FIFTY-EIGHT | EMBLEM

“I – I suppose I do, in a way,” I said, wanting to be completely honest with Samyak. “But it’s not the same as the way I love you.”

I realised what I’d said as soon as the words had left my lips, and I floundered for a way to tug them back in. I didn’t want to use this conversation to say that, and I hadn’t realised that I’d felt that way until I’d said the words.

I made a split second decision to keep talking, so as to prematurely silence anything Samyak may have had to say on the matter.

“At the time, it felt like love. But now I’ve met you I know that it was not. With each passing day I feel more for you, and it settles within me, constant and stable yet somehow exciting, restless. It’s like… it’s like it reckons hours for months, every moment passes in a flash when I’m with you, but every time we’re apart the time draws out slowly; your absence passes like an age. It’s like coming home to a crackling log fire, rain on the windows, and a comfortable, worn sofa that knows exactly how