As the story said: Love is not a selfish need to hold someone close, but rather it is letting them go so they can be happy.
She’d be my pearl that I’d try to protect until the end of my days.
And her happiness would be my only goal.
17
It had been wrong to confess my feelings to him.
I should have loved him wordlessly.
Selene
A week had gone by since I’d last seen or heard from Neil.
Too many times, I had found myself wondering why he’d run away and what was so wrong about the declaration that I hadn’t even been able to finish. And to think that, for that moment, everything had been magical. I remembered exactly how he’d kissed me in the park, his tongue tangling with mine and stealing my breath, his hips grinding against me, pressing into whatever gas pedal made my heart race unstoppably. Then I had ruined everything by speaking without thinking, by telling him what was in my heart.
I huffed and tossed my silverware down on my plate, my stomach completely shattered. Thoughts of Neil haunted me; I even thought I caught a whiff of his musky scent in the air like he was right next to me in the campus cafeteria where I’d met my friends for lunch.
“Okay, what’s going on with you? You haven’t said a word,” asked Bailey, who had just finished her salad. Next to her, Janel said nothing; she just looked at me, curious to hear what I’d say.
“I guess I…” I gave a heartbroken sigh. “I just can’t keep up with him,” I said, suddenly resigned to the notion that I would never be able to manage someone like Neil.
“Are we talking about Neil?” Bailey asked, and I nodded. I’d told my friends everything that happened because I needed to talk it out with someone. While Bailey thought Neil might deserve another chance, Janel argued that he was too much of an asshole with too many problems.
“You should just forget about him,” she said just then, waving a hand dismissively before pausing to peel a banana. I pushed my soup aside, sick to my stomach at the thought of eating anything, and looked down at my legs. The entire situation was screwed up. I should have been talking to Neil himself. We should have been facing the obstacles in our path together, hand in hand, going up against everything and everyone. Instead, we weren’t communicating at all.
I couldn’t understand him and I, in turn, did not feel understood.
It was a constant struggle between us, and I was afraid that I didn’t have the strength to keep chasing him. But I was also afraid of resigning myself to the reality that he and I could never be an “us.”
“Selene…” Janel laid her hand over mine and looked sadly at me. “That guy only seeks you out to fuck. You should put an end to this toxic relationship,” she said, sounding concerned. What she didn’t know was that Neil no longer even sought me out for sex. He’d had opportunities, but he always either settled for fooling around or stopped before undressing me and getting down to it. That approach wasn’t at all normal for him. Usually he was assertive and domineering, always demanding my attention and particularly physical attention because it was the way he communicated. Now, though, he seemed almost trapped, stuck trying to cope with impulses that he couldn’t indulge. I had registered this new behavior, but I still hadn’t figured out why he was doing it.
“Yeah, maybe I should.” I glanced down again and thought about the note he’d written me on that dumb little Post-it that night:I’ll always be there for you, but not the way you want. I’m sorry I can’t stay.
I smiled bitterly at myself. Why did he come if he didn’t know how to stay?
Like always, Neil contradicted himself. His tortured logic was the result of his conflicted personality.
“H-he’s too out of control,” I blurted out in a sob that made both of my friends jump. “What did he come to Detroit for? Just to hurt me again? Allhe does is run away, then come back—over and over again. He’s completely unstable, has no idea what he wants, and I’m tired of it!” I said in a long rush while the two of them exchanged bewildered looks. I was having a genuine freak-out. “I gave him everything. All of me…” I took my head in my hands in exasperation, and I just barely kept from crying. I had already shed more than enough tears over him.
“Feelings don’t always show up in the ways we’re accustomed to, you know. Love doesn’t always require an explicit declaration. I mean, how many times is ‘I love you’ said and taken back every day?” Bailey, ever the optimist, put in. “So many. Too many. I don’t think Neil will ever be the kind of guy who loves in a conventional way. He’ll love the way he thinks is right, the way that conforms to his beliefs.” She shrugged, and I tilted my head to one side, confused.
“What do you mean?” Janel asked.
“Just that Neil could very well love Selene while still being just as complicated as he’s always been. I mean, he’s never going to be someone who makes big declarations with flowers or whatever. From the way you described it, Selene, it sounds like he thinks those kinds of gestures don’t really matter. But, believe me, bestie—it’s the hidden feelings that usually turn out to be the truest. You don’t have to shout at the stars to get their attention, you know? I think Neil’s like that. He’ll be able to love you someday, but he’ll do it in his own way. Maybe that will make it even more special.” Bailey smiled at me, and for a moment, a flicker of hope ignited in my chest. Maybe she was right. Maybe Neil attributed some other meaning to the word “love,” but that didn’t mean he didn’t care about me.
“Huh, so when you’re not talking about Tyler, you are capable of saying smart stuff. I’m shocked,” Janel teased, hand over her heart, and Bailey rolled her eyes.
“Look, I’m an extremely intuitive person,” she answered, puffing out her chest with pride.
“Oh yeah, you deserve a standing ovation from the rest of the student body in here,” Janel said, and we all started laughing. After that light moment, however, thoughts crept relentlessly back into my mind, turning me glum again.
“So what should I do now?” I was pathetic. I should have just said it was over for me, that I was going to move on and find someone else to date. Instead, here I was brainstorming ways to fix things with Neil.
What a dummy.
“Forget about words of love, Selene. What Neil needs is substance, not style,” Bailey jumped in again, like she knew the man better than I did. To be fair, my friend seemed to be better at interpreting my Disaster’s thought process than I was. “He doesn’t believe in love, right? Then you need to love him without explicitly telling him you love him. Love him when you look at him, when you hold him, when you talk to him, when you joke together, and when you have sex. He clearly doesn’t want to hear the words, and he won’t accept them,” she concluded.
