What Kate Never Said – Part 1: The Confession

I have been writing this for three hours, and I have deleted it four times. The radiator in my flat clicks like a clock, and outside, the snow is falling past the streetlight on Ossington in long, slow lines, the way it used to fall past our dorm window the winter we met.

I should start with the dorm.

Amira was in the bed opposite mine. She had a poster of a painting of a violinist on the wall and a habit of humming in the shower. On our first night, she asked if I snored. I said I didn't know. She said she would find out. In the morning she told me I snored like a small, offended dog, and I have never been able to stop thinking about her voice saying it.

That was eleven years ago. We have been friends for most of them.

I want to be honest, because I've been dishonest for a very long time. I have been in love with Amira since the second week of university. I have been in love with her through two of her relationships, one of mine, a move across the country, and a long winter when her father was ill and she called me every night at two in the morning just to hear someone breathe on the other end of the line.

I never said anything. I told myself it was the friendship that mattered. I told myself that if I ever spoke, I would lose her, and that losing her would hurt more than never having her.

Tonight, she texted me. Just a line: Are you awake? I've got a bottle of wine and a bad day. Come over?

I haven't answered yet. I'm writing this instead, because I want to get the words straight first. Because if I go over there and sit on her sofa and drink her wine and pretend, I know I will do it again. Another year. Another winter.

So I am going to walk over in the snow, and I'm going to tell her. Not the whole story. Just this:

I love you, and I have for a very long time, and I'm scared that you'll say no. But I'd rather be honest and lose the old friendship than keep smiling and lose you anyway.

And then I'm going to let her answer, whatever it is.

Before I leave, I'm writing one more line, at the bottom of the page, in pen, so I can't take it back:

If she says yes, I'll be the one to ask first. Always.

My coat is on the chair. The snow is still falling. Here we go.