All The Better, by Milli Lewis
My dearest Kit,
You will never read these letters, because I’ve decided that the regret of never sending them hurts less than you never talking to me again. Nevertheless, it’s something that needs to be written. I think I’ll go mad otherwise.
I’ve been intrigued by you ever since I heard the wheels of your hospital bed clatter into the space opposite mine. It was nine minutes past midnight, and you were screaming, pressing the palms of your hands into your face, a flock of white swathed strangers trying desperately to calm you down. You didn’t stop until two thirty three a.m. When all the people had dissolved from your side, I pushed myself up onto my elbows to get a better look.
Your hair was black, with a gentle wave that spilled onto your pillow, and you were thin, so, so thin, I was surprised your elbows didn’t pierce the pathetic hospital sheet pulled up to your chest. You were curled up, foetal position, your hands intertwined, making you look like you were praying, or begging.
Here comes the part where I tell you your eyes were the most beautiful things I’d ever seen, rich, coffee brown, or maybe as blue as all the oceans combined. But I can’t. When my gaze rested on your face, I was met with the sight of bandages, circling the space between your hairline and the bridge of your nose. Slowly soaking drying blood. That day, you’d become blind.
The days that followed, I’ll admit, were awkward. I’m certain that you knew I was there, watching as nurses took your blood pressure and spoon fed you overcooked pasta, but you never said a word, never asked if someone could pull the blue curtain around your bed. It was five forty five on a Tuesday that I decided just looking wasn’t enough. I took the spiral bound notebook that lives on my bedside table and tore out a sheet, before finding the sharpest pen I owned. After an hour and three minutes, I’d successfully carved a message into the paper. Here’s what it read:
‘Hello. I’m the one in the bed opposite you. How do you do?’
I folded the note into a paper plane, and sent it across the canyon between us. It poked you in the chest, and you jolted, tentatively picked it up, turning it round and round with curious hands. It took you five minutes to work out that you had to unfold it, and four more to begin deciphering the message, running your fingers slowly across the letters. You finished, and put the note down.
“I’m blind, not deaf. You could’ve just said something.”
My heart sank. I remember scrabbling to tear out another page, forming another note as fast as I could. Folding it. Sending it flying.
'I’m mute.’
Your mouth formed a gentle 'o’ shape. I waited for you to speak again. But the silence stayed, clung to the air like honey on a spoon. After seven minutes, you lifted your hand and felt around on your bedside table. Nothing. You paused. Then reached behind your head, and drew the safety pin from your bandages.
You cut your note into the paper, careful, checking your marks, and retraced my folds to resurrect the plane. Raised it, and launched. A perfect shot - I caught it between my fingertips, and unfolded it, holding it up to the artificial hospital lights.
'I’m well thank you. How are you?’
No sorry. No lengthy paragraph expressing condolences. I looked up, and smiled.
And watched as the gauze began to unfurl from your face, like a flower opening its petals, calm, slow, as if nothing was wrong. You gave me the chance to write about those eyes, Kit. Blood clung to your eyelashes, and streaked down your cheeks like tears. They were bloodshot, red cracks, streaking across your retina and piercing your irises like lightning bolts. I couldn’t have recognised their colour even if I’d wanted to.
They were the ugliest things I’ve ever seen.
I think that I’m in love with you.











