Saude: a nostalgic longing for something or someone that was loved then lost, with the knowledge that it or they might never return; “the love that remains” (n.)

I was standing in a shaded crook in my all-black getup when he walked in and lit up the world. It was love at first sight. It had to be. How else could I explain the rhythm of my heart—especially when it had been previously suffering for another who robbed me of all my firsts. In that moment I did not know of  pain or how it felt. I believed in the possibility of hope.  I saw the sun again; it lured me out of the shadows and told me to be free.

He stopped just a few feet from me, leaning up against a wall in his own shades of dark. He watched the crowd of our peers pass through; he faded from the public’s view, but I thought he was the brightest thing I had ever seen. I wondered how no one else could see him. The classroom door opened and those waiting for our lesson marched in. I was the last one in and the only open desk was beside him. It has to be fate, I thought to myself as I took a seat. I turned to my side to unzip my backpack and he did the same. His brown eyes glittered like gold. All those years of history class discussing greedy men lusting for the precious metal made me understand why they desired it so much. I was bewitched. Not just by his eyes, but the smile that took up his red lips as he handed me the pen I had not been aware I dropped.

“I’m Matt,” he said, and that was the only name I thought I ever needed to know.

What sparked next between us was instant. It was like breathing. With just one look from him I felt on fire. I thought I could burn hotter than the sun. There was something about the way he would stare at me that made me believe he saw the stars in me. It was as if every word that left my mouth was a secret of the universe that was finally being revealed. We memorized each others’ voices and tones: we knew our sarcastic levels, our punch lines, and when we masked hurt with phony happiness. He was so in tune with what I felt, I began to believe he was half of me.

The more I thought it was destiny, the more obstacles came between us. We had a habit of melting into each other, but being honest, sharing the one truth we had yet to speak aloud, never came. This, I knew, was my fault. Matt had come into my life in a time when I least expected and set off fireworks that were still exploding in the night sky. It made me forget of another name that had been grotesquely carved on my heart. Matt wanted to bring colors to my grey kaleidoscope, and I wanted to let him, I swear, but I kept tripping over the same rock. I could not let go of the boy with all my firsts. Andrew.

“He’s changed,” I would say time and time again. “We’re good now.”

 “Are you?” Matt challenged. “He still treats you like shit.”

 “You’re wrong.”

 “I’m not, Sidney,” he ground out, annoyed by my same lines of defense. “You’re still crying over this asshole when you said you were done. He doesn’t love you. Accept that.”

 “Fuck off.” I pushed him back a step. I was angry. Not at Matt, I discovered later, but at myself. I had known for so long, for the past two years of twisted relationship, that Andrew did not love me. But I loved him. All that time I groveled at his feet, begging for love, for his affection, had left me dependent on him. Andrew made me adequate. He even knew that. That was why he had known whenever I said I was done all he had to do was show up at my doorstep with the same apology and I would let him in.

Matt knew that, too. He knew I would not break the cycle, so he moved on. I could not have asked him to wait, but I wished he had.

The first time I saw them together I thought a black hole had taken residency in my chest. Every spark of magic Matt was able to produce inside of me was gone. All that remained was that treacherous abyss. Matt and his girlfriend, hand in hand, made me want to jump in and let it take me to the unknown.

“I asked her yesterday,” he told me with a wide smile I selfishly thought was only for me.

 “I didn’t even know you liked her.”

 “She’s nice. She makes me laugh. Why not, right?”

 “Yeah. She is nice. I’m happy for you.”

 “Really?”

 “Yeah.”

 We both had known it was a lie.

 Letting go of Andrew was easier than I thought it ever could be. All I had to do was look at Matt to realize I wanted more than what I was settling for. I was furious at myself for not having the courage to tell Matt how I felt. Hell, I was even mad at him for not doing so, either. In the end, it was me that held the cards. I was with someone I refused to stop giving my time to, someone who continued to steal everything from me, even what I no longer had. So I ended it, intent on not looking back.

 Things with Matt and his girlfriend did not work out. He hung on for three months, but claimed she deserved better than him. I laughed at the notion; there was no one like him. He gave me a grin that put the world back on its axis.

 The months that preceded were breathtakingly beautiful. I was completely in love. Every day beside him tallied up to the best of my life. He was unlike any boy I had encountered. He learned every bit of me—he counted the freckles on my face and the scars on my hands, he learned my favorite colors and colored with them, he pressed rose petals in the books we shared, and called every night to play a song that reminded him of me. He accepted the parts I hated—my frustration with the mirror, the broken walls of my home, the reason for my scars, my fragile sensibility, my constant vulnerabilities, and my inability to refuse others. We were so alike one another, he even began to believe we had been created from the same star when the galaxy was first fused together.

