Anatomy of I Love You.
You first said you loved me about a month ago.
We were in the movie theater, and I was sitting on your lap, idly watching the coming attractions. You pulled me in for a kiss, and when it was over, you whispered, "Love you." Not "I love you", mind you. No dramatic gestures or pretense. You just said it like it was natural, like you'd been saying it for years. And I didn't say anything. I kissed you briefly and returned to staring at the screen.
Rewind To August
It was the middle of the summer, and I'd been in a casual relationship with this guy for four months. Our days consisted entirely of moseying around the strip mall behind my house and debating zombies in the video store. We were no Romeo and Juliet, but he was a good friend and a good boyfriend, and I was completely devastated when I found out his family was moving across the country before school started. That last day we went out to the beach, talked and reminisced and promised we wouldn't forget each other. We spent hours out in the blistering heat, doing nothing at all and enjoying every moment of it, but a time came when he had to bring me home. Standing there on my doorstep, we kissed for an eternity, and when it finally ended, with tears in my eyes, I told him I loved him.
He stared at me for an extended period of time, and finally mustered a "Love you too?" before stumbling off.
We did the long-distance thing for a while, him periodically bringing up my declaration of love but never truly reciprocating. I told him it was a mistake, just something I blurted out that I wasn't sure I really meant. After a while, I stopped picking up his phone calls. I started talking to this great new guy, someone I'd had a crush on for two years but had been too nervous to ever say two words to. When he asked me out, I said yes without hesitation. We went to an amusement park, where my iPhone took a nosedive out of my pocket and plummeted hundreds of feet from a roller coaster. That night, I went home and broke up with my boyfriend via Facebook.
In a message the next day, he sent me this:
i need to get this off my chest, im really mad about what happened and i hate the whole break thing so im not going to date anyone while im here, im going to wait until i can see you again coz the really fucked up thing is that i think i love you and if you don't care that's fine but just remember, im waiting for you.
Four Months Later
We began our usual trek from the theater to the Applebee's across the street, me huddling against you for warmth. The statement you'd made earlier was sizzling in my mind, bringing up all kinds of uncomfortable emotions- and one pleasant one. One meek little voice in my head, cooing in disbelief: "But, you love him too."
Love. What was it, even? I knew that my little adolescent brain could not define in this 10-minute journey what philosophers and scientists had been failing to do since the dawn of time- but I still tried. Was love staying up all night texting him when he couldn't sleep? Making him charred cookies when you know full well you cannot cook for your life, just because you want to make him smile? Is it looking into the future- 6 months or 60 years- and expressing no interest if he's not a part of it? Or is it the feeling of your heart hammering in your chest, wanting nothing more than him to have his arms around you?
"I'm... I'm sorry about before by the way," I finally managed, and you understood what I meant.
"Oh, it's quite alright." You waved a hand in the air. "You can say it when you mean it."
"No, but I mean... it's just, things usually start to fall apart at this point, y-you know?" My stutter picked up with a vengeance, and I was beginning to wish I'd never started talking in the first place.
"We're not gonna fall apart, baby. Things are gonna be good for a real long time, I promise."
I rolled my eyes, and instantly hoped you hadn't seen. I'd been here too many times before to not know that promises were nothing- just words, gone the instant they touched the air. "Love" was just a time bomb. The moment you activate it, you're setting yourself up for ultimate destruction. Maybe in two weeks, maybe in two years. But the more you let yourself love, the more permission you give another to hurt you. Nuh uh. Not for me.
But there was another problem with your statement. Beyond the mysterious and undefinable concept of love, there was the "you". You loved me, but who was I? Did you love simply the me sitting on your lap in the movie theater, the me who wrote you poems but wouldn't let you see, the me who would gladly waste my Friday nights watching Spongebob with you and listening to your mom talk ad nauseum about the Christmas decorations? That wasn't me, not entirely. I wasn't a fixed entity. Did you love all the me's he'd never met- me, from last January, nearly passing out in the shower because I'd cut just a little too deep, blood running all down my arms? Did you love me from two summers ago, when I determined my worth based on numbers on a scale and spent hours trying to get my gag reflex to kick in? And did you love the me that cried herself to sleep every night, bargaining with a god she didn't believe in just to make it stop?
