markets or galleries or tiny
festivals in venues I didn’t know existed, to hear performers that he’d read about in some obscure magazine. He opened my eyes to the city I’d lived in all my life, pointing out
curiosities I wouldn’t have noticed alone – a piece of ancient Roman wall on a modern street or a bizarre wig shop run by a couple in their eighties. When I was with Danny I saw the
world in technicolour; it was like putting on a pair of 3-D glasses.
Sometimes we’d just stay in at his flat, have a takeaway and talk until the early hours. Whenever we were apart we were constantly on the phone, chatting and texting at every opportunity.
I’d wake up to a HELLO message (usually sent in the small hours) and go to sleep reading, SWEET DREAMS, OMI .
Every minute that I spent with Danny made me fall in love with him a little more. I loved his spontaneity. I loved the way he turned up his nose and pouted when he was confused or deep in
thought. I loved his funny little habits – the way he drank his tea, always taking a sip when it was still too hot and then appearing genuinely surprised when, once again, it burned his lips.
I loved knowing that he kept all my texts, refusing to delete even the most mundane one until his message box was full. I loved the fact that he didn’t appear to notice my flaws; he’d
tell me how beautiful I looked without make-up and that he thought my body was perfect. He even laughed at my feeble jokes and when I mixed up my words; to him they were idiosyncracies, not
idiocies.
There were thoughtful gestures, too. When, for example, I mentioned how much I enjoyed photography, he dug out an old Brownie box camera from his parents’ attic and asked me to show him
how to use it. Weeks after a silly conversation about sweets, during which I’d told him how I liked yellow ones best, he presented me with a jam-jar full of miscellaneous yellow sweets: wine
gums, fruit gums and fruit pastilles, jellies and boiled sweets. He said he’d collected them from every packet he’d eaten and joked about the huge price he’d soon have to pay in
dental bills. I later discovered that he had, in fact, been to his local supermarket, bought sackfuls of every tube and packet available, and carefully removed all the yellow sweets one by one,
before discarding the rest.
He’d sit through
Friends
with me, even if it was an episode he’d seen at least three times before. He would come with me to watch tacky, romantic films because I had nobody
else to see them with and, afterwards, he’d try to think of something good to say about the plot or the actors. He’d cut stories out of newspapers if he thought I’d find them
interesting and he’d scout eBay for vintage clothes I might like to check out. When I had a cold he tucked me up on his sofa and brought me gallons of freshly squeezed orange juice and made
me tomato soup and boiled eggs with soldiers because I’d told him that was my favourite comfort food.
I could go on and on. I could probably fill a whole book with lists of what I liked about Danny. But no amount of examples would sum up why I felt so strongly about him. What makes you love
someone has little to do with the number of wonderful qualities they possess. It’s about glimpsing something inside them that nobody else can see and realising you’ve always needed it,
even though you didn’t know you were looking. It’s about inventing a reality that is true only for the two of you.
Meeting Danny on the bus no longer seemed like mere accident. It was fated: I had been meant to catch that particular bus because Danny would get on it. This belief was sealed when Danny told me
that he’d seen another bus coming first, but had made a split-second decision not to run for it. It didn’t occur to me that he might have felt too tired or too lazy to run; it was
simply meant to be. I credited other coincidences with the same, irrational significance: the fact that we had
festivals in venues I didn’t know existed, to hear performers that he’d read about in some obscure magazine. He opened my eyes to the city I’d lived in all my life, pointing out
curiosities I wouldn’t have noticed alone – a piece of ancient Roman wall on a modern street or a bizarre wig shop run by a couple in their eighties. When I was with Danny I saw the
world in technicolour; it was like putting on a pair of 3-D glasses.
Sometimes we’d just stay in at his flat, have a takeaway and talk until the early hours. Whenever we were apart we were constantly on the phone, chatting and texting at every opportunity.
I’d wake up to a HELLO message (usually sent in the small hours) and go to sleep reading, SWEET DREAMS, OMI .
Every minute that I spent with Danny made me fall in love with him a little more. I loved his spontaneity. I loved the way he turned up his nose and pouted when he was confused or deep in
thought. I loved his funny little habits – the way he drank his tea, always taking a sip when it was still too hot and then appearing genuinely surprised when, once again, it burned his lips.
I loved knowing that he kept all my texts, refusing to delete even the most mundane one until his message box was full. I loved the fact that he didn’t appear to notice my flaws; he’d
tell me how beautiful I looked without make-up and that he thought my body was perfect. He even laughed at my feeble jokes and when I mixed up my words; to him they were idiosyncracies, not
idiocies.
There were thoughtful gestures, too. When, for example, I mentioned how much I enjoyed photography, he dug out an old Brownie box camera from his parents’ attic and asked me to show him
how to use it. Weeks after a silly conversation about sweets, during which I’d told him how I liked yellow ones best, he presented me with a jam-jar full of miscellaneous yellow sweets: wine
gums, fruit gums and fruit pastilles, jellies and boiled sweets. He said he’d collected them from every packet he’d eaten and joked about the huge price he’d soon have to pay in
dental bills. I later discovered that he had, in fact, been to his local supermarket, bought sackfuls of every tube and packet available, and carefully removed all the yellow sweets one by one,
before discarding the rest.
He’d sit through
Friends
with me, even if it was an episode he’d seen at least three times before. He would come with me to watch tacky, romantic films because I had nobody
else to see them with and, afterwards, he’d try to think of something good to say about the plot or the actors. He’d cut stories out of newspapers if he thought I’d find them
interesting and he’d scout eBay for vintage clothes I might like to check out. When I had a cold he tucked me up on his sofa and brought me gallons of freshly squeezed orange juice and made
me tomato soup and boiled eggs with soldiers because I’d told him that was my favourite comfort food.
I could go on and on. I could probably fill a whole book with lists of what I liked about Danny. But no amount of examples would sum up why I felt so strongly about him. What makes you love
someone has little to do with the number of wonderful qualities they possess. It’s about glimpsing something inside them that nobody else can see and realising you’ve always needed it,
even though you didn’t know you were looking. It’s about inventing a reality that is true only for the two of you.
Meeting Danny on the bus no longer seemed like mere accident. It was fated: I had been meant to catch that particular bus because Danny would get on it. This belief was sealed when Danny told me
that he’d seen another bus coming first, but had made a split-second decision not to run for it. It didn’t occur to me that he might have felt too tired or too lazy to run; it was
simply meant to be. I credited other coincidences with the same, irrational significance: the fact that we had
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