 It would have been ideal to say during those slow nights spent together one of us finally had the courage to say what needed to be declared, but that never happened. We both remained silent. I began to be afraid of what was not being said. My insecurities produced ice in the small crevice that distanced us, growing and pushing until I was back in the shadows and he was too far from my reach.  How could he ever love me back? How could he even stand being beside me? His friends thought the same, I knew. I saw it in their gazes every time Matt was with me. I was corrupted by someone else, my skin scarred, and my demons on my shoulders. They put on smiles and welcomed me with open arms, but I knew better. I knew what they kept to themselves, what they shared with Matt after I went my own way.

 I met George at a house party I had been dragged to one night my junior year. While everyone was sharing bottles, rolling blunts, and popping pills, I was desperate for a corner of solitude. Blaring techno music and swaying, sweaty bodies had never been my idea of fun. My sentiment had been shared with the boy smoking a cigarette by himself. For thirty minutes neither of us spoke. When my bare shoulders shook  from the midnight breeze, he took off his jacket and zipped me up.

 “Thanks,” I muttered.

 “Ditched your boyfriend?”

 “More like my best friend ditched me.”

 “For a guy?”

 “And free beer.”

 “Sounds about right.”

 “You?”

 “I came with my friends, but it’s not really my scene.”

 “Why come, then?”

 “I drove us here.”

 “Ah.”

 “Why did you come?”

 “Peer pressure.”

He laughed as he extended his half empty box of cigarettes to me. I shook my head. “This shit’s not gonna get raided anytime soon. Wanna go for a burger down the street?”

“I’m a vegetarian,” I said to him as we maneuvered past the littered beer bottles and grinding couples.

“Why do you hate yourself?”  he asked with playful mirth in his blue eyes.

 It was the first time someone else could make me laugh.

 What transpired between George and I stayed hidden in a drunk tale I latched on to that my best friend recounted of the night. I nodded and feigned the worsthangover I ever got. I felt guilty for having a good night with a random stranger and taking his number in case, as he put it, I was curious of what might be. All because of Matt. But I had not been the only one who found someone else interesting for one night. Except his confession cut me in a way I never thought would matter.

 “She’s beautiful,” Matt told me over the phone.

 “You said that already.”

 “And she’s a virgin.”

 “Does that shit even matter?”

 “No. I just mean she’s never done anything with anyone.”

 “And that makes her better?”

 “Not better...”

 “I gotta go.”

 “Sid, I’m not—”

 “No, seriously, I gotta go. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

 Whether it mattered or not, I felt the weight of my mistakes again. I was a stupid girl who had given all she had to the first boy who told her he loved her and broke her heart at the same time. I had given what needed to be valued to someone who did not deserve it, who did not deserve me. But I did so regardless of knowing I had not been ready, that I was going to regret parting with my virginity because I thought it would make him love me more.

 I picked up my cellphone again and dialed the new number I added to the contact list.

 When my first date with George turned into a second, third, and fourth, I knew he was going to stay. I knew he was someone I wanted around. I had never been good at keeping secrets about myself because I shared with anyone that wanted to listen, but this no one saw coming. It was how I blindsided Matt.

 “So, I have something to tell you,” I said past my gigantic smile as we sat underneath our tree.

 “Hm?”

 “I have a boyfriend now.”

 “Oh.”

 “His name’s George. He’s really amazing. He makes me happy.”

 “Yeah, okay.”

 “That sounded sarcastic.”

 “Because it was, Sid. You do this all the fucking time. One guy after another. He makes you happy right now, but give it a week and you’ll be his doormat.”

 “What the hell?”

 “It’s the truth.”

 “Stop being a dick.”

 “I’m being honest.”

 “You’re only honest when it’s fucking convenient.”

 “Whatever.”

 “I’m serious! You have no fucking trouble pointing shit out for me, but what about for yourself? Why don’t you admit that you’re one of those guys. You treat girls like shit, but you excuse it by saying they deserve better. Like that is going to heal their broken hearts.”

 “That’s what you think of me?”

 “Is that what you think of me? The doormat?”

 “I don’t want to talk about this, Sid.”

 Matt had left me underneath that tree and did not look back. I had been angry at him, a part of me terrified that really was how he saw me, a poor, pathetic excuse. But I never meant what I said about him that day. It was something I repeated from my best friend, who was certain Matt was just an asshole in disguise. She said she saw right through him, but I was blinded by him to see what she did. I was not. I knew who Matt was—and that was my best friend, a guy I loved. When Monday morning came I waited outside his class to talk to him, to apologize for my behavior, but he turned the opposite way when he saw me coming. When Matt said he did not want to talk about the matter, I thought he meant for a few days. I never imagined he actually meant me, or that his silent treatment would last a year.

