A month later my mother was gone, and then I really had something to chase.

SAM

Dear Danny Mulberry, when I saw your photo I was in the laundrette (not sure if that’s important, but just setting the scene). Someone had left a copy of the Double on top of the washing powder dispenser and when I pushed my fifty pence in the slot, it fell off. It was folded back to the picture of you, and there was something about your face that instantly made me feel like I knew you. I don’t, of course, but I’m a big fan of signs, and even though the one you were making with your fingers wasn’t quite the sign I’d been waiting on, by the time I’d read the story about you in between my wash and dry, it felt like it had possibilities.

I honestly never thought I’d be the kind of guy to write in and ask for help from a total stranger, but I’m in desperate need of some guidance (from someone who knows what they’re talking about, which rules out every one of my mates, my father and my four older brothers), so I’m just going to say nothing ventured, nothing gained, and you look like a pretty sound bloke.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I think I’m the first person who’s ever fallen in love. I mean, hello Romeo and Juliet, Heathcliff and Cathy, Elizabeth and Mr Darcy, just for a start. (As you might guess, I’m studying Drama and I’m well into the second-year disasters.) But there’s a huge, illogical part of me that can’t believe anybody has ever felt quite the way I feel about her. Who am I kidding? I strongly, if illogically, know it to be true.

Love is nothing like I expected it to be though, and maybe if I’d known how it was going to make me feel I would never have signed up for it. It feels like a kind of madness, which is actually what the Ancient Greeks believed. I have no idea why that theory was ever debunked, because being in love has driven me to the desperation of writing to a complete stranger for advice, and if that’s not madness, what is? No offence.

The fact that she doesn’t know I exist (oh, did I mention that?) is actually preferable, because I know exactly where I stand, right up to the point of when (or more likely, if) I do eventually speak to her. It’s a pathetic thing to hold on to, but it’s the only dignity I can maintain. I know her, though. Her voice, her walk, her smile – although it’s never been at me, I don’t think I could stand that yet. When I see her in the library or the campus bar it hurts inside my chest, and on the odd occasion she passes by me, closer than I was expecting, the pain is so much worse. I don’t think I’m over-egging the drama to say it’s definitely coming from my heart. It’s like I can already feel a fault line in that thing, and I know the exact place it’s going to crack right down the middle and crumble into dust. On second thoughts, that probably is a little bit over-dramatic, but hey, I’ve learned a lot in eighteen months of my degree.