I admired the early morning sun and the way it crept through my blinds, leaving tiny rainbows scattered over the walls of my college dorm. He was laying next to me, asleep on his stomach, his back rhythmically rising and falling. I watched as the sun moved over his skin, creating shadowy valleys between his shoulders. I made sure not to move, I didn’t want to wake him up, I wanted to keep this moment for as long as it would allow me to have it. I wished there was a way for this feeling I had to stay forever, believing that I had someone who cared laying next to me.
- • •
But I know deep inside that he’d wake up, and when he did, he’d look at me with confused, bloodshot eyes. He would ask for a glass of water, and I’d get it for him without question. He would reach across my chest to check his phone, and laugh at the texts his friends sent him the night before. I’d want to know what they said, I would worry that they were about me. I’d sit in silence staring at the ceiling, inching slowly away from him toward the edge of the bed. He would ask me to drive him home, and I’d say yes.
He would search for his wallet on the stairs and ask me if I had seen his keys. I’d say no, knowing that they were on the kitchen table. In the car, he would ask how I knew how to get to his house from mine, as if this was the first time we met. I would pull into his driveway and he’d look at me, unsure whether or not to kiss me goodbye or give me a handshake as if it were a business meeting.
Inevitable, happens every time. Turn the ringer on, just in case he texts. I would pick up my phone every few minutes, just in case it didn’t ring. But there would never be a text. So I would take the sheets off my bed, and wash what was left of him away. I would stand in the shower and let the water burn down on me until there was none of him left. Telling myself that it was the last time. I’d tell my friends too, and hope that they would believe me. But it would never be the last time. I’d believe that I’m the one to change him. Tame him like an animal. But that’s all he ever was. I was his prey, while he was my lover.
When he eventually stops responding to me, I would pretend like it didn’t hurt. Putting on a smile and saying I saw it coming, that I was the one who ended it first. On the way to school, I would hope I would see his car, and that he’d smile at me as he drove past. I would wear bold makeup and uncomfortably tight shirts. I’d never see him.
The inevitable Saturday night would come, where I would put on a little black dress and go out. I would flirt with men with wedding rings at the bar, who would buy me cheap drinks but never ask for my phone number. I’d run into him with his sister, who wouldn’t know who I am. He wouldn’t make eye contact with me, and I’d walk away holding back tears. My friends would convince me to stay, and we’d dance to loud house music. The ringer on my phone would be on, but his text would never come.
I would meet a stranger who looks good in the dark, and he’d ask me my name and where I was from. I’d lie, liking the rush. I would hold his hand as we walked back to my house, and he’d kiss me in front of my door. Drinking water from a pickle jar, My roommate would talk and laugh with him. I’d look at him and think how he looked better in the dark, but I probably did too. He would lie in my bed as if he had been there before, as if this was his home. I won’t like that. My eyeliner would be running down my face, and he’d wipe it with his hand. He’d tell me that this isn’t something he has ever done before, and I’d feel guilty for bringing him back with me. I would wish he was someone else. I think he wished I was someone else too. I would think about the time someone told me only the worst kinds of people can have one night stands.
Nothing would happen between us, he’d tell me he had to leave, and I would let him. I’d walk him down the stairs, past my roommate, who would give me a thumbs up. Hugging me as he left, he’d tell me it was nice to meet me. He would have no idea who I actually am, it would have all been a lie. Guilt and shame would come over me, and I’d cry on the kitchen floor. I would question why I ever decided to bring him home, and why he would want to leave. I’d blame it on myself, my appearance, my personality.
Walking into the bathroom I’d shove my fingers down my throat. I would throw up the alcohol and pizza I had eaten and cry. Tears would run down my face, tinted black from my makeup, and leave ripples in the toilet bowl as they hit it. I would think about everything that led me to this moment, and become riddled with guilt and humiliation. How could I have let someone so meaningless and insignificant hurt me so much? I’d feel like a fool. Like everything my mother taught me about love was wrong. Because it would have been wrong.
Love would be nothing like it was when my parents met. John Cusack would never stand outside my window with a boombox and confess his love. Love would be Tinder matches and meaningless sex. It would be whispering about him in the diner over a plate of french fries. It would be cheap liquor on a Thursday night in a dive bar. Love is a competition against three other girls who looked exactly like me. They would make me jealous and greedy, turn me into someone I wish I’d never met. I would get tattoos, dye my hair, and change my music taste but I wouldn’t be someone he wanted.
Each Saturday I would stare at him from across the bar, remembering him in my bed. I would sit with his friends, drink the same drinks they did, and laugh at their jokes. I would let them put their hands around my waist and drunkenly call me sweetheart because they couldn’t remember my name. I would walk home by myself, holding a slice of pizza in the rain, wondering if everyone was as miserable as I am.
There’d be a stranger at my kitchen table, drinking out of my glass, sitting in my seat. He would tell me his name, and I wouldn’t care. He’d ask me questions about myself and I wouldn’t respond, eyes focused on the wet pizza in front of me. He would follow my roommate upstairs still wearing his shoes from the bar, leaving sticky footprints on the linoleum floor.
The next morning he would slip out of the house, leaving the door unlocked. My roommate would crawl into bed with me, smelling of beer and cologne, and I would have to wash my sheets. She’d tell me about her night and I’d pretend to care, pretend to be happy for her. I would tell her that I was sworn off men for a while, that it wasn’t worth it for me anymore. And so I would. I would stick to my pact with myself, by choice or by coincidence I wasn’t sure.