 I cannot deny that I fell head over heels for George. He was older than me, which meant he was not about playing games with my head or my heart. He was straightforward about what he wanted—and he wanted me. He took me by the hand and I followed without a second thought. He took me to beautiful places I never thought worthy of seeing. He loved me in such a way I never thought I was worthy of having. He looked deep in my eyes, drowning me in his blue, and told me I was beautiful. I believed it. It was the sincerity in his voice, the way he lost his breath when I walked into a room, that made it seem like he could see my soul and was captivated by what he saw. He knew of the darkness that plagued my mind; he gripped my hand tighter, pulled out his sword, and called himself my knight in shining armour.

 The wonderful magic that wrapped around George and I broke when his grip on me became painful. He loved me—just too much. He suffocated me with his need to be beside me every single second of every day. He wanted to know where I was, who I was with, and what time it would all be happening. My friends said his jealousy was endearing, but they did not know of him slowing losing his mind. He saw betrayal in everything I did. The more I had to assure I loved him, the more I began not to. He wanted a cemented life with me, a future with children and a house with a white-picket fence, and I was afraid of it. I did not want to be chained down to him.

 “I just can’t do this anymore,” I cried as we stood outside my school after hours. He had climbed out of his car when I declined to get in.

 “What did I do?”

 “You didn’t do anything. I just...I can’t, George.”

 “No.”

 “I’m sorry.”

 “No.”

 “I have to go—”

 He shoved me against the fence behind me. He was taller than me, build strong like steel, so he easily caged me in. The hands that once worshipped me, caressed me like every centimeter of my skin was sacred, now wrapped around my throat. I saw horrifying devotion burning his sapphire gaze into the navy shade of a treacherous night.

 In that terrifying moment I could not imagine how things would turn out. I was paralyzed by his reaction, this boy who had claimed to love me, who I had loved and trusted with my safety. Fate, I had known even after, was set on bringing one person into my life when I most needed him. Matt came riding the sun when I thought I would choke on darkness. He and his friends pushed George off of me, and Matt clung on to my shoulders as I sobbed. The tears streaming down my cheeks were caused by my heart’s relief of having Matt near again, more so than it was for my mind’s outrage at George.

 Though my soul felt the year of distance between us, Matt and I fell to our normal rhythm. We talked to each other as we always had, we made the same jokes, we scribbled notes on each others’ arms, we called each other and spoke for hours after spending the day together, and still smiled at one another like we were the rarest gems in the world. After losing him I knew I never wanted to leave unresolved issues between us. I wanted to be sincere. I wanted to tell him everything I thought, everything I felt. With the way I was his and he was mine, I assumed the truth would only concrete the silver chains that tied us together. But I had been wrong.

 “Can I tell you something?”

 “Sure, Sid.”

 “I...I love you.”

 My heart thumped in my chest like it was about to break through the bones and jump into Matt’s hands. My heart wanted to go home. It was ready to belong to him entirely.

 That smile that had been making my knees weak since the first day I met him appeared on his lips. He stopped at the corner of my street. I wanted him to say something, anything to what I had just confessed, but he did not need words. He just wrapped his arms around me and held me tight.

 “I love you, too,” he finally said. And I believed him.

 We stayed embracing one another for a few minutes before I had to head home. The weight of the moon was falling over us, but he promised to see me at sunrise. When the sky was bright pink and blue, I waited for him where our paths tended to intersect. He never showed. I tried to speak to him before his first class, but he rushed inside and his friends impeded my path in.

 It was the first time Matt broke my heart. Truly broke it.

 High school graduation came faster than anyone anticipated. The four year war had finally come to an end. While surviving soldiers cheered and embraced each other like they had not been enemies at the frontline since the beginning, I was finally glad it was over. I was ready to leave that struggle behind me. I wanted to find a new beginning away from the memories of the broken girl I had been.

 Change was something that has never terrified me. I thrived on it. Going from that shy, people-pleasing girl to an optimistic, determined woman took strength and blood. I had fallen and scraped my knees too many times that the skin over them was thin enough for me to see my bones. I had the choice to stay down or stand up. I decided to rise. That is exactly what I focused on the following years. I cut ties with people that were poison, kept the ones that loved me through my self-inflicted wounds, and put myself at the center of my world. I was determined to live. I was determined to finally be me.

 The open cuts of my soul were stitched, leaving red lines that everyone could see. I put white paint over them and called it light. The new people that came into my life called me strong, wise, built to conquer everything, but I knew better. I knew what vulnerabilities still remained. I knew what could break me. I did not let anyone close enough to my heart to learn of those weapons. I loved my friends and family with every cell inside of me, but became cold in regards to romance. Too many times I had been the victim of a heartbreaker, so I knew better than to smash hearts along my way. I diminished the flame of hope before it turned to fire. I was honest; I did not want to fall in love.

 Men came charging in, wanting to win what I kept in a metal prison safe inside my chest. Some even came close it. They all had good intentions, I knew, but their time would be wasted. They could not win what already had an owner.

