16 January 2013 nonfiction "Love 2"

I know exactly what love feels like.

Love, that coveted emotion that smiles with its victims.

Love, for me, took shape in my sophomore year, with a beautiful boy who shall remain nameless and indescribable, for the sake of relatability.

When I was a sophomore in high school, I fell in love for the first time, with something unattainable. It began as something as natural as a crush, and developed into something much more.

I never really realized I loved him, not until much much later, when I had almost forgotten the entire affair.

Love is a beautiful thing, it is proven, yet this love story has an unfortunate ending, as most do.

I remember the way it used to make me feel when he walked into the room. Invincible. Nothing could touch me. No, as long as he was there, I would be all right. Smiling at me with his beautiful teeth, I remembered in each minute of being with him why I was where I was, why I had spent my time away from my room.

God, I was breathless when I was with him. I tried with every inch of my being to get him to smile when I spoke, to laugh along with me, alone with me.

Each thing we had in common, and, unfortunately enough, there were plenty, was like a brilliant ray of sunshine, it shined golden and beautiful, so wonderful that I did not once notice how much it hurt to be blinded.

It felt wonderful to love him; it was an intoxicating thing to indulge in. I would smile and follow him anywhere in the world. I was the happiest girl ever created if I got to spend two minutes alone with him. That’s all it took.

And yet, loving him was the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced. Each second I indulged in my love for him, I fed the monster that love supported: hope. It was so overwhelmingly easy, to close my eyes and imagine.

Lying in the grass next to him, our hands barely touching, but his presence being enough for me. We would count the twinkling stars until they fell asleep alongside us. We would learn to love under the scratchy moonlight.

Each time I hoped, I cried for the sake of my heart as it took flight with my imagination. The abyss between the two of us, him and I, would never be crossable, but a single blink in my direction convinced me otherwise.

It was difficult to accept, but in the back of my mind I understood that he did not love me as I loved him, and that he never would.

And yet the stupid parts of me hoped. Each night that I cried myself to sleep, I remembered something and convinced myself that it was not over, it would never be.