12.30.15

Forty-Five Minutes

Did you know that falling out of love only takes forty-five minutes? All it takes is a boy and a girl inside a car parked outside of her house. And then a false kiss and a misguided sentence inside a ball of confusion and disbelief. And then an agonizing realization inside a whirlpool of anger, tears, and tiny but still palpable speckles of relief. And then an open door. Fifty fabricated hugs. One hundred befuddled tears. Ten thousand false kisses.

The door shuts.

Your feet walk.

He drives away.

And you are no longer in love.

When you walk in the door, you collapse. Your ears close and your mouth opens and your heart explodes.

Forty-five minutes. Fifty fabricated hugs. One hundred befuddled tears. Ten thousand false kisses. Like marbles, they scatter and roll across the kitchen floor. And you let them go.

“Did someone die?”

No, no. Something died. You shake your head but cannot speak. It hurts to admit. It feels shameful. It feels foolish.

Your fingers are shaking. The same fingers that earlier in the night he had held, as though everything was fine. The same fingers that earlier in the night he had pinned to his bed, as he kissed and moved all over you. As though everything was fine.

Finally, between bouts of hyperventilations, you say it:

“We’re not… We’re not going to see each other anymore.”

There are two pairs of loving hands holding you. Cool against your forehead, warm around your waist, smooth upon your back. They catch the tears that dampen your lashes and travel down your cheeks, replacing them with sweet and gentle kisses. They draw the smoke of sadness from your lungs and refill them with lovely, soft, female voices. They tell you you’re going to be ok. You breathe in their words, believing them.

To be clear, your heart isn’t broken. Not really. It’s been peeled back like a clementine over the course of four months, slowly exposing the pure, tangy fruit inside. Eight months ago it was intact and whole and completely your own. Then he took it. He held it carefully and tended to it, and its chromaticity grew in radiance. He loved it, so you loved him.  

Then you moved away, and he moved away too. But he couldn’t give it back, and you couldn’t take it back. So you said here, hold on to it. And he began to peel. He peeled and peeled and peeled. And you let him, even though its intensity began to dim and its juice began to seep. And soon you were laying there in a pool of tang and sugar, tenuously cradling the last of your heart’s protective shell, which quaked and shivered and said I’m sorry, I give up.

Of course he wasn’t happy either. All he was getting was the dying rind of a heart he once could fully love.

So you both agreed--time to quit. Time to cut ties, time to cut the rind and grow a new one. You were sad, but you could finally breathe, so you were ok.

But he was not. He rocked the stolen peels in his arms, devastated that he had caused their deterioration. He didn’t want this, he wanted you. So he said:

I’m ready.

He was ready to fully take your heart this time, no matter the distance. He would revive it, he would nurture it, he would help it germinate and flourish. He would love it the way it was meant to be loved.

Loving him was hard, but you were brave and willing. So you said ok, you may have it once again. And you gave him what was left of the withering fruit.

For two weeks he held it carefully and tended to it, and its chromaticity grew in radiance. He loved it again, so you loved him more. Elation and promise rosied up your cheeks and widened your smile. Tang and sugar flowed back into the veins of your hopeful heart. You began to feel whole once again.

But he did not. Somehow he felt preemptively empty and alone. The initial grief of his loss and love for you had electrified his heart and clouded his mind. False determination. False courage. Wanting you and loving you would not be enough. The distance would be too painful. So he said:

I’m not ready.

I can’t do it.

I’m sorry.

It took forty-five minutes for you to finally make him say it. Within those forty-five minutes you watched him take your damaged but fruitful heart, raise it to his lips, and consume it whole, spitting back only the seeds. Horrified and trembling, you carefully gathered them from the floor of the car and tried to collect what was left of the juice from his chin. You enclosed the seeds tenderly in your palms and promised never again to let them go.

Fifty fabricated hugs. One hundred befuddled tears. Ten thousand false kisses.

They were not fake to him, but they were to you. Because within the past forty-five minutes, he had transformed from a man deserving of your heart into a boy who had used it to play catch.

He had become pathetic. Cowardly. Selfish. Timorous. Immature. An utter disappointment.

And you were none of those things.

And you did not want to be in love with any of those things.

So you realized that you could no longer be in love with him.

When you later cried in the arms of your mother and sister on the kitchen floor, you were lamenting not the loss of boy in the car, but of the boy you had thought he was, the boy he used to be, the boy you once loved.

And you still love him dearly, but being in love with him now is impossible.

Instead you are in love with the memories, with the feelings of being in love, with the pleasure of companionship, with the simple luxury of being made happy. And you know that someday you will receive these again from another, but for now you will derive and accept them from within yourself.

And you are glad to do so. You will do it far better than he ever did or could.

Tears flowed from your eyes that night not to enhance your grief, but to water the rejected seeds of your heart and allow them to sprout, into not just one fruit, but many. Their rinds are thicker, their piths sturdier, their juices sweeter.

And you have not cried since, for the precious fruits that are rooted deep inside the cavity of your chest now are now strong enough to fully survive and continue to grow on their own.