What I’ve learned is the only kind of love that actually does last forever is also the one that can’t be controlled. I want him to love me because I still love fruit loops and popsicles, not because I pretend to only enjoy high-end delicacies that adults are supposed to crave.

I want him to love that I am crazy and different-and that I can rarely be found wearing shoes (or underwear for that matter). I want him to be able to make a mile-long list of all of my faults-and then say that he doesn’t love me in spite of them, but because of them. I want him to recognize the sound of my footsteps long before he sees my face. When someone falls in love with me, I want it to be for me-because of the woman am. I don’t want to have to primp in order to be found sexy, nor do I want to watch what I say, so that I only ever seem funny and cheerful-really, I don’t want to have to do anything. I suppose I just started to believe that the only love I want is also the one that I won’t ever have to work for. It’s the kind that sticks through anything, even when maybe all we want it to do is go away. I’ve realized that whatever you felt for me would be there, regardless of anything I did or said, because when it’s that real, can’t-quit-it-no-matter-what-we-do type of love, then it’s there forever. Was I hoping that you would fall in love with me enough to want to take a chance? Of course.īut I wasn’t trying to make it happen, nor did I spend a great deal of time thinking about it. I figured that if your emotions had become as strong as your passions, then perhaps someday you would let me in on all the secrets that your heart held-and until then, there’s nothing else I could possibly do to change that fact. I realized that-if after all we’ve been through, encountered, discussed-if after all of that history, you still hadn’t fallen in love with me…well, then nothing else I did or said would make a difference. Looking back, I didn’t conduct myself in a way to please you every minute, nor did I really do anything in particular, other than simply be myself I suppose. It’s not to say that I’m apathetic, but only that I’m not after winning your affections. This time, the only thought I have is-if you don’t love me by now, then you honestly never will.

There were times when I would sit and wonder who exactly I was to you-but not this time. We were the safest kind of danger, in a world where the very things we want are also those we are taught we should never have. That’s not to say either of us are “players,” but only that we’ve made our fair share of mistakes-or lessons, depending upon perspective. Sometimes we reach a point of no return-the final level of a game that we’ve been working on and strategizing for years.

“They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered.” ~ F.

If you don t love me now