Ellie smiled to herself, heart warm and puttering as she walked down the hallway, seeing him sneak up behind one of his friends to jab him in the side, laughing. Cute. Her gaze flickered away quickly, and she joined her friends, engaging in playful banter and taking out her things before following them into class. "So, did I miss anything today?" she asked, setting her stuff down. She sent her best friend a pointed look, raising her eyebrows, before going around the bench to sit down. Addis shook her head.
"You missed seeing him ignore me again and talk to Rey instead, if that counts," she rolled her eyes and opened up her notebook, annoyance etched onto her face.
Rey piped up, leaning over the bench to glare at Addis past Ellie. "Don't be chicken, talk to him yourself, start up a conversation." Ellie laughed, stopping short when Rey turned his pointed glare to her. "Like you're any better," he accused her. She scoffed at him.
"You're one to talk," Ellie retorted quickly, defensive, and his expression was one of annoyance. She sighed and gave him a sheepish smile. "Sorry." She patted him on the head, and he glared at her, turning to Rochelle, the girl sitting on his other side. He wasn't even sure if the person he liked shared his sexuality, let alone if the feeling was mutual.
"So, he ignored you? Again?" Ellie asked Addis, who rolled her eyes and nodded. Addis was friends with the guy she liked, and they talked on Facebook and on Biology excursions and stuff, but before class, he had a habit of ignoring her and talking to Rey instead. Even when Rey was standing literally right next to her. "He's a chicken."
Addis scoffed, "I know." She shrugged. "I'm not going to bother if he's not." She eyed her friend. "Anything with you?" she asked. Ellie sighed and shook her head.
"Still no clue. At least you're friends with the guy you like. I barely talk to the guy I like." She opened her books and started writing down the stuff the teacher had written on the board. "All I get is eye contact, and that's nothing." There's a lot of it, though. She wrinkled her nose. Not that it means anything to him... Right?
"How long's it been since you started liking him?" Rey asked, swivelling in his seat to ask. Ellie raised an eyebrow. Who, me? Rey answered her silent question. "Yeah, you."
Ellie shrugged, cheeks warming. "Um, well. At least a year."
"So you love him," he commented, and she turned on him, eyes wide and outraged.
"No way. I think I'd know if I loved someone." As a Christian, she knew love was more than what she felt for the guy. Still, she didn't know exactly how love could be defined.
"According to science, if you like someone for more than 6 months, then it's love," Rey said, and Ellie and Addis shook their heads in sync, sharing an expression of distaste and adamant disagreement.
"No way." "Most definitely not."
"Yeah? Then what do you think is love?" he challenged. Ellie and Addis shared a glance. Both were Christians, and both believed love was complex. But neither knew how to define it.
"Love is... Selfless." "Yeah, no matter what." "It's patient." "Not jealous." "It lasts."
Ellie paused. "Basically, all the stuff in 1 Corinthians." Addis shrugged a shoulder, agreeing. Although they knew Rey had no clue what they were on about.
"Love is a lot of things, and it's complicated, and it's really hard to explain, but it's more than liking someone for 6 months," Addis stated firmly.
Rey was skeptical. "I don't know, it makes sense. Why else would you like someone for so long?" He was referring to all three of them.
"Hey, who can actually explain this stuff?" Ellie asked, rhetorically, arms gesturing vaguely. "Everything about this stuff is always going to be complex." Unfortunately.
"I still believe it's love if you like someone for over 6 months," Rey shrugged.
Ellie shrugged and Addis stifled an eye roll. "Believe what you like." So, love. Definition? Unclear. There's the worldly definition, the Christian definition, and then there's a whole bunch of theoretical definitions... Ellie sighed.
"Let's just go with 1 Corinthians, then," Addis shrugged.
"Yeah."
#
Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.
#
'It's all very complicated,' Ellie wrote to herself, later. Mentally, she flicked through the memories she had of any interactions she'd had with the guy she liked. 'I don't love him- but if you look at it from a certain perspective, I guess I do..? I know I don't. But according to the standards of this world, well, if Rey's opinion was anything to go against, apparently I do. Ugh.'
She let out a breath. She'd liked the guy for over a year, yes, but they'd only interacted sporadically. He didn't even know my name for half that time, she thought glumly. They'd played basketball together- she'd first noticed him then-, and then, more recently, soccer. A ghost of a smile graced her features and her stomach flopped. He did know her name now, and they occasionally talked, randomly about this or that, whatever the group was talking about, but never in class. Their eyes met all the time, and they'd had a fair share of- how to say- collisions since they'd met. That was all thanks to sport.
She picked up her pen and smoothed down the page. 'I blame my hormones. I really think that this is all surface. I mean, I do like him, genuinely- but I don't know how much of this is genuine. I know for a fact that I don't love him, because I don't know him. At all, really. I've never talked to him about anything important, never seen him at his worst.' She exhaled and rested her chin in her hands, leaning her arms on her desk for a few minutes before resuming writing. 'No,' she wrote, in firm conviction. 'Whatever this is that I'm feeling, it is not love. I don't believe you can fall in love or fall out of love. I think you can grow in love, and that love can fade, but that stuff takes time and effort. It doesn't take a minute or two to love someone, not like that. That isn't love.'
She took a deep breath and kept writing, pulse slightly unsteady. 'Love is knowing the absolute best and worst aspects of someone's character, and never loving them less for any of it. It is.. It's so much more than what you feel. It's more than surface attraction. It's more than how you feel because what happens when you don't feel like it anymore? That's just not how it works. Love pushes on, it keeps fighting. Love is endless and difficult and sacrificial and I reckon it can be painful. I know it can be painful. I mean, look at what the Messiah did!
Love is incomprehensible. It's unfathomable and deeper than any sea. It's enough to bend skies to heal the broken, it breathes life into the hopeless dead. Love is alive and it is more powerful than hate, than pain, than death, than anything. Love is relentless and cannot be swayed. Love is amazing and it is indescribable. Love is God. God is Love.'
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Spontanéité
Short StoryA collection of some bits and pieces of my written works. These bits and pieces weren't all spontaneous pieces of writing, though. They're descriptions of people, places and memories, and maybe they're short stories or other things. I don't know, it...
