Fragments From a Story I Never Told pt1

4 years ago, I loved this boy. Even as I’m writing this now, I’m not totally sure I don’t still love him. Every time I think about it, it feels like a lifetime ago. I was in my second year of college. I was in the midst of seeing my friends everyday, staying out til all hours, all nighters in the library, over stressing about finals, club events, going to soccer games. Living my life.

It was a lifetime ago. I was only 18. I thought I was grown. I was an adult. I knew everything. I don’t know how he got to me but he did. We talked everyday. Texting. FaceTiming. On the phone. Any time his name popped up on my phone, my heart slowed. It was almost like it rested to know how safe it was with him. Just at the mention of him, at the thought of him, I had to fight my smile from flooding my face. It wasn’t a normal smile either. It was a full on teeth-showing dimples-pulling cheeks-hurting smile. Fucking goofy ass smile. The kind your friends see and ask you “who are you texting?” Point is, I’m not a very smiley person in general so I had to fight it so I didn’t look slightly psychotic.

He lived in London. He still lives in London. I think. 5,407 miles away. I looked it up once and it stuck with me. But anyways, we never met in person. I think that detail always throws me off no matter how many times I think of it. We never met in person. Does he even exist? Or was I hallucinating him and the whole thing was a schizophrenic episode? Dramatic, yes but loving something so fiercely and not being able to grasp it between your fingers drives you slightly mad. And then there’s loving something so fiercely that when it’s gone, there’s still nothing to grasp. That will leave you questioning your sanity.

We met online. On twitter, specifically.

I used to laugh at people who met online and fell in love online. It was so absurd to me. How is that even possible? You can’t love someone you’ve never met.

Well, I did. Karma, I think they call it.

He was a politics major in the UK and I just so happened to be taking (failing) a British contemporary politics class. So I asked him for help. He gave me his number, “call me”.

It went from there.

I assured my mother “he’s just a friend”. She wanted to make sure I was being careful. This was because she noticed I was on the phone 4 hours a day every single day. At some point you gotta get sick of whoever it is you’re talking to. But we only ever hung up because it’d be 5am his time and he had work at 8am.

“I hate to love you and leave you” he’d say. That was how he said bye. What was he? A romcom character? I laughed so hard the first time I heard it. “Relax Romeo”, I said. “It’s just a saying,” he said. I heard him smile. His voice changed when he smiled.

That was September. By December I was in so deep I couldn’t fathom what would happen to me if he left. That’s when I told him I had feelings for him.

It wasn’t random. We had both been at weddings that same night. Him in London. Me in California. It was December 3rd. And I only remember that because the lettering of the wedding invitation is seared into my mind. Sliver leaf in whimsical font.

We couldn’t talk that night because well, it’s hard to talk with the cha cha slide blasting in the background. Instead, he sent me a goodnight message before he fell asleep. Something like “it was a nice ceremony” and “hope your night went well” and “text me when you get home” and “I want someone to look at me the way they looked at each other”. I opened the message while I was walking to my car, away from the party. I got in my car. Slipped off my heels. Threw my purse in the back. And in the 3 seconds between turning on my car and driving off, I decided and executed. “I’d look at you that way.”

Okay it wasn’t that poetic. In hindsight, that would’ve been a better choice of words than what I actually sent him.

It was more like “I have feelings for you. I didn’t think they’d bug me this much but they are. I’m just being honest. Thought I should let you know.”

I was hopeful. It wasn’t “wow I just made a really bad decision”. It was more like “this may work out”. I still needed to throw up the whole drive home though. Anxiety wouldn’t spare me that.

“It’s okay. We’re adults. We can get through this. Let’s not let it affect our friendship” is what I woke up to.

Needless to say, we didn’t get through it LMAO.

I was expecting “I’m sorry I don’t feel the same way” followed by extreme awkwardness or “I love you too” or something like that but less intense. Not “yep well anyways moving on” and continuing on like normal.

I don’t know what it is I was thinking. That I’d get over it or that if I waited it out we might end up together?

But what I was thinking was “he didn’t say no”.

At some point after December 3rd, he told me he loved me.

It was “I love you”.

Not “I love you romantically.”

Not “I love you as a friend”.

It was just “I love you”.

“I love you, too” was my response. And I didn’t say it just because he said it. It wasn’t just a response. I said it because I did love him.

I thought there’s no way we don’t end up together.

Some time at the end February, I called him and asked what his endgame was.

I told him, “I still have feelings for you and I need to know if you feel the same.”

It was a long phone call. I cried. A lot. He held his tears back. My throat felt like someone lit a fire and buried it there.

There’s a lot to say about that phone call but no matter what happened that night, “we were just friends”.

It was a week before finals. I had alienated all my friends in those 6 months. They knew about him. They knew he existed. They knew I was happy. But when I showed up to the library one day with trails of tears carved into my cheeks and my usual resting bitch face replaced by a zombie-like expression, they weren’t really prepared. They didn’t know what to do. What were they supposed to do?

They took turns keeping an eye on me. Making sure I was eating, studying for finals, resting, not checking my phone every 20 seconds. At some point they stopped being so gentle and starting taking my phone away from me forcefully.

“He is not worth your time. He is not worth your future.”

Looking back, I couldn’t have asked for better people to be around me. Even if I don’t speak to most of them anymore, I’m still thankful.

I did really well on my finals that semester. I don’t know why or how.

I took the week of spring break to cry some more and sleep as much as possible. Being awake was too painful. I didn’t think I’d survive.