I Loved You

This short story is based on my first experience of heartbreak. It's the first time I've written something so personal so I'm tentative, but please let me know what you think, feedback is appreciated!

First date

You were the missing piece. I arrived at university, full of hope and excitement and wonder. All I wanted was to be my own person. I loved myself. I was dying to experience the thrill of a one-night stand, of wearing something short and sexy, of the feel of male eyes on me, just because why not. I didn’t need anyone else to love, until a man�"no, wait, a little boy�"with non-descript looks, a round face and a daft sense of humour, danced into my life.

Drinks? Tomorrow? 9pm? x

And that’s where it all started. Your text lifted my heart. But at that point, I didn’t care, not really. You weren’t really my type. You weren’t that good-looking. Skinny arms and a dodgy haircut. That’s honestly how I felt.

But I went anyway, of course I did, because it was a date and I like to be liked �" every girl does. Like to feel admired. Like to feel beautiful. I wore a short frayed skirt and a loose shirt, top two buttons undone, revealing perhaps a hint too much décolletage to be considered ‘decent.’ I looked effortlessly sexy. I felt sexy. And I didn’t really care too much about who the boy sitting opposite me was.

This is what being single is all about, I thought to myself. I’d never been in love.

“Hey,” you said. You hugged me. I didn’t feel that little jolt of electricity that you’re supposed to feel when you’re falling for someone. You offered to buy me a drink. I smiled and asked for a pint, because that made me feel edgy and a little different. No pink G&T for me.

Then we chatted. It came easily, naturally. You were funny. Genuinely funny. You made me laugh �" really laugh, throwing my head back and living in the hilarity of that moment. You didn’t just talk about yourself, like some of the arrogant twits I’d been on dates with before. You were a Londoner; I loved that. We traded song recommendations and talked about what TV shows we liked. Banal, small talk, it seemed on the surface. But with you, it felt honestly magical. You placed your hand on mine across the table and I finally felt that jolt.

We wandered down the road, a little tipsy, holding hands, wanting a little more. And then you kissed me in the middle of the street and I felt something beautiful and pure cascade right through my core.

Sex

We fucked after our first date. No, fucked is too vulgar. We shagged after our first date. Actually, shag isn’t quite right either. It doesn’t capture the tenderness of the intimacy which blossomed between us. We barely knew each other, but lying there in your arms, cocooned, protected, I felt so safe and happy and excited for what this could become.

The sex itself was nothing special. A little awkward, a little uncomfortable for me; it was my second time. But you were kind and understanding and somehow it didn’t matter. Just the closeness of our two naked bodies was enough for me to feel something which I’d never felt before with anyone.

Honeymoon

And what came next were the most wonderful six weeks of my life. I’d never been happier. I’d never felt so deeply. I’d never felt so wanted. I was falling hard and fast, and so were you.

We went shopping together. Wandered into Lush, where you persuaded me to buy the bath bomb dubbed ‘sex bomb’ because I was one. I laughed and felt on top of the world. We bought donuts in Krispy Kreme and went into Ann Summers, flirting outrageously and making the girl behind the till smile.

You took me out for dinner, paying for all of it on your meagre student budget because you were falling for me hard and fast. We both had steaks, shared a bottle of red wine, feeling gloriously sophisticated. You made me laugh so much, and the butterflies in my stomach multiplied, jostling for space. You held my hand across the table like you had done on our first date and told me you really, really liked me. That first date which felt like a lifetime ago because now I knew you like the back of my hand. Thought I now knew you like the back of my f*****g hand.

Love

The honeymoon period never ended. We never argued. You never pissed me off. You were absolutely f*****g perfect. I never had doubts. Maybe you did, but you too much of a damn coward to face up to them, of course. You cared about me deeply, I know you did.

You told me you kissed someone else and your guilty conscience made me realise I wasn’t just another girl. I meant something to you.

We went to the bowling alley on a date, and got talking to another couple �" it was their first date, they’d met on Tinder.

“I’m guessing you two have been together yonks,” the bloke said, noting our intimacy, our shared jokes, how comfortably and easily we got on.

“We’ve only known each other a few weeks actually,” you told him.

“You must be in love then,” he said, and I silently agreed.

I adored going over to yours. Your room on the top floor of your accommodation with its sloping ceiling and the single bed where we made love and fell asleep wrapped up in each other. My head on your chest, listening to your beating heart. I thought I owned your heart, thought you had surrendered it to me like I’d surrendered mine to you.

I did an interview with a famous MP and told you all about it over the phone, breathlessly, the words spilling out. I was so proud of myself. And then, just because I was dying to see you, I went over to yours, to your room with the sloping ceiling and the single bed. And you told me you were proud of me, too. I swelled with love.

You thought I was sexy, and no one had ever made me feel so special and beautiful before. You loved my smile, my eyes, my hair, my body, the way I snorted when I laughed, my ticklishness, everything about me. And I loved everything about you. Your sense of humour wasn’t daft �" you were the funniest person I knew. Your arms weren’t skinny �" they made me feel safe. Your haircut wasn’t dodgy �" it was yours.  

When I wasn’t with you, I was thinking about you, smiling at all the memories we had already built up together, waiting for your name to light up my phone screen and my eyes.

But you weren’t quite my everything. Almost, but not quite. I was careful to make sure I kept my friends close, stayed on top of my work, kept in touch with my family. You were simply the missing piece which completed me.

Before I met you, I thought my life was already perfect. I had a close relationship with my family �" something rare �" I had more mates than I needed, I had a place at a prestigious university, I had my career all mapped out in my head. But it wasn’t perfect at all. You taught me purity and perfection, you made me realise just what I was missing. Love.

