CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

The following months, they did have their problems, but they always talked it out before going to bed. It was a new rule in their relationship: never going to bed with a fight. Bette was slightly neurotic with her studies lately and Tina had actually been glad when the exams were there.

Tina smiled when she woke up and found a pile of letters on the pillow next to her. Bette had spent the night at her place in need of a good massage and some good loving. Tina had asked if she could bring the letters she had written to her in high school. The brunette had brought them from Los Angeles, scared that anyone would find them.

Tina yawned, rubbed her eyes and picked up the letter on top.

Ms,

what you are about to read will surprise you (or maybe it won’t). Undoubtedly, you will want to know who I am. Do not go looking for me amongst your students, you don’t teach me. Do not go looking for me amongst your former students, you have never taught me.
Even if I had been or was your student, I wouldn’t know you, not really. Now, that’s even less so. You would think it stopped there and then, that would be logical. You, happening to be a teacher at the school I happen to attend. You, a vague stranger I’ve seen around already, but about whom I do not think further. Stop. Wrong. It’s part of this “thing”. The way you walk is a factor, that I don’t think about you further is a distinct lie.
I am here for six years now, which is longer than you. I can’t remember you three years ago, the school year two years ago was so turbulent, such a chaos, such a collapsing of everything I knew and built everything on that I don’t remember that much of it. It flows into each other and I still don’t know when exactly that period ended. I do know, but that doesn’t matter right now. What does matter, is that I first heard your name last year. I didn’t attach importance to it, not to your name and not to you. Other things and especially other people were attracting my attention.
This school year, in September, all of that changed. At a particular moment – don’t ask me when – I saw you walking. You reminded me of an actress you, looking back, do not resemble at all. Blonde hair, a skin that is rather pale. That’s where the comparison ends. Only, that’s the only thing that ends there.
Ever since, I’ve been burdened with it. Until this very moment you are bathing in a blissful ignorance that penetrates your pores, spreads through your body and renders you blind, blind and deaf. You see me, but not who I am. You see a common student, like any other. You do not see what is shining in my eyes, you are deaf to the tremble in my voice, the lump in my throat. I don’t blame you.
This “thing” I cannot name, these feelings remain nameless until they are over and classified as a silly youth… what?
It all started out as a crush. It has been a crush for a long time and during the holidays, I did think of you, but it all seemed to settle down a bit. After that, since Monday January 5th, 2009, the feeling returned like never before.
It has grown be to more than a crush, but I don’t dare calling it being in love. As aforementioned, I do not know you.
I don’t know what kind of humor you like, whether you cry watching emotional movies, which movies you like to watch, whether you read a lot, who your favorite author is, whether you like Chinese, what you are allowed to be waken up for night and day, which topics of conversation interest you, whether you are adventurous, prefer to limit this to the screen or exile it from your life entirely if possible. I don’t know if you’re a cat or a dog person, whether you like driving the car, whether you travel a lot, whether you enjoy going out or are rather a titmouse, whether you live together or not, with (a) friend(s) or someone special, whether you hurt sometimes and when you do, where it hurts, whether you are gay or straight or bisexual…
The latter intrigues me the most, although it doesn’t really matter. Firstly, I didn’t get lucky with my appearance and maybe you’d hate who I am if you knew that. Secondly there’s the teacher-student barrier. This doesn’t change anything about the fact that you have started meaning too much to me. You dominate my thought and partly manipulate my behavior. I love your voice and it doesn’t let me go. Don’t get me wrong, I am not crazy and I do not have a mental disorder – I should have passed that stadium already – you’re not telling me new stuff. I only hear the words that my ears catch repeated.
I am unaware of the brand of your cellphone and I don’t know which television programs you like. In normal circumstances, this wouldn’t interest me either, seen as our positions. I want to be able to say that I’ve got this situation under control, but that’s only a part of the truth. I will not approach you, I will not jump you, I will not give you signs. I will leave you alone out of respect. I kept this for me out of respect.
You can’t help me that you conquer my dreams, stir my soul, invade my thoughts with the overwhelming power of a hurricane at the most unlikely moments, at every moment.
For a long time, I have doubted whether this was a good idea or not, this letter. It ruins everything, every ounce of trust, every bit of a relationship I have with my family. It would all be erased, wiped out, swept away. At least, that would happen if you found out who I am.
It does not end, this feeling. You do not end. I do not accuse you of anything, none of this is your fault. However, I do wonder what you would think, do, if you knew about my tears. If they would generate any emotion in you at all. I can but hope that that would be the case, just a little bit.
It is a bottomless cask. I keep on falling, the walls are slippery, smooth. Every now and then, there is an extended rock, piece of wood, a support I can hold on to as if it’s a matter of life and death – and in a way, it is – when you smile, when I hear your voice. When it’s over, this moment, these scant seconds to which I attach way too much value, the support disappears. It shoves away, becomes invisible, I lose my grip and fall. Endlessly, constantly. That I will not reach the bottom is but a cold comfort. That I will not thunder down, doesn’t matter in itself. With the crash, everything is over, you do not feel a thing. You stop falling. I will never have that blessing. I will only move over to a new cask, someday. Once, just like that. Unexpectedly, maybe I’ll be grateful. Maybe it’ll be a welcome feeling.
Sometimes, it’s an ocean. You cannot see the end of it, but you know it’s there, somewhere. You won’t find it yourself if you do not put any energy into it. It goes very deep, apparently this depth never ends.
You are the horizon. Every time I take a step in your direction, you take a step back. I can see you, a warm glow, a source of desire, and I can never come near. Everything is stopping me. Never will I reach you. Always will the words die on my lips. Always will I look away. The desire can never be satisfied, you move away, further away from me. It’s a wild passion without any borders or boundaries, gulping me down and taking over me and wiping it all out. Everything that I am. 
And all of this is an ant’s nest in a beehive. It doesn’t fit, it’s an indissoluble chaos, it’s not right. Never, I know that. I’m not interested in the opinions of others. I know already what they would tell me and maybe, just maybe, they’re a tad bit right. Ten years from now, I probably think exactly like that. I’ll realize, as I do now, that it doesn’t mean a thing. I’ll discard it as a youth ailment. It’s not even extraordinary, being in love with a teacher. Only, I’m not in love. I do not know you. I do not love you.
Still, it hurts now. Still, it isn’t easy hiding it, laughing it away, pretending that everything’s okay. It doesn’t mean anything and yet, it means everything. It is comparable to the universe, not in it’s size, but in it’s inexplicability. I will never understand it, but it is there, I can’t ignore it. I have to deal with it, place it.
The feeling is a bottomless cask so irksome and an ocean so stretched out, you are a horizon so unreachable and this situation is an ant’s nest in a beehive so unright, illogical and a universe so incomprehensible. I don’t know you. It’s rather surreal.
I am sorry to be bothering you with this. I do not intend to scare you. I only wanted you to know that you seem to come close to perfection, to somebody. I’m sorry.