30th June 2011. I was a day old graduate, you a week older. We were big and proud, bigger and prouder, biggest and proudest we had ever been. We spent the whole of June trying to live the month as one long day, turning mornings into nights and nights into mornings, half-heartedly climaxing into an inevitable end. An end that had suddenly changed from a distant notion in the murky future to an unstoppable reality in the summer breeze without fair notice.

On that last day, we hugged a little hug, you and I and your beautiful bouncy hair. Knowing this little hug on the last day of the last month of the last year was the last fullstop of a story that began with a question. I had asked if I could join you for dinner on that cold winter day (2009?) and you had smiled your radiant smile, taking the sting out of the chilly air.

You, hun, were love at first sight for me. I wanted to know you and talk to you and go for walks after dinner to that little stream behind the dorm grounds near Vet School. It took us a year and more to make that walk but it didn’t matter in the end. You showed me more of Glasgow than I ever would on my own. You became Glasgow and Glasgow became you till I could no longer tell the difference.

I moved to London, you moved to Addis Ababa, looking for more homes away from home. We met for a few hours one sunny day in summer oh-twelve in Camden Town. I was as surprised to see your blonde highlights as you were to see my formal work attire. Gone were the hoodies and skinnies we had spent all of Glasgow in. We tried to cram a year’s worth of us in those 2 short hours – only God knew when we’d meet again. Turned out 2 hours were too short to write a properly punctuated story. This time the hug felt more like a pause, a hanging comma in an unfinished tale.

25th June 2014. I am thinking of you hun. I am itching to write another story. I cannot sit still on this big, stuffy bird. I cannot wait to put words besides the comma we left in Camden, hug out another full stop. Are you ready, hun? Are you?