A/N: This one is so sad and it's basically me wallowing in my loneliness like a typical single sixteen year old (been single for sixteen years, woo!). I'll probably look back on this in fifteen years and go, "Oh, hun," but for right now I am trying to be comfortable with my sadness. So here's that.
"Do you remember what it felt like?" She asks, and then hesitates as she adds on. "To be in love, I mean."
I smile sadly, debating the various answers in my mind. "On one hand, yes," I nod, picking at my fingernails anxiously. "I remember. I remember the butterflies and the stupid smiles across the room. I remember those bits."
"But on the other hand?" She questions, peering over the pillow at me.
I shrug from my spot on the end of the bed. I turn so I'm laying down on my back, my hands linked together and resting on my stomach. It's my comfortable position for our late night talks like this.
"On the other hand..." I trail off with a sigh, my eyes trained on the ceiling. "I don't really remember...what it felt like. Like, if I was talking to someone now and I was gaining feelings for them or something, I wouldn't know when to look or when those feelings would switch to me loving them, y'know?
"Like, I've been in love once and I think it has only been once because I still look for her in the people I find myself having a crush on. But the crushes die down and dwindle away because I always look for her in them, and of course she's never there. I'm never going to find a love like her, and I know that.
"I just think my problem is I look for her too quickly. I can't bring myself to let things develop because I have a constant fear of wasting time.
"So yes, I remember moments of being in love. But what it felt like? God, I can't truly remember. I can't even think of a memory that would cause the feeling to sweep over me. It's just...not there.
"I remember her, but the truth of the matter is that relationship was so toxic. We might've been in love, but God we were bad for one another. And we never realized it until it was too late. Until one wrong comment led to another and then we were arguing and then it was...over."
I shrug again. I don't know why I went off on a tangent like that. Maybe I needed to let it out, and then it just all came out at once. That's usually how I am with voicing my feelings. I let it boil up inside me until someone asks the right question or something as simple as, "How are you?" the right number of times. And then it all flows out like their question or subject change broke down the dam I had built to keep all those emotions and experiences inside.
"Am I always going to look for him?" She asks quietly.
I look over at her, my eyes softening as I nod sadly. "You will."
A blanket of silence covers us for a while.
And then, she says, "I don't know how you do it."
My eyebrows furrow. "Do what?"
"Live," She breathes, her lips spreading into a hysterical smile. She shakes her head, mainly at herself. "I've been single for a month and I can feel a lonely ache in my chest that feels like a ton of bricks have been sat on my rib cage. And you've been single for your whole life with nothing but almost's and maybe's and I just can't begin to imagine how you feel. Because if I feel this way after two days, then..." She cuts herself off, shaking her head again, and this time I know it's because she's fighting the tears in her eyes.
"It doesn't get easier, if that's what you're trying to ask," I murmur softly. "I'm not saying you're the type for rebound relationships, but I think you will find someone -- or Hell, something like a TV show or new hobby -- to fill the void he left pretty quickly.
"But if you don't, because heartbreak is never easy and never a thing that vanishes quickly, then know that -- as sad as this sounds -- you eventually get used to it."
She looks at me sadly, her eyebrows furrowed as she chews on her bottom lip. I can see how glassy her eyes are but she refuses to let any tears fall. "Oh, hun. That's...I'm so sorry. Are you-- Are you really used...to it?"
"I like to think that I am," I reply truthfully, "but I don't know if I really am.
"Because sometimes I get lonely and I can feel the doubt and worry creeping in. And sometimes I look at happy couples and feel envy rather than happiness for them. And I don't like it. I don't like feeling jealous.
"But after seventeen years, you'd think someone would come along, you know? You'd think someone would come around and actually find me attractive and genuinely want to hang out with me, but they-- They haven't. So I don't know.
"All I know is it makes me truly wonder if I'm as significant and amazing as everyone says I am. It's like I'm lovely but not lovely enough, or something. I don't know.
"And I'm trying to get away from that. I'm trying to not base my worth on who finds me attractive and whether or not I'm dating someone. I'm trying not to let it hurt, but God, I can't ignore it. Because it hurts so much when all your friends are dating and you're still just...there.
"And I just-- I think right now I just have to let myself be sad. I have to let myself wallow like this. It's disgusting and I hate it, but I can't push it away because it only becomes worse if I do. So I'm trying to be comfortable in hurting, but that sounds like such a contradiction, and God does it feel like one, too."