I fell in love with you. In six short weeks, I fell in love with you.

Crushed

 I was hanging out with some mates in my room, chatting, having a few drinks. You’d sent me a message earlier that day.

Can I come over later? I want to see you

I was excited for a chilled out evening spent with you, watching a film, talking about nothing in particular, then sex and a lazy morning the next day. I would cook you breakfast and you would shower me with kisses and compliments. You domestic goddess, you would say, planting kisses on my neck and down my back which would fill me with warmth to my core.

You greeted me with a hug and nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

I was a little tipsy, feeling content and loved up. “Come upstairs, I have a couple of mates over if that’s alright with you. I’ll get rid of them in ten minutes or so, don’t worry,” I told you with a mischievous glint in my eye. You smiled at me.

We sat down in my room, chatting, throwing banter back and forth. You were on top form with my friends, making them laugh, telling funny stories and casting cheeky sideways glances at me. You didn’t act any differently, didn’t seem uncomfortable. There was no inkling you were about to shatter everything we had built up.

Then they left and it was just you and me. You sat down cross-legged in the middle of the room which seemed a little strange to me. Normally we would lie on the bed together, legs and arms tangled.

“I need to talk to you about something,” you said. Guilty. Reproachful. Uneasy.

I was closing the curtains. “That sounds ominous,” I joked, but my heart was thumping hard against my rib cage, an icy sense of dread dripping through my veins

“I think it’s best if we’re just friends,” you told me, all in a rush. As though we’d just been on a couple of dates, testing the waters. As though the last six weeks hadn’t happened at all. As though I was someone you could just change your mind about in one f*****g instant and discard like an unwanted birthday present.

“What?” I managed, but my the tears were falling hard and fast. Ugly, noisy sobs. I crumpled, like when the air is taken out of a bouncy castle. You held me as the eye makeup which I’d put on just for you streaked down my cheeks like tyre tracks. You stroked my hair. You wrapped your protective arms around my torso. You held me as you broke me.

My beautiful little world was crushed in one fell swoop.

“Why?”

Then came all the bullshit.

Reasons

You weren’t mature enough for a relationship. Why the hell did you let it get so far then?

You didn’t want something long-term. Why did you let me believe you did, then? Why did you tell me you’d never fallen for someone so hard before?

You thought we were more suited to be best friends than boyfriend and girlfriend. How do you explain the chemistry between us then? Don’t you find me attractive?

You hadn’t thought about what you wanted out of our relationship. Well I f*****g managed to. It’s not that hard to be honest with yourself.

Your reasons didn’t make sense to me and I tried so hard to hate you.

The worst week of my life

I had the best six weeks of my life, and then the worst seven days you can imagine.

After it happened and you left me alone, I sobbed and sobbed and then ran straight to my friend’s room. He had been laughing at your jokes, just half an hour before. I cried to him for an hour, and he told me everything I needed to hear, that you were a prick, that it was so weirdly abrupt, that I deserved better, that he was the one who needed to sort his head out.

But I still couldn’t hate you.

I sobbed myself to sleep, waking up on a pillow wet with my salty tears. Then I cried some more. I exhausted myself. I felt like my heart had been ripped into two. My heart which I had worn on my sleeve, just for you. My heart which I had wrapped up in pretty paper with a big pink bow and handed to you. I invested so much in us and what we had the potential to be.

Someone reading this might typecast me as obsessive and crazy, think you to be the victim. But if they felt what I felt, they wouldn’t be so quick to judge. They would realise the connection we had was something rare.

Recovery

It was slow and bumpy. I knew the numbness I felt a couple of days after it happened was anything but recovery. I went clubbing, drank too much, kissed someone and felt absolutely nothing.

Upon my request, we had a chat in a café one afternoon during that awful week. You explained it all to me again, and the little glimmer of hope I had that you might change your mind flickered and died. But I felt clearer, happier, or at least slightly less heartbroken, ready to try to move on.

But then the crying started again. It would happen when I wasn’t expecting it. I’d be sitting at my desk, tapping out an essay, and a memory of you raining kisses down my back would flash up in my head, prompting the floodgates to open up again.

I spoke to you again the week after. I was so desperate to stay composed but I couldn’t hold myself together, because I was already broken, already disintegrating into a hundred tiny pieces. Past the point of no return.

I’ve tried. I’ve tried to get over you, but I can’t.

Your pity was too much. You told me you had ‘adjusted’. I couldn’t bear it. Adjusted. Within a week. Meanwhile, I’d gone from the top of the world to rock bottom. Everything to nothing. Pure joy to all-consuming grief.

We agreed to not speak to each other until the new year. I was a train wreck; I knew it was for the best. You weren’t the boy I had fallen for. You weren’t uncaring, but you simply didn’t get it. Perhaps you weren’t mature enough to understand what I was feeling. Ha.

There was a rift �" or perhaps an entire f*****g chasm �" between us that had never existed before. You were remote. Disconnected.

Adjusted.

I missed you and your humour and your confidence and your little nicknames for me and your affection and our closeness and our intimacy and how you made me feel, but seeing you did nothing to ease the pain. It just made me feel a thousand times worse. A thousand times more crushed. A thousand times more broken. A thousand times more empty.

Now

I’m still not over you, not really. I downloaded Tinder, because someone told me to. I had a couple of meaningless one-night stands. But I never got to experience that thrill which I was hankering after just a few months ago.

Because I met you. You changed everything.

I miss you.

I want you.

I love you.

I loved you.