There’s something about hearing those words.
In that moment, the whole world crashes down around you, and you can’t even believe it. Your mind freezes, repeating those two little words, over and over, trying to send some coherent message for your lips to decipher and form into a sentence, a protest, anything. It’s like you’ve become weightless, the entirety of your chest having been ripped out and replaced with a foreign void that renders you breathless.
Time stops. Your brittle, frozen mind somehow moves faster than the clock itself, and your hands can’t move quickly enough, and your feet won’t step with enough haste, and you’re motionless. It’s like dying, only different; instead of your life flashing before your eyes, it’s all those little moments that defined your love. All those little moments that will soon be gone, and you reach for them as if they can be plucked out of the air - the dense, toxic air that your lungs refuse to take in.
Your eyes search his face, desperately seeking for some enlightenment of trickery. But they won’t find any. Pain would rain down onto you, if only your mind could comprehend pain. But it can’t. It will, eventually, but for that moment all you know is a strange displacement from reality.
A moment comes when you’re able to compose yourself enough to declare that it can’t be real. It’s crazy, and can’t be happening. But, he’ll repeat those words, over and over, whether out loud or in the still-disbelieving recesses of your memory, and eventually you’ll know it’s true. Your heart will still feel as if it’s stopped beating, and your mind will still feel as if it’s been frozen, but you’ll find the strength to nod and turn away. Maybe you’ll walk, maybe you’ll run, but you’ll feel only the need to remove yourself. To get away.
He won’t call after you. You’ll hope he will, that maybe he’ll change his mind, but he won’t, and that’s when the real break occurs. That’s when you’ll first feel the pain. That’s when the first tears will slide down your cheek, and you’ll do your best to hide them, because you’re still trying to convince yourself that he wouldn’t ever want to hurt you.
There’s something about going home that night and not being able to stand. As soon as you make it to your own sanctuary, to privacy, you collapse to your knees. Air escapes your lungs, and breath comes only in sharp, jagged gasps with each new rush of hot tears. Something will become your lifeline - a pillow, his sweatshirt, your knees as you clutch them to your chest - and you’ll bury your face into it and cry. You’ll cry like you’ve never cried before, with such a wracking force that your body will shake and tremor. Your fragile mind will settle on all the best memories and you’ll find yourself smiling through the tears as you drift into a broken dream, where the most joyous moments are still happening and the most dreadful have ceased to exist.
There’s something about waking again for the first time. Your head is pounding and your eyes burn, your lips are dry and cracked and your throat burns. There’s a tingling sensation in your legs from falling asleep in such an awkward position. By the time your eyes have adjusted to the light, your mind is reminding you why you hurt. The pain is nothing more than a dull ache in your chest, but the very thought of its cause is enough to bring tears spilling over onto you again, sliding down your face and dripping from your chin to your lap. You bury your numb eyes into your hands, all balled up into fists, and you wonder what emotion is overwhelming you and driving you to this brink, this edge of insanity. The love festers in your chest, blossoming like twisted briars, but the hate is spreading in your veins, a fiery disease thicker than honey, and somehow, you manage to push it all away. You stand and wipe your eyes. By day, you’ll stand strong. By night, you’ll fall apart. But through it all, you’ll be waiting anxiously, eagerly, to do it all again, to start at the beginning.
Because there’s something about the moment you fall in love.