Love You, Goodnight.

I'm not one of those people who can say "I love you" on a whim. I have friends, whom I love dearly, but I just find it hard to say it to their faces.  With a lot of my friends, it's fine, because we don't tend to express our feelings for each other - we don't hug or say "I love you".  Not because we don't feel anything towards one another, but because we're just not those kinds of people.

But, Friday night, I went to my friend's house for a get-together party, and there were a few friends there who decided to go to college, and so I hadn't seen for months, and it was nice to just chat, and forget about school for one night.

A few hours passed, and I'd texted my mum to ask whether my dad could pick me up at 10ish, which he did, and I went to put my phone in my bag and get my shoes ready to go.

As I left, one of my friends shouted: "I love you loads, Rhi!", and - for some reason, without even thinking, I replied: "I love you more! I love you so much. Goodnight."

And that was all that played through my head the next day.  Not the fact that I'm capable of so much love, but the fact that I expressed it. Openly. And truly meant it.

I'm not scared by this. I'm not scared by love. I think I'm just afraid that love will bring hurt - that if I tell someone that I love them, and they leave, I'll have to face it.  As clichéd as that sounds, I think it's true. But I can't be sure.

Is love something to hide? Something to fear? Or should we embrace it?
That, my friends, is completely up to you.

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