Dear Abby,

I’m writing this while you’re asleep. I just finished watching “Say Anything…” and there’s a Scrabble board waiting for me with your brilliant play on it. Not that I’m saying this letter is my way of putting off making my move — it’s not. I’m just providing context.

I try to do that to us a lot —put our relationship in context, I mean. I think about the fact that we’re so young, that — as you noted a few hours ago — we’re really quite different on some fundamental issues. I love music, and you love babies, and every month or so we have a bad-tempered dispute over religion, because I’m hateful. There are so many reasons for us not to work as a couple, it’s almost confusing that we do. Only almost, though.

I don’t know why we defy the odds and work together, but I have some theories. My main one is that — just like how hydrogen and oxygen are set-up to fix hard to each other despite being entirely different elements — we have an interlocking structure, that on some atomic level we connect perfectly, that every whizzing electron in our bodies is in perfect alignment. (When you’re a hardcore, committed rationalist you have to resort to physics to tell someone that you think they were made for you.)

I sent you something via email on last valentine’s day, and I’d hoped — we both did — that after an entire year had passed, such a step would be unnecessary. That we’d be together. Obviously, that didn’t work out, because here I am sending you my love electronically again. I’m sorry for that. And I’m sorry that it’s going to be even more time until we’re together forever. Things could be worse, of course. Soon we’ll be in the same timezone, and we’ll get to visit each other a whole lot more than we do now. Not that that’ll be enough. But then, spending every second of the rest of my life with you wouldn’t possibly be enough, so that’s not a useful barometer.

I know you’re probably a little worried that I’ll meet someone in Toronto and fall in love and leave you. I know that worries you because I have the same fear. I’m scared every day that you’ll say hi to someone at school and they’ll say hi back and you’ll get talking and they’ll see what an amazing person you are. Because everyone has to, right? Everyone has to see that, because it’s so obvious. You are smart, funny, and just mean enough, and fast — you’re so fast with the things you say, and you like the best TV shows, and you talk me to sleep, and you have those beautiful eyes (sometimes the whole world wooshes away when you look at me with those eyes), and you’re amazing. Just amazing.

I want to reassure you today, because today is a day for love, despite the associations with commercialism (you’ll be happy to know that I didn’t get you a physical present, in an effort to fight capitalism, and my overdraft.) I want to tell you, in writing, that I will never love anyone else like I love you. I will never leave you, because that would be like leaving the air — I need you to breathe, even though sometimes I look at you and find I can’t.

I love you, Abigail. You’re my girl, forever.
Avery

PS. When you wake up and say “girlfriend?”? That’s my favorite thing ever.