Sunburn

by Chloe Michelle Howarth

I think, I would be the microbes in the beef that her body seeks and destroys if it meant she would be paying me even the slightest bit of attention. The warmth and the wet of her mouth.

I understood that there were limits to love, and I felt sure that one day people would run out of love for me.

Or the way that she can bully me or be my best friend and I can hardly tell the difference. Perhaps it is her moods, the glows and shadows of them, as though her heart is made of the changing sky. It’s humiliating to wonder if I have ever meant the same things to her as she does to me.

My fear, shame, and regret are elsewhere; I know them all combined in one sickness when I stare at Susannah, deep and long, and without permission.

There are so many unhappy people, I just don’t want to find out that I am one of them. They walk among us, they touch you, and you become them. Introspection is like cyanide. Life is fine this way, ignorance is easy, I do what is easy.

How am I supposed to get past this delusion when she comes directly to me? My heart lurches, as if it wants to leave my awful body and go make a home in her.

What has happened to me that I am suddenly so absorbed by her? Is this healthy? When will I get to go back to how I was before? And do I want to? I get hot, and my mind races, my heart pounds. And then I get a look at her, and it doesn’t matter. She is just so easy to look at. So good to look at. Such a treat to look at. And to listen to. And to speak to. It just doesn’t matter. The panic goes.

And does it matter? There is no way that she has the same feeling that she found in me. We aren’t a match, not like that. Susannah is golden sunlight, and I am a struggling sapling at best, crippled by heliotropism; she does not need me the way that I need her.

Isn’t it sad, that you have such a hold on me, and yet you are not mine? What I feel goes beyond words.

I can only hope that it was real, and that you will not change your mind.

Now I am away from you, I have never felt further from home, further from myself. Susannah, since the day I met you, I have wanted to let you know that you are a spill of gleaming gold on my otherwise dull and pointless world.

You’re very dramatic. I wish I could write something as dramatic as you, but it isn’t easy when Fraulein Becker could call on me at any second. You keep putting me in these nervous and intense situations – that is not a bad thing. I have not changed my mind. You seem to think I have all the power here, like I was going to decide not to want you anymore. I’m powerless. If you want me, I’m yours.

She is trying to be endearing, and she is trying to reassure me, but all she has done is spike my paranoia. My love, you are a poison. We are a dream together. Why am I trying to confuse things? Why do I allow my greatest pleasure to be my greatest panic? Just the mention of her name is enough to fill me with butterflies, with bile.

Yes, my love is using me.

There was a time when I was so careful to project an image of perfection in front of her, but these days I don’t have to. I like the person that I actually am now, because Susannah likes her. I think soon I will like myself all the way through, and I won’t mind what people think of me.

I think I will be numb to everything but her for the rest of my life.

I’ve started to give up on myself before I’ve even had the chance to start.

‘Whose are you?’ And I say, ‘Yours.’

And I see now why she has put up with all of this. It’s because we understand each other, it’s because we have this binding sort of love that is rare and good that we don’t get anywhere else. So rare and so good that I cannot even make sense of it, the same way that nobody can make real sense of God or the reasons why we are alive.

‘I love you, I love you, I love you, in this life and the next and the last.’

‘Can we just be happy for a few days then and pretend you’re not afraid to want me?’

‘Imagine, a big city where nobody knows us. We could get a flat and our own jobs, and we wouldn’t have to be a secret anymore. Just you and me. Why not? Just tell me why not.’ Wet-eyed, she is so full of hope, and yet absolutely hopeless. Not allowing me a chance to say no, she carries on. ‘We could do anything if it’s just you and me.’

We could have this argument for the rest of our lives. This circle of dissatisfaction is unbreaking and ever growing. I fear that all our glimmering chances are gone. It is not the heat of her love that I feel, it is the flames of our reckoning. Let me breathe a minute.

A childish part of me is sad enough to think that we could carry on. If we are clever, and very determined, we could make this work, and we would not be reduced to a bleak memory. The rest of my life could be something to look forward to, if she was only willing to bend to the point of breaking.

Too late I realise that she has been the Summer of my life. What a slow and painful death this shall be.

‘I can’t. I’ll never get over her, you know?’ And she does know. At one time or another, everybody falls irreparably in love. Nobody ever really gets over it.

Before today, I was doing really well. I had more or less moved on with my life. Susannah was just a fleeting agony that I was learning to repress. Now I feel the way I did the day I left Crossmore. Tonight I find myself looking for her scent in the air, her touch in the pillowcase. It’s a strain to find meaning where there is none. It’s such a teenaged thing to do, why can I not stop doing it? Not everything is a symbol. Sometimes the world is plain and obvious. Sometimes the things I feel and the things I want don’t matter.

All I can think of is the letter I sent to a house Susannah isn’t even in. It’s hard not be demolished by the thought of her, because I live in a body that has loved her and I see with eyes that have witnessed her. She is part of my muscles, my tissue, she is unforgettable. Presumably, if she ever remembers me, it is only when she catches a perfume that is vaguely familiar, and it takes her hours to recognise it as mine. I bet she laughs because she hasn’t thought of me in a long time and then puts my memory away again, folded up in a drawer in the back of her mind. If only I wasn’t a perpetual teenager, I might get used to being without her. I might have listened when she told me that she wouldn’t be satisfied to stay a secret forever. The earth deserves to know her, she is too bright to hide. Heaven and Hell should know her. We should all be versed in the joys and sorrows of her. I did this to myself. I was selfish. I was not proud enough.

I know for sure that I’ll never get over her for the rest of my life.

Isn’t it funny that ye were my whole world, and now we struggle to even speak to each other?

I don’t mind where you go next, or where you’ve been before, as long as when you read this, you stop and you’re with me. I don’t care if that’s selfish. I am selfish, you must know that by now.

There is a constant humming within me, beyond my heartbeat, a feeling of permanent dissatisfaction. It is the void which you used to fill. For a while, I thought that writing to you would help me move on, but it has only made the void greater. You waited so long for me, I wonder, are you still waiting? Because I cannot let you go.

Susannah, you are Heaven made flesh, you have been the greatest fire of my life. It’s not good enough, I know, but for every time I made you feel inadequate, I have died a hundred deaths. I’ll love you until the earth finishes. Just tell me, yes or no.

Yes, it’s wrong, yes, I know, but if I can’t have the one that I want, I’m going to make the best of the ones that I have.