Growing up, I never liked watching romance movies. I couldn’t understand how one emotion could drive people insane, cause both inexplicable happiness and unbearable pain, push and pull people in every possible direction. Like a drug, the characters were addicted, drunk on the idea of finding the one. To me, love at first sight was a myth, heartbreak was an exaggeration, and falling in love was like walking down a step you didn’t see coming – sudden, terrifying, but fleeting. Those movies seemed like a fever dream, heated by passion and imagination. For as long as we knew each other, I couldn’t say I was in love. Like ocean waves, our relationship ebbed and flowed, from strangers to friends to more than friends but not quite lovers back to strangers, dictated by the quiet rise of the moon. For 8 years, these tides seemed simultaneously extremely long and unbelievably short. We were always a touch apart – a brush of the fingertips, a hug that lingers just a moment too long, a breath that would dissipate if either of us moved a centimeter closer. We sought out other people, found other forms of love, fought and cried and broke apart, only to always fall back into each other. Yet, we never dared to cross the silver lining that kept us as “just friends”, in fear of what would become of us if we did. And for me, I was okay with that. Of course, I dreamt about what could be if I just had the courage to take that one step. But, after so long on the dark side of the moon, I believed that for the rest of our time “almost” together, we would exist in this world of what ifs, this infinite limit – always approaching but never touching. But an infinite limit is still that – a limit. And that night, you realized yours was not endless. You crossed the line, closed the gap, dissipated the single breath of air between us. It wasn’t a fairytale moment with fireworks going off in the background.
It was quiet. Motionless. Breathless. Like the sun setting on the horizon, it faded into the night where you can’t see the moon at all. It was the end of the end. From that point on, the silver lining had snapped. From that point on, I realized it was never me who chose to keep the line taut – it was you. And when you decided this line didn’t matter anymore, that another string was more interesting to hold on to, you let go and walked away. It was like those moments in a dream when you suddenly realize you’re falling with no way of stopping, jerking you awake with a pounding heart and shaky hands. Maybe that’s why they say you fall in, and out, of love. My friends always say that I just don’t understand what it means to be in love. That it’s because I’ve never felt such intense emotion towards someone that I can’t understand the irrational and, honestly, stupid things people in love do. That one day, when I experience true heartbreak, that I’ll understand the reason for everything they’ve done. Now, after 8 long, blinded, crazy, flailing years, I realize that maybe I did know what it meant. Maybe I did do all those crazy things, tolerate all those red flags, pour all of my heart and soul into a single person. Maybe I was like those girls in the movie, chasing after someone who made them feel on top of the world one moment and stuck at the bottom of the ocean the next, addicted to the intoxication. Maybe that night, I should have said something different. Maybe I should have taken that one step towards you, instead of those two steps back. Maybe once you were gone, I thought of all the other ways this could have ended and wished I could go back and do it all over again. Maybe for all of those years, I was in love. And maybe you were too. It’s just too bad we didn’t know until it was all over.
From, a girl you probably didn’t know you loved, either.