Love After Love

Chapter V

Later that day, after I finish all my classes, I return to the dorm. From the outside of my room, I can hear Deirdre screaming. I quickly open the door, and find she is actually screaming into the phone, and her eyes are filled with tears.

"Go and live with her, then! See if I care!" after saying that, she hangs up.

"A-are you okay?" I ask

"Yes, yes" she replies, wiping the tears off her cheeks. "It's just... Moon, have you ever been in love? It hurts so much when it's over." Tears start filling up her eyes again, and fall uncontrollably. I do not know how to respond since I don't know what could have happened, and when I try to sympathize with these situations I end up sounding like I'm making it all about myself.  I just hug her. I can feel her chest rising up and down and her tears staining my shoulder, but I do not care at all. It makes me sad that someone so sweet can get her heart broken like this.

"Do you want to have me listen to you? Or do you not want to say anything? Both are okay, as long as it makes it less horrible."

"I... I don't know, Moon, I thought he loved me. And it turns out in the three weeks he has lived in Vienna he found a better girl and he is moving in with her. I don't even think he ever considered moving in with me. And the worst part is that I still care. He was my first love, after all."

"Look, I know it's going to hurt for quite some time, and neither of us can do anything about that, but for know there is one thing I can do."

She doesn't take her eyes off me as I move around the room, getting all I know she will need in this situation. All I wish someone did for me when I was in her position. I am not the typical ice cream, romantic movies and crying to get over a break up kind of girl. I'm the type of girl that has an anti-love playlist to dance around the room to and gummy bears. I consider it easier to deal with anger than to deal with sadness.

I connect my iPod to my portable speakers, and soon enough Gives You Hell by the All-American Rejects is blasting around the room, and I know both of us feel every lyric pierce through our soul. Reaching into one of my still unpacked bags, I find my package of gummy bears, still closed. I toss it with a box of Kleenex onto Deirdre's bed. She looks at me with a look of confusion plastered on her face, so I put my hand out for her, like asking her for a dance. A few minutes later, we find ourselves half screaming, half singing to Ella Eyre's Comeback while dancing around the room and eating the bag of gummy bears. We are both crying, but suddenly crying doesn't feel that lonely anymore.

A few hours later, when we are already laying in our beds ready to sleep, Deirdre asks me,

"Moon, do you think you have ever been in love?"

"Oh, I'm sure I have."

"How was it? I mean, tell me the story."

"Well, his name was Cory. I met him at a party, and I thought he was the stereotype of a perfect man. You know, intellectual, handsome, tall... he spoke so beautifully, Deirdre. He said my eyes looked like coffee and my hair reflected the sunset, he said the blue in it made the light look purple and pink. After it all ended, someone told me he did not come up with all that, he read poetry and basically recited it to me. And yet I never noticed, I was hypnotized. He had blue eyes and wore glasses; I have a serious weakness for glasses. I loved him, so much."

"And what happened?"

"I found him kissing another girl right behind my house. It was horrible; they were just... all over each other. He tried to run behind me and I shut the door right in his face, and even when he tried to call and text me saying it had meant nothing, I never replied. I don't think I would now, it just hurts too much."

"Well, then it's great you're not with him anymore. And also, now it makes sense that you would cry with me tonight."

"Deirdre, now you have to tell me your story. It's only fair."

"Well, his name is Philip. We have... had dated for more than a year, after being friends for a very long time. He promised if we dated we would still be friends afterwards, and so I fell for him. He wasn't, like, a poetic guy. But he was attentive, and he loved to spend time doing nothing. We could sit side by side in comfortable silence while letting our minds wander off to different places. I loved that, maybe I still do. He made me happy for so long, and I'm scared I'll be sad because of him longer than that. He earned a scholarship to study in Vienna, and I left Iowa to come here. We vowed to not let the distance separate us, but today when I called him he said he met another girl, he said he is "in love" with her. I feel like all that time... it meant nothing to him. And apparently, she's moving in with him next week. That's what he said. I don't think he loves her, he can't... he doesn't even know her!"

Even in the dark I am sure tears are sliding down her face, I can hear them falling into the pillows like anchors plummeting to the bottom of the sea.

"I'm so sorry Deirdre... Honestly, you deserve someone a million times better, someone who will keep you in their heart even if they're a galaxy away."

"Thank you, Moon. I just wish the pain would pass faster, but it's like Neruda said, right? 'Loving is so short, forgetting is so long.' He was right."

And saying nothing else, she immediately falls asleep.