This is not a story about love. This is not a story about hate. This is
not a story about music or clothes, or teen angst.
This is not a story at all, it is real, and it is about me. A boy, growing into a man he does not know.
It began when my father moved himself, my sister and I to a small town in the Colorado Mountains. It began because I could no longer lose myself in the chaos that everyone else calls New York.
I fell in love the first day I went to school, with a girl named Amy who was not a girl I would have chosen to fall in love with.
Amy was beautiful, she was funny, and for a while, it seemed like she was interested. But not for long.
I don't know why I fell for her. I don't. And I don't know why I stopped falling, but I did. All I know, beyond Amy, is that my life was pointless, meaningless, empty.
We kissed. But it wasn't the heaven I had supposed it would be. I had this feeling, right under my breastbone, like someone was slamming a hammer into my lungs. It felt awful, and I wanted to throw up. It went away overnight, though, so I figured that it was a fluke. That I was fine, and that it had only been my heart beating against my chest, so hard, because I loved her so much, and she had rejected me.
The next time we kissed, though, I couldn't deny it. It was a nice kiss, leaned in and our lips and our tongues were together, and afterward, after I was gone from her sight, I felt even more empty than I had before. I felt hollow.
That night, after my sister yelled at me over how our mother wasn't alive anymore, and after my father retreated to his room to cry, I sat in front of the piano, my fingers on the keys, with nothing coming out.
And I began to cry. Because the feeling was there again, and I couldn't blame the fact that she pulled away, because she didn't, and I couldn't blame the fact that it had been awkward, because it hadn't.
I could only blame myself.
But I didn't. If I had, I may have saved Laney and myself a lot of ache. I thought that it was fine, that maybe it had been my idealization of Amy that got me in all that trouble around her.
I was wrong. I liked holding Laney's hand, and I liked what we did, until I realized that she might not be just playing, she might not be smiling over the shallowness of what was going on like I was.
I gave it one more shot. I thought that maybe if she knew what I was feeling-nervous, happy, elated-that she would give it one more shot. And she did. But when we kissed that night, it was hell too. I came home, and the ache was there, under my breastbone, sinking into my soul like lead.
I wasn't capable of love. I wasn't capable of love.
I cried that night, and the next, and the next. And I decided that there must be something wrong with me, must be. I wasn't capable of love, I wasn't human, I wasn't actually a guy, I wasn't ready.
Feedback is appreciated.
This is not a story at all, it is real, and it is about me. A boy, growing into a man he does not know.
It began when my father moved himself, my sister and I to a small town in the Colorado Mountains. It began because I could no longer lose myself in the chaos that everyone else calls New York.
I fell in love the first day I went to school, with a girl named Amy who was not a girl I would have chosen to fall in love with.
Amy was beautiful, she was funny, and for a while, it seemed like she was interested. But not for long.
I don't know why I fell for her. I don't. And I don't know why I stopped falling, but I did. All I know, beyond Amy, is that my life was pointless, meaningless, empty.
We kissed. But it wasn't the heaven I had supposed it would be. I had this feeling, right under my breastbone, like someone was slamming a hammer into my lungs. It felt awful, and I wanted to throw up. It went away overnight, though, so I figured that it was a fluke. That I was fine, and that it had only been my heart beating against my chest, so hard, because I loved her so much, and she had rejected me.
The next time we kissed, though, I couldn't deny it. It was a nice kiss, leaned in and our lips and our tongues were together, and afterward, after I was gone from her sight, I felt even more empty than I had before. I felt hollow.
That night, after my sister yelled at me over how our mother wasn't alive anymore, and after my father retreated to his room to cry, I sat in front of the piano, my fingers on the keys, with nothing coming out.
And I began to cry. Because the feeling was there again, and I couldn't blame the fact that she pulled away, because she didn't, and I couldn't blame the fact that it had been awkward, because it hadn't.
I could only blame myself.
But I didn't. If I had, I may have saved Laney and myself a lot of ache. I thought that it was fine, that maybe it had been my idealization of Amy that got me in all that trouble around her.
I was wrong. I liked holding Laney's hand, and I liked what we did, until I realized that she might not be just playing, she might not be smiling over the shallowness of what was going on like I was.
I gave it one more shot. I thought that maybe if she knew what I was feeling-nervous, happy, elated-that she would give it one more shot. And she did. But when we kissed that night, it was hell too. I came home, and the ache was there, under my breastbone, sinking into my soul like lead.
I wasn't capable of love. I wasn't capable of love.
I cried that night, and the next, and the next. And I decided that there must be something wrong with me, must be. I wasn't capable of love, I wasn't human, I wasn't actually a guy, I wasn't ready.
Feedback is appreciated.