Love is a funny thing, at least for me. I’m always giving advice to friends, yet I can honestly say I’ve never been in love. I’ve been close, close enough to taste it but not close enough that I could actually understand the taste. The name of the girl isn’t important, I barely know her now. She taught me about love, how dangerous it is and how great my desire for it is.
Funny enough, I fell for this girl while dating someone else. She was everything my girlfriend wasn’t. Smart, caring, and seemed genuinely interested in me. My girlfriend at the time always seemed preoccupied, she never really had time for “us.” My relationship with her, my ex-girlfriend, ended almost as quickly as it started. She was interested in another guy, more interested then she ever had been with me. She broke up with my over MySpace, which was probably the worst part. I felt betrayed and angry. I was the older one in the relationship, so I felt like I couldn’t take out my frustrations on her. My emotions got the better of me that day however. I’ve never been known for keeping my emotions out of sight from my friends, and everybody knew what had happened. I walked around school with my head down, my ex gave me back the hat she always used take from me. Our relationship was over; my first relationship was gone and dusted. I felt heart broken and weak. Sometimes your heart is a funny emotion to follow. While one relationship ended, that failure gave me the opportunity to move on to some thing better.
Let’s just call this girl Alicia, which is not her real name. Alicia and I had been talking even while I was going out with my ex. Nothing dangerous or wrong, we were just getting to know each other as friends. When I broke up with my ex, I was devastated. I had never known pain like that before, even though I didn’t love my ex. Love was never a dynamic in that relationship, but my first break up took its toll on me. Alicia helped me through the pain. We became good, if not great, friends over the next couple of weeks. We would talk all day and I would usually call her on my forty-minute drive home from night school. Our relationship was much healthier than my previous fling with my ex; Alicia and I genuinely enjoyed hearing each other’s voices. Love’s warmth started to spread through my life.
I was still older than Alicia, like I had been with my ex. We also went to different schools, which made it difficult to see her. One weekend she had a dance at her school, she didn’t invite me to go as her date. That didn’t really bug me, because as far as I knew we were still just talking. I also wasn’t about to invite myself along as her date. I had been talking to her all day, and she mentioned that she and her friends needed a ride to the dance. I saw my opportunity to make my interests known. I offered to take her, she accepted. I remember driving down to her house, nervously anticipating how amazing she would look. Even though I was not going be her date for the dance. When I got to her house I waited in the driveway. Since I wasn’t her date, I didn’t feel the need to go inside and wait for her to finish getting ready. I fixed my hair, made sure there was nothing in my teeth and tried to imagine how suave men act in situations like this. I was clueless, but I didn’t care because I was finally going to be able to see Alicia. When here and her friends finally came outside, I saw her walking to my car. I remember how beautiful I thought she looked in her black dress, how the red lipstick she wore made me want to move mountains to have her. She got into my car. I could smell her perfume that sense took over my mind. Her perfume drifted through my car, my shoulders relaxed but hands tightened on the steering wheel. She looked stunning.
I tried small talk on the way over, ignoring her friend’s exclamations at the texts they were receiving. Alicia was the only thing that mattered for those ten minutes in the car. She had my full attention; I don’t think she understood that. The trip to her school where the dance was held was much shorter than I wanted it to go. She said thanks, her friends said thanks and they all got out of my car. I can’t remember if she smiled at me, but I remember that my smile could last me a lifetime. She was beautiful and I was in love.
I didn’t have anything else to do that night, I had gone out just so that I could drive Alicia to her dance. I didn’t care though because those few moments were worth it. I hung around at the skate park, and then went to the mall with some friends. Just things I normally did on a Saturday night. My friends called me and asked if I wanted to smoke some weed and see a movie. I said yes. Drugs mixed with this feeling Alicia gave me could only be a good thing. Alicia didn’t like drugs, but I probably wasn’t going to see her anymore, so once wouldn’t hurt. My night got better when Alicia called me while I was at the mall. She said she didn’t like the dance and asked if I could pick her up. I didn’t even stop to think before I was at my car and driving back to go pick her up.
She was waiting on the curb, and her beauty still was intoxicating for me. We didn’t have a plan, so we just went and got coffee instead. We sat for an hour just talking and I was just content. I didn’t want to touch her, because I didn’t want to ruin anything. I had a hard time not trying to brush her hand though, just to see what an angel felt like. She had taken over my mind and my thoughts. I was okay with that too, because she was so much better for me than anything I had ever experienced before. I never ended smoking with my friends that night; I knew she wouldn’t want me to. I would do anything for her, and I never wanted that night to end.
When I took her home, we didn’t kiss. I dropped her off at her front door and said goodnight. She smiled and we shared an awkward car hug. I hate those kinds of hugs. I didn’t want to ask her to kiss me, just in case that’s not what she was looking for. In hindsight, maybe I should have. That night was the best of our relationship, mainly because we never had a relationship. Things didn’t go our way, circumstances never worked out so that we could see each other on a regular basis. The relationship we had was held together only by how much I could express my feelings through a text message, which often was enough. She moved on after a month, and when she did the pain was worse than before. When my ex before Alicia broke up with me, I was hurt. Anger and frustration were the primary emotions; I just couldn’t understand how anyone could be so heartless. When Alicia ended things between us, I was lost. My heart felt like a big chunk had been scooped out and thrown to some god-forsaken monster to devour. I couldn’t get that piece back, and as of today I still haven’t completely filled in the gap. Why was the pain so different? I can only think of one reason, one emotion that was different. That was love. I had grown to love Alicia, not in a deep way that comes with marriage and devotion. We never had the time to develop that. My love for Alicia was immature but warm. Everything about Alicia was comforting to me, and I loved her for that.
Knowing how that love made me felt, I only want more. I want to know love deeper and more clearly. I want to share memories with someone and define my love for that girl uniquely. I know I will never love another girl like I loved Alicia. That doesn’t mean I think I will be forever alone, instead I want my love to be specific for my future spouse. I don’t want to love someone the way I loved Alicia, because I feel that it’s unfair to reuse love on somebody else. I will discover new ways to love, and new ways to care. However, I’m thankful for my time with Alicia because she taught me that I could love.
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