 My path crossed with Matt five years after graduation. Outwardly he did not resemble the boy I fell in love with all those years ago, but I was hooked all over again the moment he smiled at me. Everything in me wanted to despise him for wronging me, but I could not find the will. One look into his golden gaze and I wanted to sail the seas for his treasure. My heart still danced to his song, hoping his would join the beat and mesh together.

 We left the cafe we stumbled upon each other before the moon took over the navy sky. We walked aimlessly for hours, ending up at that old tree that once hosted the carefree conversations of our younger years. Though five years had moved us in different directions in life, there was something about him and I that continued to make sense. He spoke and I listened, I smiled and he laughed, we looked at each other and just knew where to pick up the pieces of before. I listened to Fate again that night, believing magic brought Matt and I together once more. For good.

 It took seven years from the moment I met him for me to know how his lips tasted. His right hand gently cupped my cheek, leaning in as I lost my ability to breathe and think. The universe exploded in color. I thought I was flying off to another world when his mouth found mine. It was gentle, sweet—everything which I had never been given. Under that tree that knew how in love I was with him, how I lost my place staring at the way the wind blew his hair, how sunlight made his tawny eyes gold, or how his laughter sunk to the grassblades beneath us, I gave Matt what had been his from the start. We molded together in such a tender way I thought he took me to heaven and brought velvet clouds to touch my body with.

 “I’ve missed you,” he said as his fingers laced through mine. “There’s never been anyone quite like you, Sid. Not for me.”

 “So you say,” I teased in return, too proud to tell him how I missed him despite what had just transpired between us.

 “You know what you’ve always meant to me. I care so much about you. I’ve never stopped.”

 Though I could not keep myself from dancing and singing the following days, I was afraid. I had spent years building my walls up so I could not get hurt, so I would not let those who pained me wound me again. But I bought the fairytale Fate was selling me. Our time had finally come. We were both finally on the same page.

 We met up every night and he could not keep his hands off of me. He put an arm around my shoulder, steering me away from the crowd so he could have me all to himself, he touched my knee, keeping his fingers in place, when he thought someone else showed too much interest, and he marked my neck with his teeth for the public to see when my days took me to places without him. I did not know how it was possible to further fall for someone I had spent almost a decade in love with. My heart continued to surprise me; it taught me that when it came to him everything was possible.

 After two months of our reconnection he convinced me to attend a party with him. I wanted to stay in, but for Matt I was willing to cross my own boundaries. It would be a lie if I said I did not enjoy myself, but it would also be a lie to say that three beers, five shots, and a game of beer pong were not the culprits that won me over. I unwound in a way I had not in years. I laughed without restraint, I danced without embarrassment, and mingled with the people who were partially responsible for some of the scars on my soul. He was drunk that night, too. He drank more than anyone had seen him do since our party years. I should have known disaster waited on the other side. Alcohol, hormones, and unresolved feelings never mixed well.

 He had me pressed against a dark corner, looking for body heat in that cold night. I wanted him with the same fervor he wanted me, but despite my haze and overridden inhibitions, I was aware enough to know where the line needed to be drawn.

 “They’ll see us,” I murmured past his divine lips.

 “So?” He went for my collarbone.

 “Come on, stop. I don’t want to be caught.”

 “Why does it matter? We’re adults.”

 “It’s different for us. You’re a guy and I’m a girl. Who do you think they’ll call the slut?”

 “You’re not a slut.”

 “I just don’t want them to see us.”

 “Sid,” he stopped his delicious grazing of my skin, holding my gaze with something that confused me, “you know this is just for fun, right? We aren’t together.”

 “I know,” I managed to say through the shattered illusion, “I just don’t want people to talk about me.”

 Sobering up was instant from that second. We managed to slink back to the party without causing questions of our sudden disappearance. Shaking Matt off was harder than I thought, though. He was determined to take me home as it was planned, but I needed to get away from him. While he was caught up in a round of shots with his friends, I slipped on my coat and took off. I walked the night with sobs caught at the base of my throat.

 The same guy who had broken my heart before broke it again. I had vowed to myself that I would never let that happen, that I would never fall prey to someone’s intent of corrupting me, but I did. I fell for him again. I fell for the twisted hope that he felt as I did. That he cared about me the way he promised he did. But it was all empty words painted in gold. His current stance in life did not make me believe he was ready to be in a relationship, but I expected the truth. I was worth the truth. I just wanted him to be honest with me before we took the road to a place I could not return from unused.

 I bought the tale of star-crossed lovers finally winning over the forces that kept them apart. I bought the lies he fed me. He did not love me. He probably never had. I was just convenient to him—one of those girls whom he tore to pieces, but extended a bottle of glue to with an apology that was insincere as his proclaimed intentions.

I fell in love with the devil eight years ago. And the truth is, I am still trying to break his hold on me.