Alice once emailed me years ago, before she'd ever met Jasper and found her own fairytale, asking how I knew I was in love with Mike. God knows that was a stupid question to ask, though I was still naive enough to think I had a shot of even coming close to knowing how to describe what it was to truly be in love.
Admittedly, we were both blind. I blame the ridiculous notion that every high school senior turned college freshmen hangs on to, that high school relationships are bound to last forever. And from the outside sure, it looked picture perfect. I wasn't a narcissist but I'd spent enough time around the ego-boosting Alice to know that I was attractive. And Mike was the all-around American boy classic, with blonde hair and blue eyes to go along with his stereotypically perfect position as quarterback on the high school football team. It didn't hurt that with Alice playing Bella Barbie half the time, I was always a "vision of perfection" at his side. Words that Mike would use all the time. God knows that they sounded pathetic coming out of his mouth, but I was 18. Most 18 year olds love that shit, don't they? I did. At least, I thought I did. Until that stupid email.
To: bswan
From: acullen
Re: Advice requested of you, oh wise one.
Ignore butt-face professor up in the front and be serious with me for a sec. How do you know you're in love? Clearly if you've found it with ass-face Mike, it's got to be a miracle.
I thought it was a joke at first. As attractive and charismatic as Mike could sometimes be, Alice had seen through that since the day she moved to Forks and set foot in our high school. But the way that she looked at me as I shot her a skeptical glance said otherwise—her eyes were wide and hopeful, and she was biting down on the edge of her lip ever-so-slighty, pleadingly. With a huff, I immediately replied to her email.
To: acullen
From: bswan
Re: Advice denied, oh wise-ass.
You'd better be taking some amazing notes right now and hope that the professor doesn't catch us screwing around. Honestly. What the hell kind of question is this.
P.S. If they kick us out in our first semester here I'll know it's because of your ridiculous emails.
To: bswan
From: acullen
Re: Advice re-requested, wise but boring one
Quit being a party-pooper! We both know you stayed up until fuck-o'clock in the morning making sure you knew the material in case he asked you anything. Which for the record, he never does. He loves the sound of his voice too much…
I shot her a grin. Alice loved inventing words, and "fuck-o'-clock" was her latest favorite. I had to admit it was growing on me.
To: acullen
From: bswan
Re: You're in charge of deleting these emails from my account
Ugh, fine. Little demon. Only because you used "fuck-o'-clock," you know how much I love that shit. But you owe me.
She rolled her eyes at me before shooting back her last response.
To: bswan
From: acullen
Re: EEEEEEEEEEEE I win!
I absolutely adore how much of a potty-mouth I'm making you, my dear Bella. Now get to typing! C'mon, I'm being serious for once in my life. Who knows when you'll ever have this opportunity again?! And I'll take your stupid notes for you for when you freak out about missing ten minutes of class tonight :P So see? All problems solved.
I smiled to myself before opening up a new email, thinking it couldn't hurt to kill ten or fifteen minutes of the seminar. But an hour and twenty minutes later just as I hit send, Alice started nudging me and whispering that class was about to end.
To: acullen
From: bswan
Re: Well, here goes.
First off, fucking hell Alice. Again, I can't believe you're asking me this. I just…fuck. I can't even think straight. Because how can you explain being in love, explain exactly what that feeling is like? It's 6,000 different emotions, you know that. There's not…fuck.
Do you see how much you have me cursing? They'll kick me out because of this email, I'm sure of it. I'll focus, though. You do seem...serious. But you owe me an explanation for this one. Anyway. Here's my best shot:
I suppose I'd say it's sort of like a roller coaster ride. Analogy for the prospective English major, I know. But bear with me, it fits. There's the rush and excitement and the adrenaline piece to it obviously that makes it hard to think and makes the world around you disappear, and that turns your stomach inside out in ways you never knew possible. Ways that you'd imagined and thought about, of course, but ways that in the end, are so much more terrifying and breathtaking than you'd ever expected. The ups and the downs are the most cliched part of it all clearly—what's love if anything but a cliche after all. But here's the thing, it just continued to fit. Because certainly parts of the ride are more fearful than they are exhilarating, but in the end, it's the exhilarating parts that really keep you going, and the entire reason you get on the ride in the first place. Because despite being completely petrified, it's worth it just for those few seconds where the wind is hitting your face at 60 miles an hour and you're coasting, and your smile is so huge that your cheeks are starting to ache.
Then there's the stability to it of course, and the trust in something that'll really keep you grounded. Obviously in this analogy that's the seatbelt, or the bar that holds you down in roller coasters, or whatever it is. Bear with me on the cliche, like I said. But Ali, it's perfect—because you're trusting in something that is really supposed to work, and 99 percent of the time it does, but with that rush and sheer joy that can't really be quantified outside of the beating of your heart, there's a certain precariousness to it all. You don't know if you'll be part of the 1 percent where the seatbelt stops working, and where suddenly you're veering off the tracks and headed to a place that you thought about only briefly in the recesses of your mind. But suddenly it's right in front of you and you're forced to face the fears you'd never really thought through and you're not even remotely close to learning how to deal with them.
Or sometimes, the ride ends, and you just wonder what happened, and why it's over. And sometimes, it was satisfying in the end, and though there's a certain sadness about being finished with the experience, you're happy to move on. Happy to hop onto the next ride and find that thrill again. Or maybe you're sick of roller coasters, maybe it's something you can only really enjoy when the moment is right. Or maybe you stay on that roller coaster for years. And after a while, you start to get used to it, and the twists and turns don't jolt you, turn your stomach upside-down in the way that they used to. But there's a real comfort in the familiarity, and a security in knowing that you've made it this far. That's where love really starts to develop, if you're able to find that. Getting through things, experiencing the rushes and the ups and the downs together.
There was so much more I wanted to write, so much more I wanted to say about when things stall out, when inevitably you're sick of roller coasters in a way that isn't just tiring, but in a way that's painful. When the anticipation and exhilaration becomes nothing more than a pit of dread in your stomach, when the jolts as the car skits across the track physically cause you pain. But time was up, and the other students were already walking out of the classroom.
"You owe me for this," I muttered to Alice, throwing my laptop haphazardly into my bag and heading towards the door. God, there weren't enough words in the world for how confused I felt in that moment.
I heard her footsteps come quickly behind me before her arm looped through mine, and barely registered her babbling about the lecture and steering me towards the dining hall. Because all I could think of was that I'd just spent the past hour and some trying to find the words to describe what it was like to be in love. And not once, and certainly not in any positive context, did I ever mention Mike Newton's name.
Let me know what you think if you can! I'm hoping to continue this.
xo
-t.p.a