I love you. There is no other way to say it. Thousands of ways to feel it. Different ways for you to take it. None of them involving you reciprocating my feelings. 

I knew what I was getting myself into from the get-go, but I still let myself fall. And you knew it, didn't you? The way I would smile at you. The way my eyes would linger that extra second on you. The way I would always try to be in your vicinity. You treated me like I was your best friend, and you smiled at me like you knew every deadly curl of those lips pushed me further down. 

Do you enjoy having me dangling from your fingertips? I wouldn't mind, if I could climb up the strings to touch your skin every once in a while. But that is never happening. I am not good enough. Why am I not good enough for you? Don't I care enough? Am I not pretty enough? Do I cry too much? Am I not bubbly enough? Why does my smile not bring you to your knees? Then again, do I really need to ask, when I already know the answer to everything? I know the reason why I will never be good enough for you. I know the reason why you will never return my feelings for you. 

Her.

A simple word that echoes infinitely. A word that holds more power than three letters can bear; than I can bear. Of course the answer is her. Her, with her heart-snatching smile. Her, with her long, dark locks. Her, with her expressive, bright eyes. Her, with her crystalline laugh. Her, and the way she made you hers.

Have you ever stopped and noticed the change in me whenever you mention her? Maybe you have, or maybe are you too intoxicated to see anyone else beyond her. I can see you are all about her. I can hear the way you talk about her, like she is the only girl in the world. Her name rolling off your tongue is like poison through my veins, but you never notice. You never stop saying her name. Why would you stop for me?

I never wanted to be that girl. The leech holding on to the boy who cannot see her. The fool wasting her affections away on the boy who cannot feel her. But I am, now, am I not? I am that girl. The girl who catches her breath whenever another's name is mentioned. The girl who looks in the mirror and wonders why she is the way she is. The girl who sees another girl, and wishes she were her. 

Why did you have to love her? 

Wouldn't we have been good together? It should have been me; it could have been me. Me, holding your hand. Me, in those pictures. Me, hugging you. Me, kissing you. Me, laughing at your jokes. Me, with you. But it is never happening. I am finally acknowledging the fact that you were never meant to be mine, that someone had a hold on your heart long before I could even influence anything.

No matter how hard I try, it has always been her, and it will always be that way. It is her holding your hand. Her, in those pictures. Her, hugging you. Her, kissing you. Her, laughing at your jokes. Her, with you. Her, everywhere.

Always her. 

I cannot play this game with you any longer. You love her. I know it. You know it. She knows it. The world knows it. You love her. There is no other way to say it. Thousands of ways to feel it. Different ways for her to take it. 

All of them involving my heart breaking over you.

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Love is a twisted, wicked thing, he said.
When you think you've mastered it,
It leaves you helpless, butt-naked in the cold November rain.
You try to avoid the punch, but nothing can stop it.
It hits you with the power of a thousand Trojan men,
Combined in the simple smile of a girl.
It does not knock on your door.
It does not wait for you to answer.
It barges in, takes all that you have.
Trips you, strips you of your words.
Barters your everything for silly butterflies in your gut.
Exchanges your brain for her hand holding yours.
And makes you give it all away for the heart of a girl.

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Love, in its purest form, is absolute. It is either there, or it is not. I often wonder what must have happened in the bloodless sands of time for love to have debauched to the status of partiality. It has been thrown around too much. Moved from unfeeling mouths to cold hearts one too many time. Refashioned, twisted, ripped apart, mutilated—it is now a vacant word.

I would love you if..  

I kind of love you but..  

I could love you if..

I used to love you but.. 

I am not talking about being in love with two or more people at the same time (which, to be honest, deserves a debate of its own) but simply love. Is it really that complicated? Take away the fears, the questions, the conditions. You love, or you do not. There are no in-betweens, no ifs, no contingencies. Love is not something that can be asked of you. Love is not conditional. Love cannot be quantified nor measured. Its existence cannot be vague. It is there, or it is not. You love because you do. It is that simple. It is that unfair.

Those in-betweens and insecurities about love are curses we have brought upon ourselves. Because we can no longer differentiate Love from "love". Are you in love? How do you know you are? Are there sure-fire signs? Everyday-life is peppered with instances of people hurting just because we like to complicate things. 

To top it all, when you do find that you love, sometimes it is not enough. Sometimes, even when you love with every beat of your heart, the one you love walks away. And, to paraphrase Audrey Niffenegger's Clare in The Time Traveler's Wife, it is never easy being the one who stays.

Love may be simple, but being in love does not come easy. And if it does, you are either in a fairy tale, or very lucky. She has always been very lucky (the kind of very lucky that would make many go "Ugh! That's disgustingly unfair!"). When we were sixteen, he happened. Well, he happened to her more specifically. How do I put this into words? The first time he spoke to her, I could see in his eyes that the guy was a goner. The boat had sailed. Not coming back. Bye-bye. 

I used to look up to them because to me, their relationship represented everything a relationship should be. They made it look easy, being in love. And their love was perfect. I do not mean to say there is such a thing as a perfect relationship. I do not mean to say theirs was perfect.  

In fact, it was quite flawed.

Neither took things lying down. She was possessive and he was unabashed. Boys liked her. Girls liked him. She took her time, and he lived fast-paced. They quarrelled over the smallest of things under and over the sun—What movie should they see? Why was that person's hand close to his book? Who is meant to get the chicken sandwich from the ham-and-chicken duo pack they sell at the cafeteria this time? Do aliens exist? Duty or ethics? Is marriage necessary?

Strange as it may sound, big blow-ups or small squabbles, it was during their fights that you saw how much they loved each other. It was hard to explain back then because I was too young to see it. But now that I look back, it is very clear that it all boiled down to mutual respect—respect for the other's feelings and opinions. They did not brush differing sentiments under the carpet. They cared enough to investigate, to ask: Why do you think that? I would like to know because I love you and I want to understand you. They cared enough to want to see things from the other's perspective.

Their relationship was not sunshine and walks in the park all the time, but their love was perfect. Even during their clashes, it never wavered. In fact, it shone. It sat right there, solid and stable in a wake of destructive differences. Because they knew their love was real. There were definitely no maybes, no sort ofs, no yeses then nos. No in-betweens and no conditions. It was just Love. Period.

I have always secretly admired the fact that two people could bare their souls to one another with no inhibitions. The fact that two people could find it worth it to risk being torn apart by the other—worth it to risk being hurt beyond repair. They say the first young love is often not the right one. But in my opinion, it is the purest, the rawest.  

I sit back today and wonder 'what if they had met ten years later?', but the very thought makes me cringe. Yes, they may still have fallen for one another. Yes, they would have been more mature, and may not have rushed into things the way they did, but it wouldn't have been the same. They would have been too cynical, too wary to buy into this thing called Love that easily, that unabatedly. 

You would think a love like theirs would thwart the hands of time. If it does not, what is left for those of us too scared to love as freely?  

They went to college together. They learnt, they squabbled, they loved, they fought, they broke up, they patched things up because—they loved. They moved in together, he asked her to marry him, she said yes, and then, with a rainy night, slippery roads and an inattentive driver, life (or death) tore them apart. He died on the spot.

You see, sometimes even when you love with every beat of your heart, the one you love goes away. What can you do other than mourn, dust yourself up and walk on alone? You do not choose who you love and you do not choose when they leave. So when you do, and when they do, it does not matter how long it has been: it is never easy being the one who stays. Their relationship ended like that, but their love lingers. If anything, it is a reminder that true love exists. Because time will pass and things will change, but her love for him will remain absolute. No matter how long she stays, and no matter how long he is gone. 

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