Love is Not Bullshit

25⎮Love is not bullshit

Love is not bullshit. It can ground you, as if you were a plant and each day that passes your roots became just a little bit stronger and your leaves a bit brighter. It can also destabilise you, it is the wind that snaps your roots and moves the soil from beneath you so that you don't know who you are anymore, both within and outside your relationship. 

That's kind of like I'm feeling, like my certitudes have been uprooted and even a sigh could make me lose my balance. I don't want to blame it all on Julian, I know his words weren't meant to hurt me, he was just telling me how he feels. Which is fair, and I recognise that sometimes (maybe a lot of the times) I can come off as judgemental and insensitive. I just wish that he would talk to me instead of keeping it all in, till he can't breathe anymore and ends up exploding. For probably the first time in our relationship I wonder if we're good for each other, are we too different? I've doubted many things but never this. Are we going to end up being bitter towards one another? I wonder if maybe it would be better for me to be with someone that pushes back when I push, instead of pretending to be okay to then trip and fall on his insecurities. 

I'm confused and I know eighteen years olds are supposed to be confused but I don't know, it would be easier not to be. If only the right answers could fall from the sky for me. I'm outside on our balcony, the sun is high in the sky and sunscreen is all over me, making my skin pasty (I could be a poet). One of my sister's books is resting on my knee, I'm only on the third page and if someone were to ask me I wouldn't be able to tell them what these three pages are about. I'm thinking of all the times in these past months that I've spent thinking, just thinking about Julian. All the daydreaming, the unhealthy fantasising, the imagined fights, the avoided mistakes, the mistakes we made. It's incredible how much time goes into a relationship, the time you wait for him to answer your texts, the time you use to get ready before a date, the time you spend with the other person laughing and being happy, the time you spend fighting, the time you spend in silence, the time you spend crying. None of that is wasted time, they're moments that in some way or another have shaped you or changed you or made you think. Yes, maybe in retrospective you could have spent less time worrying and more time doing but it was all worth it in the end because love is not bullshit. 

"Hi" I feel shy which is crazy, I mean which girlfriend gets shy when she asks about her boyfriend. His co-worker looked surprised, as if he wasn't used to girlfriends asking to talk to their boyfriends. 

"I thought Danny was hallucinating when he said that there was a girl outside and I quote 'too pretty to be real' that was asking after me" 

"He didn't say that"

"He didn't but I think that's what he's thinking, what I'm thinking" He looks good-looking as always, in his fitting black pants, his employee shirt, his smooth tongue. I could kiss him. 

"Is that your apology?" I get closer, and then a tiny bit closer till I can smell the scent of coffee on him and see the freckles on his nose. 

"No" he sighs, eyes serious and takes a step back. I briefly wonder if that's what we do, take steps in opposite directions when the other advances till we're too far apart to slow dance together. But I'm here because I want to make things work so I stay rooted in my spot, hoping that at his own time he will find his way to me. "I thought a lot about what you said and I think that you're right, I do have issues with communication and it's completely my fault if I don't tell you things, I don't know why I keep things to myself" 

"But we do know why, it's because I don't give you enough space to express yourself" He looks at me, a small smile on his lips and I wonder if there is more he isn't telling me. 

"I'm sorry if what I said the other night upset you, I was kind of drunk and I haven't been in the best of moods for a long time and I didn't mean it. You're the best person I know, you're funny and intelligent and you make me happy, so happy" I'm not sure where all of this is coming from, all this openness, this honesty, it feels refreshing to hear him say it out-loud, it makes me believe we can find our footing again, stabilise our roots. Because if he feels all these beautiful things for me, if he thinks of me as someone that makes him laugh and be happy then we are on the right path to building something together. No point in being afraid of a little confusion and misunderstandings.  "But Nora I don't think we should be together right now, I don't think it's doing us any good" 

My ears are ringing, I blink my eyes a few times, willing to unhear his last sentence. Did he say I make him happy only to proceed to say he wants to break up? I ask him to repeat himself. With different words he repeats what I heard the first time. I sit down on the bench outside the café, wondering if his break is about to end and his boss will call him back in and I'll be sitting alone on this bench, wondering what the fuck just happened. 

"You want to break-up?" I look up at him, my eyes squinting because of the sun. That word, those two words sound foreign to me, he's being serious because I know he's always being serious. But I don't understand, I've been left behind on the wagon of happiness and sure maybe confusion, but I thought things were going well, when did he get off the train?

"I think it would be good for a while, to be alone, yes" I don't know if his voice is calm like always, I'm not even sure if he's speaking coherent sentences, words seem to reach me at intervals like a bad telephone line. 

"Julian be clear with me - do you want to break-up or just a break?" Silence, it's like when you do a WhatsApp video call and the image of the person who is speaking remains still in the most unlikely position, only you haven't realised that the connection is bad so you keep on talking, sure that the other person is listening but then there is silence for so long you begin to doubt yourself and will the other person to move, any signal, anything to show that they're still there, that they're still listening to you. 

"I want to break-up" I imagine a full stop after those words, I think for once in our relationship, he's done it, he has seriously decided this without asking for my input, I can't convince him otherwise. 

"You do realise you need to give me an explanation" he's still standing up, the sun is glaring in his eyes but he doesn't cower away, he almost seems an apparition. I wonder if he's feeling well. 

"I'm just not in a good place to be in a relationship with you right now, I haven't been good to you for a while now-"

"What are you talking about? We had exams and we were stressed and now we're on holiday and everything will be fine" Tears are leaving streaks on my face like dirty lines on an already dirty window. 

"Nora I really wish everything could be fine but I'm so confused right now it wouldn't be fair to drag you into this mess, I need to figure it out on my own" He moves just a little, so that now half of him is in the shadow. He looks like the boy I was ready to make life promises to just ten minutes ago, the same good-looking, kind-hearted boy I could kiss senseless. If someone asked me to kiss him now, to make our lips touch again I would do it. I almost wish someone were here to force me to kiss him, at least I would get my good-bye kiss. I can't even remember the last time I kissed him and so I start crying. I stand up and take a step away and then another. And another still. I cry like I've never cried before. My sobs shake me, they clear the dizziness around my head and the further I go from the boy with the yellow employee shirt and smooth ways, the worse I feel. I walk till I'm not crying anymore and my legs are aching. The sun has dried my tears and I feel the stickiness under my armpits and the dryness of my mouth. I'm not thinking, what is there to think about. He broke-up with me, he did it in a clean way, in a honestly brutal way. He left me gasping for air. In all my fantasies, the idea that Julian could break-up with me was never a possibility. It was always me making that decision, often it was me cheating on him or me moving away to university and falling in love with someone else... but never him leaving me. I'd come to trust his love and affection for me to the extent that I'd never even thought he might want to break-up with me. 

I ended up in the same park of our first date, the same bench with the spectacular view. Only I was alone on that bench, only the shadow of Julian, the past of what had been was sitting next to me. The real Julian, the one who wanted to be alone, the one that needed to fix the mess he was in (what mess?) was making coffee to costumers and having to smile at them.

How horrible to have to smile on such a day. 

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Hello, hello, thank you for reading! What are your thoughts? Don't worry, this is only the end of part 1 so there is more to come... do not despair!