Our love was doomed before it even began. I can still recall that first day I saw you. Your eyes sparkled, wide and bright, meeting my own. This was the first time I felt my heart stop while looking at someone. You always hear about love at first sight, but experiencing it is another phenomenon entirely. Your heart falters, your breath grows heavy, and it feels like time has paused. You almost feel like you are being given an extra moment to prepare for what you are about to experience. At least, that is how it felt for me. From that moment, we both knew.
We found any way we could to talk and ask each other questions. You worked with coffee, and I worked with books, but we both wanted to offer help even without knowing how to do the other’s job. Stolen glances would be shared throughout the days. A small smile formed on our lips, knowing what we wanted the future to hold. That beginning excitement of new and endless possibilities. Our friendship blossomed outside of those four walls. We found new coffee shops to try and different parks to sit and read at.
We just wanted each other’s presence. Many days were spent acting like we wanted to sit and read when we just wanted to sit and talk. We would bring books that would never get opened, instead they sat in our bags. The longing looks, hinted words, and unspoken emotions brought on tension that had never aspired between another person and me before. You shared a song with me that gave you comfort. “It reminds me of you,” you would state.
The lyrics were your unspoken words. Your thoughts and feelings that you were too scared to share. They shared about the safety of being in my arms, the softness of my hair brushing against your skin, and the feeling that I was someone who truly understood you. After many months, our feelings were finally out in the open. We shared the trust and safety we felt with each other. But once those feelings were out, there was no returning to how we were. Distance became a third party in whatever you wanted to call what we had.
Days were cut short. We continued to grow further apart, and eventually, we stopped talking altogether. The fear you held for trusting someone with your heart outweighed the trust I was willing to give. You unraveled my mind, heart, and soul. You made me feel as though I finally had someone who saw me for me, a person who I dreamed about for years.
You stole my heart. You kept me along, promising me sweet nothings. To you, they were dreams that could never be, but to me, they were everything. I tore myself from you, knowing all I would ever feel was pain at our forbidden but true love. Now, I feel as though a piece of me has never returned, but I have become a new person. Someone who looks at love differently than before. My trust and easy-given love will never be the way it was before you. All because our love was doomed before it even began.
This was written by our contributing writer, Hannah Martin.
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