There's this cold. It’s a feeling. It's a cold that isn't obvious to anyone else, but it’s very much present. It’s the kind of feeling that makes your whole body tremble. The icy feeling of being unloved by that one person, who has the power to shake your entire being.
It happened in ... the year is irrelevant. I loved him and that’s all that matters. This is probably going to end up being a clichéd love story, but it’s my story, and it’s meaningful to me. It affected me in a way that nothing has done before.
It was cold the night we met. My friend and I were having a sleepover and we were getting pizza from our favourite Italian place down the road. It’s a tradition for sleepovers. We were in our pyjamas, with big hoodies and Ugg boots. We were simply getting supplies for our movie night.
You walked in, clearly a regular because everyone knew your name, yet I’d never noticed you before. There was something about you that intrigued me. I knew immediately that I wanted to find out what was different about you. You stood next to me in the line and started chatting. You even offered to pay for my pizza and then you wrote your number down on a napkin for me. I left the restaurant with a spring in my step and a twinkle in my eye. You had shown an interest in me. You were the first boy to ever show an interest in me. I guess that’s why I fell for it. You made me feel like you loved me and I believed you.
You gave me a warm feeling inside and when I was with you, it felt like I was burning. It sounds painful, but it was the most exhilarating feeling I have experienced in my long lifetime.
It was too good to be true because within two months, I found out that you had slipped my friend your number, that very same night we met. She didn’t tell me. She betrayed my trust. Wholeheartedly and knowingly.
An ocean of tears burst from me and I locked myself in my bathroom for hours on end. I don’t know what hurt the most; the fact that she had betrayed me or what you had done. The loneliness echoed around me while I sat in the cold bathroom listening to my own sadness.
She was my best friend and he was my first love. I haven’t spoken to either of them since that day. They’re married now. I still see them around town every now and then, but I refuse to acknowledge them. That is simply because it still hurts so much. Thirty years later and it still hurts. Unfortunately real life never works out the way it does in the movies.
I have grown up terrified of falling in love, but am still in search of it. This was my fatal flaw. I keep telling myself, if only he could have truly loved me and hadn’t played with my heart as if it was a simple child’s game. I would have made him the happiest man in the world and I would now be basking in the warmth of his love. That never happened and so I am faced with the fact that he didn’t love me and never will.
So here I am, thirty years later. Lying in my bed, covered in blankets and still feeling the cold. I still tremble uncontrollably every night. All I long for is to feel his love, to no longer suffer the cold of his absence.
- F.T