Love, Endurance

As I looked into the chasm, my breath caught. I felt so close to killing myself at this level. Him. Her. They were the main characters, and then there was me. The side character who knew not to intervene in the story. The cursed character who stared into the light and took the step off the ledge, falling towards the bottom of the chasm with bright eyes.

The classroom was cold, but he was warm. Surrounded by a radiance fate did not deny me. I couldn’t feel anything in that moment, not the babble of the teacher, nor the hand that was on my shoulder. Before I had even realized it, the feelings devoured me. Took me into its arms and coaxed me into an addiction, a drug that made my footsteps light and my vision blurry. I knew it was too good to be true, but I prayed that this one would be real. That this boy would not break me. I smiled and offered a hand in greeting, my hand cold but my heart on fire.

She was warm as well. Attracted by similar interests, we held hands. Hands that knew of betrayal and pain in the past, hands that knew we would be loyal to one another if no one else would. She was my star, but he was my sun. Both were the light that seared into my veins ‘trust’, that caused suffering and fulfillment. Together, they burned me into nothingness.

We were the trio. The group that always talked together, that started together, and that cared for each other equally. My affection for him did not lessen my love for her, and neither would it be recognized as easily. Having felt the harsh hand of rejection in the past, I kept my mouth sewn shut and my eyes closed. But slowly, ever so slowly, our trio drained into a pair, and I was a person who could never match up to such beauty.

I watched her fall in love. I don’t think I need to tell you who she loved. The tangled strings confining the true feelings of my heart, pulled my lips closed as I responded with a feigned cheerfulness. I wished her the best and I told her I would cheer her on. She resumed to tell everyone of her love, as I watched in envy. Loyalty prevented me from telling anyone, while in the cold, my wrists ached with the shackles of the secret I had to bear forever.

I was blind. Looking into the past, it was as clear as day, that all three of us would separate. Watching them at lunch became unbearable, as their feelings became true and collided. What I could never have was hers in a heartbeat. And yet, I continued to observe. The months passed. Smiles and embraces exchanged at the start of a new semester. But something was wrong. The warmth which I had felt in the past had dissolved into a feeling I couldn’t comprehend, a situation so complex it made my head hurt.

In reality, he was an empty vessel. He was warm. But only on the outside. Born from a place where no one gave him any attention. But when she did, he soaked it up. The light and the dark merged. But I had no idea that the darkness would overcome the light. He demanded more and more of her support, her love, her kindness. But try as she may, she could not support herself, much less another person. And the beautiful mirror broke apart. For how could she learn to love someone who was nothing?

My eyes watered as I consoled her screams of suffering, but not only because she was suffering. His warmth dimmed to nothingness. And I was back to where I started. Broken. Useless, and without any meaning or purpose. The filter of beauty shattered, and I no longer felt that love was worth anything. I had given up my feelings for something that ended up blooming and dying. And on the inside, the flower that I had learned to grow fond of and nurture, withered away.

I could not console one or the other without both ignoring me. So I chose her. I held her hand on the nights her pain screamed through her wrists, I held her hand as her eyes grew dry from all the crying, and I held her when she was tired from the hurt, from the fear, her thin frame beside me, her hand slack. My soul recognizing that I was the only one that held tight.

I could’ve loved him more. I could’ve filled the emptiness. I could’ve made it so that he loved himself and everyone around him. I would’ve made him realize his potential to the very end, no matter how empty he was, I had enough to fill. But I didn’t. I was not the substance to fill him. I could not give him anything but a hand in friendship. I forced my heart into two so that they would mend, while a part of me stayed in them both, forgotten but still there.

From this experience, I learned a lot. Love is an abstract idea. The thought that someone would love you and you them seems like something out of a fairy tale, but once I had a taste, I knew I would keep coming back for more. As the years went by, I realize that crushes were meant to kill you. Or metaphorically, they were. Let me summarize a crush for you in the only way I can. Imagine yourself by a chasm, interested but not willing to risk the jump. Then suddenly, a shine of what is underneath appeals to you, and you lose all reason and will, and immediately go for the jump. And once you reach the bottom, you realize how stupid you were to go and take such a risk, how silly you were to imagine something like infatuation to be able to rival love. You break everything. You are crushed with despair. And you regret the fact that you dared to glance at the dream in the first place.

But then you mend. You redefine love in the only way you can. You give your love to others, and in return, you learn that you have more than enough to survive alone. The side character gets up, and walks towards the happy end herself. The light, at the bottom of the chasm, ended up being something far more precious. The group of people in her heart that loved her. The girl and the boy were there too. And as the side character ended the level, she cast off her shackles, cut the string closing her lips and breathed in. And the first words that came from her lips were, “I have endured.”