My time in college would pass, and I’d find myself alone in a big city. I would like to be alone because everyone else around me was also alone, but everyone was alone together. There’s something paradoxical about that. In a city of millions where I’d be surrounded by people at all times, I’d be alone. And I would be happy. I would think of him every once in a while, and wonder what he was doing. I would find out where he went, somewhere in the Midwest, and be glad that I wasn’t there. Scrolling through his social media while sitting on the subway, I would find a photo from college. He would have been standing on the street in front of his favorite bar, smiling ear to ear, pointing at the sign. Through the window I’d be sitting, wearing a red top and black jeans, an outfit I would still have. I’d smile at the photo and take a screenshot, to save and look back on. I’d send it to my old roommate, but she wouldn’t respond, we would have stopped talking after graduation.
I’d meet men on dating apps, in bars, and at work, and they would ask me surface level questions about my life. Some would play Jeff Buckley on the guitar, others would read me Louise Glück poems, but most I would never see again. Does anyone else feel like me? Like there was so much love to give, but no one to give it to.
Then I finally met him. Walking down the street looking at something unimportant on my phone. The weather is a perfect day in April, the trees are starting to bloom, and the orange bellied robins fly above me. We walk right into each other in the middle of the sidewalk and I drop my phone. He reaches down to pick it up and it’s destroyed. I tell him it’s my fault but he insists on buying me a new one. We walked together to the store. He tells me about how he just moved to the city and asks for restaurant recommendations. We find out that we went to college near each other and laugh when we learn we have mutual friends. I like him, but think I’ll never see him again, simply just two people that were at the wrong place at the wrong time. But we get to the store and he sits with me and asks me what I’m doing the rest of the day.
As spring becomes summer he asks me to be his girlfriend, and I say yes. He takes me to his family lake house upstate and I love them. He comes to meet my parents who interrogate him about his intentions. Sitting on the couch in my childhood home he tells them he loves me and they will hug him. I’m hiding around the corner, listening to their conversation, holding my breath. He proposes just before Christmas and we are married in the spring. The wedding is on a lake, surrounded by towering pine trees. I wear a simple white dress that my friends help me pick. It is the most magical day of my life.
We would have a daughter, and she’d be our pride and joy. She’d grow up surrounded by love and warmth, becoming a beautiful young woman. Until one morning, she would come to me about a boy, and I would hold her in my arms as she cried. She’d tell me how unfair and mean he was, and that she’s never going to talk to a boy again.
I would tell her about a boy I used to know. I’d tell her how much I liked him, how I believed he was the only one for me, and how he didn’t feel the same way. I would tell her about how I thought of him for years after we had stopped speaking, and that he probably never thought of me. She’d ask how I moved on, and what she could do to make it easier. I would tell her that it takes time, but that she will still think of him. I would tell her that when the time is right she would find somebody who loves her unconditionally.
As I would hold her, I would see rainbows on the wall of our home. They would remind me of that boy that I used to know. I would think about how much I used to admire the rainbows in college, how I always looked forward to the morning. It was as if I could feel the sun spreading across my bed. But this morning I would be with my daughter, teaching her what I wish I could have taught myself.
And yet everything I would teach my daughter wouldn’t save her from the inevitable heartbreaks she would have in her young life. She would learn, of course, but not without pain. Pain that I’d know all too well. I would see myself in her, and know that she would make the same mistakes I did. For better or for worse, she would be too trusting and it would hurt her. She would believe every boy she met would be the one she was going to marry, fantasizing about a life that wasn’t real, that was never going to happen.
One day she would go off to college, and I would miss her, envy her for the youth that she still had. She would look at the walls in her dorm room, tracing the rainbows on the wall with her finger. There’d be a boy asleep next to her, one who she wanted to care about. She would want to believe that he was the right one for her, that she could settle down with him and be happy. The sun would rise and the rainbows would fade away slowly, replaced by a light that warmed the room. She’d watch as it spread across his back, moving with his breath. As the light would reach his eyes, he’d wake up, moving away from the brightness. Disoriented, he’d look at her with bloodshot eyes, and ask for the glass of water next to her. Without speaking she’d hand him the water and watch as he took large careless gulps from the glass.
He would pick up his phone and laugh at the texts from his friends. Slowly, she would slide away from him towards the edge of the bed. He would pay no attention to her, as if she wasn’t in the room. But she would be. He’d ask her to drive him home, and she would agree without a moment of thought. Handing him his wallet, which her roommate had found on the stairs, they’d walked out of her house and to the car. He’d walk in front of her, as if to signal to the people on the street they weren’t together. As if the people on the street would be paying attention.
He’d watch and wait for her to go to her car, he would have no idea which one belonged to her. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d been in her car. As she’d drive him home, she’d pretend not to know where to go, but the route was engraved in her brain. Two lefts, and a right. Four minutes, one mile.
He’d get out of the car with a formal goodbye, as if he was leaving a business meeting, and told her he would text her. She would drive back home in silence, windows down, letting every ounce of him out of the car, off of her skin. Her ringer would be on, and even though it wouldn’t buzz, she’d picked her phone up anyway. There would be, of course, no message, and there never would be.
So she would do everything she could to get rid of him. She’d strip her bed and wash her sheets with hot water. She’d stand in the shower until the water burned her skin and she had to move. When her friends would ask about him she’d tell them it was over, and that she would never speak to him again.
Eventually she would graduate college, grow up, fall in love and have a daughter of her own. Her daughter would have the same experience, and every daughter until there was no one left to love.
Love is for Romeo, Juliet, and children. It’s for books you read on the beach, and movies you watch on the plane. Love is fifty percent of marriages ending in divorce. It isn’t real. At least not for me. Not yet. I am done searching for love, if it wants to find me, it will. And if it just so happens to find me, it won’t be anything like this story.
