Jolly Good Show

Today Darcy told me he loves me. And for the first time in my history of I-Love-You's, I didn't say I love you back (I used to have a real problem with auto-answering 'I love you' with 'I love you too') but we both knew it wasn't like that - he just said it because he just realised it. And he didn't say 'I love you', he said

"You know what, I think I love you."

At this point, we were outside on the balcony, under a duvet, so that I could have a ciggie. I'd just had a rough night as my mother had turned up at my flat for no apparent other reason than to criticise me, and Darcy had picked me up from my flat, at 1am, to take me away from it all. My hero. And I was in tears, a little hysterically ranting about how much I hated living there, and how I was so stupid to let my mother still make me feel like a 14 yr old to this very day, and how I didn't need him to save me, just so he knows. But he listened til I ran out of steam, then made me laugh at myself by taking the piss out of my use of profanity - "fucking lovely" it turns out, is a catchphrase of mine that I use every other sentence, whether it's referring to something good or bad, "fucking lovely". So we spent a few minutes just saying, in increasingly posh tones, "fucking lovely" "yes, fucking lovely my good man." "fucking lovely is it, old bean?" - which, obviously, we thought was the funniest thing in the world. So amidst the hysterics and the "fucking lovely"s he slipped out an "I fucking love you." at which point I almost choked mid-laugh.

"Yeah, you know what, I think I love you."

He said this with a quiet, wondering look on his face. I could have died. Suddenly, we weren't laughing. In that moment (it's such a cliche but..) everything suddenly slowed down and all I could hear was my heartbeat thumping in my ears. I hadn't thought about it before, but suddenly I was so aware - if he doesn't love me, Im actually going to die. He's wondering it now, mulling it over, "Hmmm, do I love her? Do I not? I've said it now so.. do I?" All I could do was watch his face, trying to read any little miniscule sign that I could pick up in this half-a-second long pause.

"....Right. Well you either do or you don't. So, do you?"

The casual observer would have noted the tone of panic that I couldn't manage to control in my voice, but I didn't care. Suddenly, I didn't care about anything, about the situation with my flat, about my mother making me feel adolescent, about only having 2 more cigarettes left, about my past, his past, about anything at all. Except that I had to know. Suddenly, thats all that mattered.

"Yeah, I do.."

He looked up at me and a grin spread across his face.

".. I fucking love you."

Now something about how un-romantic and un-soppy it was, and the look of "huh - how funny!" on his face, made it just perfect. So we just sat there, grinning at each other til I burst out laughing.

"You fucking love me, do you old bean?"

"Why yes I do, my good chap."

"Jolly good show. Fucking lovely."