"Lesson on Love" (Life Sketch)

Piglet once asked Pooh, “How do you spell love?”

Pooh simply replied, “You don’t spell it. You feel it.”

As a young teenager, I could never quite understand what Pooh fully meant. Of course, love is an emotion that you experience, but was it truly that simple, or was there more complexity to it? I had watched other couples who were “in love”. They gave one another extravagant gifts, spent most of their days together, and text messaged often; their love was defined by their actions and gifts, and when they broke up, the people would simply refocus their “love” onto a new person, someone who could reciprocate their affections. At 14, I hopped on this train of love as I began a relationship with R. B. T.

He was someone unexpected, someone who I barely even knew. With a few years ahead of me, he seemed so cool, collected, and experienced by how he would strut down the sidewalk or lean against his car when he came to pick me up. After a few months together, he had lavished me with sweet gifts, charming text messages, and warm affections. Like a playful puppy, my loyalties and attention became his, as I gave my heart to him fully and selflessly. I was convinced I understood love. We felt it deep in our bones and expressed love daily. If the world were watching, they would applaud our performance.

The time that we shared were filled with moments of sheer bliss, and moments of utter darkness. Nevertheless, we always had love, or so I thought until that night...

It was a normal school night, one like any other. We were chatting on the phone, our conversation filled with normalcy and familiarity. I laughed and smiled as I told him a joke that I heard during that day at school. I waited for his husky chuckle, but it never came. A deafening silence filled my ear. I could hear his muffled breathing, slow and deep. This is odd, I thought, Can he maybe not hear me? Seconds ticked away, but it felt like eternal minutes. In confusion, I gently whispered his name, seeking some form of acknowledgement and reciprocation. All I could hear through the phone was the squeaking of his chair as he fidgeted and shifted nervously. My palms began to sweat, and my heart pounded heavily. My intuition knew something was not right, but my heart pleaded that everything was.

“Is everything alright?” I tentatively asked. “If you’re tired, you can go to----“

“Let’s…just be friends,” he said as he cleared his throat. “I think it would be better for me.”

The words echoed in my ear, progressively getting louder with every passing second. A lump formed in my throat as my mouth became dry. A deep dropping feeling filled the pit of my stomach, and the world around me began to spin. I closed my eyes, fighting the sting of vulnerability welling up inside of me. With every ounce of courage left me in, I trusted myself to speak.

“Why?” I asked, clenching my fists to keep my voice as even as possible. “It’s out of the blue.”

“It’s just,” he began, in a low and even whisper, “there’s so many things I want to do, like exercise more, play football, meet girls, and be with my friends. You’re holding me back from that.”

Silence. I stared at the phone in disbelief. Did I comprehend this absurdness correctly?

“How can you say that?” I cried, abandoning all composure I once had. “How can you even begin to say those things when all I did was support you and help you? How?!” My voice became shriller, as I realized that perhaps the last nine months of my life meant nothing to him; my loyalty, my commitment, my heart, and my love perhaps meant nothing to him, when it had meant everything to me.

He only drove the knife deeper in the wound when he said, “My mom suggested we just be friends. And yeah, you know, it would be good for me…and you.”

Without speaking another word, I hung up the phone. I shivered as fresh tears fled my eyes; I gasped for air as if I was drowning. In the midst of the shatters of my heart, I could feel my mother wrap her arms around me. Nestled in the safety of her embrace, my breathing slowed, but my chest still ached. From that moment, I realized the train of love was wrong; Pooh was right. Love can only be felt.

R. B. T. could only recognize love, but he did not feel it, while I realized that pain comes with knowing how love feels. My eyes were opened that day; I learned that some only know how to spell love, while others with hearts on their sleeves, only know how it feels to love, and how love feels.