My Most FavoritePet Name

Listen to this piece — yes, listen! — on episode 49 of Comatose.
Many thanks to @NIZARbabul!

A very dear friend of mine, V, has a pet name for me. It’s my most favorite pet name another person’s ever bestowed on me.

I’m not generally a big fan of pet names. I cannot think of any that I’ve conjured up and endowed on someone else. Maybe I’m not that sentimental. Instead, I have a record of stealing my boyfriends’ pet names for me and using them in return. “Honey” (or “Hunny” ala A.A. Milne). “Hun”. “Sweetie”. “Babe”. Those boring, generic pet names.

The closest I get to sentiment is a “Hey you” when that “you” is someone I’m fond of. It’s both sweet and cold at the same time, which is also probably a pretty apt description of myself.

Of course the best pet names or nicknames are those that develop organically, those that arise out of some special shared moment or series of moments or some words that just pop out of the other person’s mouth and, for whatever reason, stick.

Growing up, my parents sometimes called my sister “Smashley”, for obvious reasons: she was an Ashley with a taste for daring. My brother James, the baby of the family, became known as “Willy”, short for “Weeping Willy”, a play on words and a reflection of his tendency toward tears. “Smashley” long faded out of use, but “Willy” is still often heard around the dinner table. I, however, never had a true nickname from my immediate family. My older brother sometimes called me “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong” (yes, like that song), but that was usually out of frustration. I was often my dad’s “sweetheart”, but so were my mom and sister.

One of my uncle’s has taken to calling me “Peanut”, even now. That one I like. It’s conveys both affection and a truth: I’m kind of small.

V’s name for me, though, is my most favorite. Like the best names, it developed organically, based on the need to distinguish me from someone else with my same name, and then it evolved slightly from its origin into the refined version it is today. Like “Peanut” it also conveys affection while commenting on my size. Unlike “Peanut”, though, V’s pet name is a custom one. It’s something he specially crafted for me, and not something he’d ever say to refer to somebody else. It’s perfectly innocent and sweet and likely forgettable by anyone else but he and I.

He uses it only sparingly in text and speaks it even more rarely, the elusiveness making it feel more special.

Two words. Two simple words that mean me in his own unique way.

He doesn’t even know how much I love it. I’m afraid to tell him out of fear he’ll become conscious of it. Then, he might think twice before letting the words roll off of his tongue (or off of his fingertips), and I don’t want that to happen. I don’t want him to be aware of how those words warm my soul.

Because as long as he doesn’t know how much I love that pet name, every time he uses it, I’ll know I still hold that something special somewhere in his heart.

And however tiny it may be, those two words are the space he has reserved for me, like a hidden pocket sewn into the lining of his jacket where it lies close to his chest. It’s a little pocket of adoration and compassion, of kindness and friendship, with a two-word label embroidered delicately in the corner in dark red thread. It says: Little One.

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