A Bullet to the Brain

I wrote this ages ago, last summer in fact, and I thought I'd share it. I dunno I like how it ended up I guess. It's kinda dark but I hope you enjoy it

___________________

 

She met him when she was too young to have a real, lasting relationship but somehow that never mattered to her. When children are still children but consider themselves adults, they expect every moment to last for an eternity. Every single relationship will last “forever”, every person they like they “love”. The truth is, children who consider themselves adults do not understand things like love and forever in the way that real adults do. That was something she understood all to well.

 

She never actually thought that she loved him. She had a crush on him, she found him attractive and kind and funny and she hoped, dreamed, he would like her back. She understood that it was a chemical reaction in her brain, she was logical enough and intelligent enough to know that the feeling she got around him wasn't butterflies in her stomach and her heart was a muscle that pumped blood, her brain caused the attraction. And yet, somehow she let herself pretend.

 

She didn't admit it to herself for a long time. She did not like him, she couldn't like him, he was a friend and nothing else. She dismissed her friends' assumptions and loudly claimed that he was “just a friend”. And even once she did admit that there might have been a tiny bit of attraction she didn't tell anyone. It would be stupid, a waste of time, to pine over someone who would never look at her twice. She was smart, she knew it was something she could forget about, if she tried hard enough.

 

As time went on she eventually admitted that maybe it wasn't jut a tiny spark of attraction. She asked him out and he said they should be friends and she agreed. Logically she knew that their friendship was far more important than any slight feelings she might have for him. She told herself to suck it up, to get over it. But she couldn't bring herself to do it, not really.

 

As time went on she continued to think about him. He was a good friend, he helped her with school work and cheered her up and asked her if she was okay. And maybe she liked him because of those things. He was good and kind and most of all safe. She knew liking him would never result in a slap to the face or a forgotten date. He would never see her that way.

 

So she told herself it wasn't love because she understood that people her age thought they were in love but they weren't. Not really. What they thought was love was mutual affection or lust or lies. Love was something that came with time and fights and mistakes. No matter how much her classmates cared about whoever they were sleeping with that week, it wasn't the kind of love that lasted. She didn't think her strong feelings of affection towards him were love either. Later, she wasn't sure if she was wrong.

 

 

 

Years passed by in the way years do, fast and slow all at once. She tried her hardest to move on but it was hard, much harder than she thought it would be. Maybe it was because he stuck by her side through it all, for longer than she thought he would. Maybe it was because all other guys couldn't measure up to her standards, couldn't measure up to him. Maybe she was just too tired to deal with supporting a relationship. She honestly didn't know and she wasn't sure if she really cared. That was the past and therefore something she shouldn't worry about.

 

She went to college, as she planned. Lots of scholarships, a few student loans. She worked hard to get into a good school, worked hard to make a living for herself. She liked turning around and looking her family members in the eye and telling them what she did for a living. Chemical engineering, the one thing they never thought she could actually do, ended up being her career. She made money, probably more than she really needed. Her expensive school payed off. If she was honest with herself, the looks of surprise and shock on her relatives' faces were worth any sum of money.