Before She Loved Me

And just like that, she was gone. Vanessa had been whisked off to New York City and all that had kept me sane was our whispered promises of eternal love.

We swore that if anybody could make a long-distance relationship work it would be us. It had to be. We were determined to defy the odds, insisting our romance was stronger than the others that had crumbled in the void of endless time spent apart.

We refused to succumb to harsh, empty nights that expanded months and the steady stream of tears that came with an aching heart. We believed that we were the exception to the rule and that our love wouldn't falter and break beneath the pressure of the vast miles that separated us. But you know how that goes.

It will never happen to us, we vowed in fevered urgency. Until the day it finally did.

Before she loved me, I went into my freshman year of college believing that I had the world at my fingertips. I was a man passionately in love and with Vanessa by my side, I was rich with the only thing I could ever need.

Before she loved me, something had begun to shift in our relationship. The warmth and glow that had wrapped itself around my soul as though it were a cozy blanket on a frigid, barren evening was replaced by tumultuous clouds that had swiftly started to roll in.

Before she loved me, our patience with another was wearing thin as scathing words of poison cracked the walls of our once strong foundation. Heated arguments sparked a rage inside of me that cast her on the outside of my icy barrier.

Before she loved me, our eyes would meet across the room and I could see the hurt reflecting in hers. What had I done now to change her perception of me, I would wonder?

It would be a long while before I received my answer as to what was occurring between the both of us. There was so much I hadn't known that was simmering below her surface during the period,

BEFORE

She Loved Me