Grant had a girlfriend. This was startling news for him, as he had never considered himself the kind of man who would have a lady friend that wanted to spend her time with him in that very specific way. The concept of dates was not foreign, he loved hanging out with people, but they had never been applied to a relationship before. They never meant as much. Even as he was sitting at his desk, everything neatly arranged around him for convenience and ease of use, he was having a hard time explaining to himself what the difference between a friend and a girlfriend was.

How would he ever get it into the proper words for her, then?

Try and try again, of course. The relentlessly optimistic young man was more than ready to spend his night toiling away with paper in hand, though it would be far more effective if he left it on the table and just held the pencil he was writing with instead. Once that was all settled, he really got to work, letting his words flow out of him in a continuous stream of barely coherent thoughts. When he filled the page he reread it and in the back of his mind knew it sounded terrible.

Oh well, he thought cheerfully, all part of the editing process.

He began to write again, reviewing his previous efforts and taking out what he thought were the good bits to be rewritten into this new note. He had better sentence structure, at least, and by the time he was done with the few paragraphs it looked like a proper letter, with commas and periods and everything. He read it over to himself, smiling contentedly and nodding along, as if reading it for the first time and not being responsible for writing it in the first place.

It sounded good, but it wasn’t perfect yet. Still, perfection was something always to be sought but never attained. As long as it made her happy, he would be happy with it. So he rewrote it about three more times, once only half way before starting again, until he had a much shorter note to put in the envelope addressed to Lydia. Still, he felt it said what he wanted it to.

Sitting back, he read it again, this time out loud, looking over at his rabbit, Stink, for approval. The rabbit wiggled its nose.

“Dear Lydia,” Grant said, reading slowly, “I think you are beautiful. I know I told you before and I don’t want to creep you out by saying again, but it really is in my mind a lot! I’m sorry if that’s too much. Oh! And you kiss really well, and that was fun so if you’d like we should always hang out together and I’d love to watch another movie with you. Though I have to say I didn’t see much of Up but we can watch that some time, too! You always look really pretty with the sunlight on your hair, and your smile is the most beautiful one I have ever seen! So I’d like to see you smile more often, and be the one making you. If you don’t mind, of course! Always, Grant.”

He looked thoughtful, then smiled. Yes, that was good. He was sure Stink agreed.