and looking a bit sullen. Half tempted to tell her to write 'Barnes' I told her instead that it didn't matter that there was nothing else to write yet. Her writing was far worse than I imagined; I expected dainty hand writing, but was reminded that she probably never wrote much before our life together. It's cute, though, the slow way she writes her letters, trying to make them perfect but ending up with slightly shaking letters. She didn't look embarrassed about it, she simply looked overwhelmed with the fact I had done this for her.

        When I told her I wanted to give her something for her birthday, a date we both didn't know -and maybe no one knew- she thanked me. She remembered something from her earliest memories, an old stuffed animal, a candy bar, but nothing like this. Nothing thoughtful, always an after thought. She'd never be an after thought. Not to me."