UNTITLED

Fourteen is too young, perhaps, to love.

I have heard it so many times… It doesn’t help, though. Telling me what I felt, telling me I am mistaken… No, you aren’t helping. My heart was not broken, it was shattered. Is it so terrible for me to want to believe in love?

This is not a love story.

Cinderella lived happily ever after. Cinderella lived.

The sad, the terrible thing about this story is that we don’t live happily ever after.

Once, when I was young, I fell in love.

It wasn’t a crush, it wasn’t puppy love. It wasn’t a mild fling which I will eventually get over.

I remember his smile. It was lovely, contagious, infectious. He was radiant, like the sun… his smile brightened my day. Every day.

I remember the first day, he singled me out. My name on his lips was a wonder. I looked up, I saw this boy whom I didn’t know and I thought "How does he know my name?"

Even then, his smile made my heart stutter.

I watched him, afterwards. I needed to know who he was, and why he knew my name. He watched me, too, sometimes. And he always smiled.

I knew his smiles, every one of him. He had one smile, just for me. A sweet, boyish smile that made his eyes light up, as if we were sharing a joke that no one else could understand. He would see me watching him, and he would give me my special smile.

Oh, how I loved him.

Every moment of every day, I loved him. And when the night closed around us, when we stood shivering in the cold with only the stars to light the darkness, he smiled at me.

He made me laugh, every time. And when he left, I saw the sadness in his eyes. "Thank you for making it all worthwhile." He said.

---

I sit aloof, listening to someone else tell me he loves me. I want to laugh, but I can’t. He is so earnest, so eager.

I don’t care.

He confesses his undying love, but I am not in love with him.

"I have met my soulmate." I tell him. "You’re not him."

It is amusing to see the shock and hurt in his eyes, and I find a sadistic pleasure in watching him try to hide his tears. He doesn’t understand, but they never do.

He was never perfect, but he was perfect for me. I remember too clearly the jokes, the laughter, and the everyday routine that came so naturally to us.

His face is the one I pictured with my first lover. I hated him, afterwards, because he was gone. Never meant to be mine.

God sits and laughs, because he has played a fabulous joke. Is love even real?

Do you believe in soulmates? I ask.

Yes.
Yes.
Yes…

Another year, and another boy tells me he loves me. I still don’t care. I feel like being mean, but I don’t have the energy. Instead, I’m relieved he doesn’t ask if I feel the same.

It’s a routine, now. My hand hangs limply from my side and he grasps it tightly as if he never wants to go. I don’t care anymore, and I don’t pull my hand from his. I’m merely a trophy, anyways.

I know he doesn’t love me. Not real love. He has deluded himself into thinking so.

Why don’t I have any energy?

He is sweaty, quiet, making only the occasional grunt when I fuck him. I try to forget, for a few minutes, that I’m with the wrong man.

I find no satisfaction so I fake it, because I know he can’t tell the difference.

During the daytime I have no energy. The sun sucks the life from me more than anything, and all I want is to sleep.

Inertia prevents me from leaving him. I simply don’t want things to change, not yet.

If I can’t have him, why bother?

Eventually, the other leaves me. I shed no tears, I shrug it off and am unaffected. He finds this eerie, my not caring. "Do you still love me?" He asks.

I think about this, and then I lie. "Yes." I say.

He seems satisfied.

We go out again.

My lie doesn’t haunt me, as it would someone else. I want to leave him broken.

Eventually, I do.

He is shocked, and doesn’t understand. "What did I do?" He asks. He is crying and the sight of his tears disgust me. "How can I change?" He doesn’t want me to leave.

I get dressed slowly, because I know he’s watching me. I let sunlight from the open window play on my breasts as I search for a shirt that doesn’t belong to him.

"I never loved you." I say, not answering his questions. "I never even liked you."

He is hurt, but determined. "Don’t go."

I leave.

Years pass and nothing changes.

Another year, another boy telling me he loves me.

"You don’t love me." I tell him.

He disagrees.

"You don’t know anything about me." I add.

He says he can learn.

It isn’t enough.

Another year… another boy.

I would call them men, but their childish expressions, their childish hurt, is too much.

I tell them they don’t love me, and they insist they do.

Every year, it gets easier.

Then, I see him again.

He’s grown up, but he’s still the same. He smiles at me, that same boyish smile that’s just for me. His hair falls over his eyes, and he ducks down as if he’s afraid to look at me.

I’m used to being looked at.

I sit beside him, and the silence is comfortable.

As if he never left, as if he was never gone… things are always the same when we are together.

And he was never meant to be mine.

Do you believe in soulmates?

Yes.
Yes…

When he speaks, he lies to me. His mouth moves as he tells me that he doesn’t love me, but I see the pain and hurt in his eyes. I see the humiliation and the need, and above all I see him begging me not to believe.

No, he was never meant to be mine.

Yet, he is.

Do you believe in soulmates?
Yes…