Short Stories

6.Love

Prompt 664: " I love you."

All her life she fought for those three majic words. For some reason she really wanted them. They never meant that much to him, but they meant the world to her. Maybe it was her cliché obsession with romantic love novels. She'd stay up all night when she was a kid watching Nicholas Sparks movies with a box full of tissues and junk food.

By the time she was sixteen she was looking for her high school sweetheart. And one Friday morning during breakfast she found him. She wasn't so sure it was him at first unti after breakfast they had advisory. Advisory was never her favorite. Her teacher Mr . Stratford always made sure she was a tutor to one of the students that came in and all she wanted to do was read Romeo and Juliet.

But not this time. See she had watched a lot of movies and she just thought this was the little thing called faith talking to her. She tutored him almost everyday. Five weeks after things became serious. He'd compliment her on her eyes, and good sense of fashion. And she'd tell him how athletic he was.

When she was seventeen they started having dates. He'd take her to the movies and buy her cheap candy and buttered down popcorn and she loved it. She was in love, and felt no wrong in it. She would catch him with other girls and pay no mind to it. One night he came through her window and gave her her first kiss well from there he hit first base and made a home run. She couldn't be more happy with her decision to give herself up to him. She knew this was right.

By the time she was twenty one she was in college. She was aiming for her bachelor's degree and Nick was going for his basketball scholarship. Everything was fine between them but it was never like the movies. He didn't take her for rides in the back of his truck for picnics. He never surprised her with dinner and a movie. He stopped buying her those chocolates and somewhere along there she realized that it wasn't important. She realized she didn't need materialistic things to make her happy . Because she was.

At age twenty five they were married. Jennifer and Nick had a beautiful baby girl and a boy on the way. She was an english teacher and major and Nick was playing for the NFL. Nothing could be more better she still couldn't be more happier.

She wanted to tell him that she loved him. She loved him alot. She always had since they day she saw him at breakfast with that plaid shirt on and beat up converses. "I love you," she had said. But he couldn't find the words to say it back. So he left her hanging but she wasn't mad. She wasn't mad at all. She understood that love took time.

One day when driving home from work she got into a lethal car accident. A truck slammed into the side of her car and killed her on impact. Her family rushed to the hospital to see her . Nick missed practice to see her. But it was to late. The baby and her were gone. And while he looked Jen into her dead eyes he cried because he had lost her. He had been so stupid. So careless and so absent with her. She had always given him her all and he couldn't say that to her.

"I love you."

He wanted her to say it back. He wanted her to hear him. But that wasn't possible. When he tucked their daughter to sleep and went to her room he found the diary she had written in. In it were all her secrets and strong points. But what stuck out to him the most is what she had wrote today.

You only know love, once it's gone.