I didn't think you could. I didn't think anyone could.
We were in the movie theater, and I was sitting on your lap, idly watching the coming attractions. You pulled me in for a kiss, and when it was over, you whispered, "Love you." Not "I love you", mind you. No dramatic gestures or pretense. You just said it like it was natural, like you'd been saying it for years. And I didn't say anything. I kissed you briefly and returned to staring at the screen.
Rewind To August
It was the middle of the summer, and I'd been in a casual relationship with this guy for four months. Our days consisted entirely of moseying around the strip mall behind my house and debating zombies in the video store. We were no Romeo and Juliet, but he was a good friend and a good boyfriend, and I was completely devastated when I found out his family was moving across the country before school started. That last day we went out to the beach, talked and reminisced and promised we wouldn't forget each other. We spent hours out in the blistering heat, doing nothing at all and enjoying every moment of it, but a time came when he had to bring me home. Standing there on my doorstep, we kissed for an eternity, and when it finally ended, with tears in my eyes, I told him I loved him.
He stared at me for an extended period of time, and finally mustered a "Love you too?" before stumbling off.
We did the long-distance thing for a while, him periodically bringing up my declaration of love but never truly reciprocating. I told him it was a mistake, just something I blurted out that I wasn't sure I really meant. After a while, I stopped picking up his phone calls. I started talking to this great new guy, someone I'd had a crush on for two years but had been too nervous to ever say two words to. When he asked me out, I said yes without hesitation. We went to an amusement park, where my iPhone took a nosedive out of my pocket and plummeted hundreds of feet from a roller coaster. That night, I went home and broke up with my boyfriend via Facebook.
In a message the next day, he sent me this:
i need to get this off my chest, im really mad about what happened and i hate the whole break thing so im not going to date anyone while im here, im going to wait until i can see you again coz the really fucked up thing is that i think i love you and if you don't care that's fine but just remember, im waiting for you.
Four Months Later
We began our usual trek from the theater to the Applebee's across the street, me huddling against you for warmth. The statement you'd made earlier was sizzling in my mind, bringing up all kinds of uncomfortable emotions- and one pleasant one. One meek little voice in my head, cooing in disbelief: "But, you love him too."
Love. What was it, even? I knew that my little adolescent brain could not define in this 10-minute journey what philosophers and scientists had been failing to do since the dawn of time- but I still tried. Was love staying up all night texting him when he couldn't sleep? Making him charred cookies when you know full well you cannot cook for your life, just because you want to make him smile? Is it looking into the future- 6 months or 60 years- and expressing no interest if he's not a part of it? Or is it the feeling of your heart hammering in your chest, wanting nothing more than him to have his arms around you?
"I'm... I'm sorry about before by the way," I finally managed, and you understood what I meant.
"Oh, it's quite alright." You waved a hand in the air. "You can say it when you mean it."
"No, but I mean... it's just, things usually start to fall apart at this point, y-you know?" My stutter picked up with a vengeance, and I was beginning to wish I'd never started talking in the first place.
"We're not gonna fall apart, baby. Things are gonna be good for a real long time, I promise."
I rolled my eyes, and instantly hoped you hadn't seen. I'd been here too many times before to not know that promises were nothing- just words, gone the instant they touched the air. "Love" was just a time bomb. The moment you activate it, you're setting yourself up for ultimate destruction. Maybe in two weeks, maybe in two years. But the more you let yourself love, the more permission you give another to hurt you. Nuh uh. Not for me.
But there was another problem with your statement. Beyond the mysterious and undefinable concept of love, there was the "you". You loved me, but who was I? Did you love simply the me sitting on your lap in the movie theater, the me who wrote you poems but wouldn't let you see, the me who would gladly waste my Friday nights watching Spongebob with you and listening to your mom talk ad nauseum about the Christmas decorations? That wasn't me, not entirely. I wasn't a fixed entity. Did you love all the me's he'd never met- me, from last January, nearly passing out in the shower because I'd cut just a little too deep, blood running all down my arms? Did you love me from two summers ago, when I determined my worth based on numbers on a scale and spent hours trying to get my gag reflex to kick in? And did you love the me that cried herself to sleep every night, bargaining with a god she didn't believe in just to make it stop?
I didn't think you could. I didn't think anyone could.