The Politics of Paranoia

As I climbed into the front of the car and threw my coat into the back I saw something in the foot-well behind the driver’s seat. A handwritten envelope:
‘Matthew Singleton, Sir Peter Hilton Court, Derby.’
There was an A5 letter scrawled underneath it.

Damn it. I didn’t have my bloody glasses on; I'd never be able to see who it was from. I’d have to ask . . .
“Who are you getting handwritten letters from then?” I pulled my seatbelt across my chest, avoiding his eyes, but my voice was accusatory. He knew me too well. I looked over as his face began to contort.
“What do you mean? I don’t know,”
WHAT?!! He was lying!? I couldn’t believe it. Who the hell was writing him love letters??
And then it happened, the brain kicked in. It was The Ex, Love Of His Life, crawling back into his heart with a well penned verse. I already knew he had a thing for writers, and you have to hand it to the girl, it’s a clever way to pull at his 'heartstrings', reminiscing to the good old days.
He sat in the driver’s and started the ignition.
“You don’t know who you have a handwritten letter from? How many do you get, that you don’t know who it’s from?”
“Look at it if you want!” he spluttered.

Ha. I couldn’t think of anything worse. I began to concoct her lines, asking him to go back to her, being you know, 'poetic', perhaps compiling a dirty limerick. I turned away in my seat. He tried to reach for my hand and I pulled away.
“Jess! What?”
“I don’t know what to say. I don’t believe that you don’t know who it’s from.”

I felt as though it was staring at me. I didn’t want to look back. We sat in silence for ten minutes while he drove. I felt bad actually, that he was trying to concentrate on the windy country road and I wanted a full blown argument. I wondered if I could subtly see it out of the corner of my eye. IT. My nemesis on paper. I peered over in a way that made my eye balls bulge, still facing the road ahead. I strained so much so that the top corner of the letter, where the address lay, just came into focus.
‘Littleover? Who on earth does he know who lives in Littleover??’
Then it hit me. I knew who was writing to him from Littleover. They’d written to me as well. And my flatmates. Everyone in the fricking building no doubt.

I reached over and picked it up, laughing as I saw the date mark:
‘May 2010’ and the words underneath . . .
‘Dear Matthew, this upcoming election…’
It wasn’t even handwritten, but printed in that style in order to confuse unwitting students into believing Mummy dearest had sent them a cheque in the post for more baked beans and alcohol.
“It’s the Lib-Dems! The bloody Lib-Dems, making me crazy.”
“Jess! I can’t believe you’ve given me the silent treatment over that!”
“Well, it looked bad!”
“Who did you think it was from?”
“I don’t know. You know, people.”
I had to tell him eventually, of course I did; I couldn’t really talk my way out of it. Paranoia, neuroticism . . . I can only keep it under wraps for so long.
“You owe me an apology.”
“But I didn’t think you’d done anything wrong…One day we’ll laugh about this you know,”

I just didn't know it would be so soon. We pulled up to my house and could see my dad getting out of his car. He met us on the path and Matthew immediately retold the story. Then they had a laugh at how foolish and crazy I had been. In fact, I think they even both said ‘Women!’ in that way that men do, just to sum everything up in two syllables. Ha . . . ha, so I’m crazy. It still hurts just thinking about it. I either need to be committed or NOT SAY ANYTHING EVER.