Ohioisonfire

Alan's P.O.V

Uneventful, as always. The last few weeks had flown by with little to no big occurrences, unless you count getting a cat as a big event. Sophie, the little black kitten I had acquired had basically barged into my life. Upon leaving my apartment one morning, she had run inside and refused to come back out; and I didn’t have the heart to force her so…here we were. Curled up on the couch on my off day, her in my lap, as I watched the newscasters on the television rant and rave about it being December 1st. The holidays were dreadful for me, all it meant was another Christmas day alone, and having to work longer shifts at the diner for the wave of customers who came from out of town.
All in all, I hated this time of year. Bah humbug.

Sophie seemed to notice my unsettlement, as she began to kneed at my arm and mew at me until I gave her a smile. It was nice to have her around, considering I didn’t have family or friends of the human kind, it was relaxing to have something care about my well being. But I'm sure she only cared because I was her source of food and affection. Several moments passed before I heard the mail slot slide open and close abruptly, which was somewhat strange considering it was Sunday; the one day when the mail didn’t come.

I reluctantly brushed the small kitten off of my lap and made my way to the door; on the scratched up wooden floor lay a small envelope; with nothing written on the front and no postage stamp. I figured it was something from my landlord, and had a slight feeling of dread knowing that I was 100 dollars short on my rent this month. Surely, she wouldn’t kick me out for that…but anxiety got the better of me and I ripped the paper tomb open in a hurry; praying that the word “EVICTED” wouldn’t be written out in plain text. Luckily for me, it wasn’t; instead, this was some sort of unaddressed letter, one written in perfect penmanship. I marched back over to the couch and resumed my spot in the middle, Sophie climbed back to me without hesitation.

Dear Stranger,

This may come off as creepy, hell, this may scare you out of your wit’s…but I assure you that is not the purpose of this letter. More or less, I feel inclined to speak to you, but honestly; I am too nervous to do so in person. I blame nerves and weak social skills, but it could also be the fact that you are as stunning as you are. I wouldn’t be able to speak if I was admitting these things to you in person; and I sincerely hope that this writing doesn’t offend you or come off as stalker-ish.

For someone as intriguing as you, you don’t get out very much…do you? It was unbelievably hard to locate an address for you, and usually; everyone on this side of town knows everyone. But you are most certainly, not part of that cliché.

To be honest, neither am I.

Lonely, isn’t it? No friends or family…that’s another reason I decided to write you; I feel like we would get along, greatly, might I add. But yet again, I am kind of a shy person; and I fear what you would say if I revealed my true self to you. Just know, you’re not alone out there. There are many people who have no one, myself included; but I'm secretly hoping that we can become friends this way. Maybe then I will have the courage to speak to you.

If you want to reply to this, drop it off at Riverside Apartments, at the front desk, the P.O box number is 0413, and I will respond as quickly as humanly possible C:

Keep your head up, Stranger; confidence would suit you much better than self consciousness.

-A

I reread the letter several times over, making sure my brain wasn’t playing tricks on me, and it wasn’t. Someone had actually taken their time out of the day to right me, boring old, pathetic me, a letter to tell me my worth; and not to mention, they wanted to become friends with me? Or was it something else, I’d almost classify this in the sappy love letter category had it been anyone else, but it wasn’t, it was me. This person had to have been kidding. No one would really want to speak to me, or be nervous to do so! No, this had to be a trick or some cruel, impractical joke set up by my bitchy neighbor 2 floors down…but what if it wasn’t? What if someone out there truly cared enough to share this with me? Cared enough to make me feel like I actually had something to be happy about…like I should be confident in myself…but I wasn’t. I had always been an inwardly loathing kind of person; and never have I felt the need to act as anything other than what I was.

Confidence, stunning, alone, did those three words even make sense when strung together in the way they were? Somehow, the lyrically written letter had made it seem as if it was an easy task.

Me, confident?

Absolutely not.

Me, stunning?

Not even to the blind.

Me, lonely?

Well, they did get that one right.

I gave Sophie a pitiful glance but she was fast asleep in my arms; so much for her having my back. Deciding that nothing would be resolved without further inquisition was the only judgment that made a lick of sense to me. So I rummaged in the dresser beside my dilapidating couch, and pulled out a notepad and a pen stolen from some bank. I ripped a page free of its confinement, pressed the pen to the top line of the paper and began to write out what was probably the most confused statement of my life. At least things were getting a little interesting for me, maybe this holiday season wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Notes

PLEASE LEAVE ME STUFF c:

xoxo
Siren