A Love Like This

He stood under her bedroom window and threw a pebble at the glass. The faint tink against it turned her head to her crossed window frame, and she gripped the aged wood, thrusting it upward. She looked down in the silver blue night and saw him standing humbly beneath her room outside, smiling as proud as any boy could.

“Hey, you,” she folded her hands on the ledge and rested her chin on them, looking down in admiration.

“Hey,” he waved bashfully. They stared at each other blissfully, dreaming of a paradox: eternal silence in each other’s presence while equally longing for the other’s voice to speak forever. “I wanted to ask you a question,” he mustered through a paralyzing blush.

She smiled wide and suddenly stood up from the window and held up her pointer finger for him to wait. He took a step back, assuming the worst, but watched through the window a white sweatshirt hoodie drop over her body. He heard the bedroom door squeak and quietly click shut. He stood in the longest silence of his life; his anticipation chilled the soft breeze in the night sky against his skin into a gale of frozen worry.

Finally, she turned the corner outside the house and tried to approach at the right pace in her mind – certainly eager to be face-to-face with him but careful to slow the experience. She combed her hair behind her ear and looked down, flaunting a T-pattern of freckles between her eyes and down her nose. He twiddled his fingers and felt his tongue dry up in an instant. “I, um…” his face turned red like a hot plate coil burning. “I was wondering if you…”

His stumbling and stuttering calmed her nerves, assuring her it wasn’t just her who felt this way. “Wondering if what?” she asked softly.

They locked eyes. He thought to himself how the starry night hanging above them could never match the galaxy in her eyes, and if the sun came up it could never warm him like she warmed his heart. “I had a great time with you last night...”

“Me too,” she agreed uncontrollably; thinking to herself how time disappeared when she was with him and how slowly the world turned when they spoke, like each second ticked slower and slower, just for her to stay by his side longer.

“I was wondering if… you wanted to be my girlfriend.”

She tried so hard to speak, as if she planned to catalogue this night for her friends and family, for their eventual children together, but she realized her breathlessness was a better story. After she tried to respond, she found herself nodding gleefully.

He took a step back and breathed a loud sigh of relief, like a thousand bricks had just been lifted off his back. “Really?”

“Yes. I would love to.” She awkwardly extended her hand to meet his. They grazed pinky fingers, which wrapped around each other and then interlocked finger by finger until they were holding both of each other’s hands. They stood together face-to-face, marveling at how lucky they were to be together.

He inched his head forward, she lifted her chin up. They closed in and kissed sweetly under the moon. They pulled back and each felt emotions impossible to write in words. Neither could tell if it was from the moonlight or if they really were glowing. “I gotta get home,” he whispered.

“Okay,” she understood, though she smiled until her cheeks swelled up like balloons. Their hands slowly pulled away from each other until he stepped far enough away to be out of arms reach, suddenly feeling miles apart.

He shoved his right hand in his jean pocket and waved at her. She waved back. He turned around the corner of the house and left.

She stood barefoot in the cold grass with droplets of dew starting to form between her toes; and she thought that if she stayed still she wouldn’t risk the chance this was actually a dream. The love swirling in the cauldron of her heart was mixed with a sudden potion of grief – the inevitability of reality would come crashing down and convince her that this love would be too good to be true. A love like this could only be written in a story, never between two flawed and fallible humans. The weight of her anxiety pressed against her heart and shackled her emotions; she felt convinced that, in time, like the love she had seen pass by, would be doomed. And now – just a moment ago, captivated in a weightless spell of perfect and pure love – she was so scared to see him again, discovering once more why she was mocked as a hopeless romantic.

As he reached his hand out of his jean pocket and pulled his keys out to unlock his car, he thought to himself that if he stopped walking, if he stopped moving, if he thought even for a moment about the night, it would catch up to him and, like a lawyer, charge him foolish for falling for the common trap of young love. He unlocked his car and sat inside, suddenly motionless; and voices crept in his thoughts to persuade him of their apostasies against love.

“How could they be so naïve?” they both thought.

“What were they thinking?” they both thought.

“Why did they allow themselves to be carried away by the moment?” they both thought.

“This will be just like all the other times.”

“They’ll tell us how wrong we were.”

They both felt hopeless.

In a moment of despair, they wallowed in the message the world often burdens children with, masking the pessimism as a forewarning to avoid heartbreak. Don’t get your hopes up, the world told them. Soon, those fears filled inside them like canisters of toxic waste, slowly hardening their hearts as not to be disappointed once more by love. They expected the worst.

But in a brief second, only through divine inspiration, he thought a different thought. In the midst of a thousand reasons why he shouldn’t fall in love, he pondered on the one reason he should. A revelation that shined light in the halls of darkness and lifted his spirits, bringing courage and hope. Despite the conviction to avoid a frail perception of love, he took a chance to risk it all by thinking of the best reason he should fall head over heels. That reason was her.

She is the reason he feels courage when he is weak, the confidence in his life. She is the joy that overtakes his soul when everything tries to weigh it down. She is his best friend and his comfort at the end of the day. She is his pride, and she is proof of everlasting love.

He suddenly exited his car and walked back to the house.

At that same moment she had a thought, only through divine inspiration, to conquer the lies that told her love was cursed, that love was an unfulfilled promise – she found her reason to fall in love. Her reason was him.

He is her rock in the midst of a storm and a refuge that keeps her safe. He is her laughter and bliss in the chaos of life; a center of happiness in a world of gloom. He is her closest friend and her treasure. He is her pride, and he is proof of everlasting love.

He turned the corner of the house and saw her still standing barefoot in the wet grass waiting for him. She took a step towards him and they came together in an embrace. Through confession they admitted those awful lies to each other that tried to tear them apart. They expressed in honesty what worried them and met each other with compassion and comfort. They were patient. They were kind. They were forgiving. They knew they were flawed. They were in love. And they were forever.