Dear Hannah

Introduction

This letter was written from Karolina (Kay) to Hannah after the end of their story 'Under The Sky'. Their relationship began to blossom in difficult circumstances and although this is a bit of a spoiler, it doesn't give away the plot. Karolina is a Polish student living in student accommodation at university where Hannah had stayed overnight. All characters are fictional, some foreign language excerpts, reference to intimate sexual contact.

Dear Hannah

It was a horrible surprise to wake this morning and find you gone. I didn't find your letter until later through the internal mail, so I was worried about you. I imagined everything from you being simply locked out of the main door ( I checked outside! ), to wondering if I had said or done something that had made you angry with me.

You didn't need to sneak out like that, though having read your letter and thinking back over the last couple of days, I do understand why. To be honest, I might have done the same myself. We sometimes act on impulse especially when there seems no alternative. I get that. We have an expression in Poland "Nie możesz latać z połamanymi skrzydłami i nie możesz kochać ze złamanym sercem." Look it up for me.

But, but...

I wish I'd had more of a chance to tell you how I feel about you and how my heart is aching right now. Is it unrealistic for me to assume I know you intimately, after such a brief acquaintance? Perhaps it is. Surely we have to trust our feelings to make that giddy leap of love in the hope we land in the other person's arms? Was I foolish? Then let me be your fool. Was I being selfish, thinking I could keep your love in my heart? Then I would be your jailer too.

You've robbed me of the comfort of your hand squeezing back at mine. You've stolen the happiness in your smiling eyes and the joy it brings me. You should be locked up for stealing the soft press of your skin on mine, the sound of your voice as you whisper my name, the wet roll of your fingers in me. I still feel your fingers but you've never felt mine. We had no time and time is without mercy.

I wanted to fight the urge to draw blood when I nip your ear, to breathe fire words into your head, for my slow spoken sighs to fill your every thought. I wanted the taste of your sex to linger on the back of my tongue, to decide if it was bitter or sweet but know it was yours. I wanted your shoulder as my pillow, your arm as my blanket, your fingers curled to my lips for kisses.

Yet here we are, you and me. You. Me. Not 'you and me' in anyone's eyes. Would people know us as Hannah and Kay or Kay and Hannah? I wanted to meet your friends and for you get drunk with mine, to feel your arm at my waist, your soft spoken words to usher me early home to bed.

To wake with you on a Sunday morning and yet every morning would be Sunday. Stepping from our coiled dreams to a blissful wakefulness. There would always be time for leisurely kisses, to learn and relearn the map of your freckles, our legs like those praying fingers, church and steeple. To kiss you before the toothbrush, before lipstick or kohl or our daily pretences.

You are my hero, my Marie Curie, my Jane Austen and Beyonce. I'm waving from the crowd to be noticed and loved! But you are Hannah too and you can keep all those worthy, famous others because you are my Venus, bright in that western sky.

You are so brave and I admire you so much, but what I feel for you is not just the silly adoration of a younger woman. A crush maybe? No, not that, my love. I feel it in my every fibre, like a flower bound to the earth but stretching for the sky in joyful summer colours. You will chide me now for talking nonsense -- you, Miss Sensible who cried yet dares to dream.

You see Hannah, perhaps I am your fool but I could never be your jailer. The door was open all the time and always will be. Perhaps one day you'll find your way back.

Czasami to, co dobre rozpada się po to, żeby coś jeszcze lepszego się zeszło.

Karolina x