Mr. Johnson, my teacher of English back in Ohio, was always one for controversies. He didn't necessarily partake in any of it or even agreed with what he preached. He just liked to drop little bombs once and awhile, fuelling up a heavy debate while he watched enthralled from the sidelines. He particularly liked to do that when things were progressing very slowly in class and everyone was either asleep or half way there. He'd slowly put his chalk down, settle himself on top of his desk and look around the class while clearly musing something in his head. The next words he'd utter would either be followed by gasps or disbelieving laughs. The thing is, we all knew he did it because he wanted to lure us into reacting and participating in a debate. As much as he appreciated the diversity of English literature, he wasn't a big fan of following the rules when it came to teaching us the subject he was supposed too. He wasn't big of many rules actually. So we all figured after a while why he'd make such outrageous statements and that he more than probably didn't support them himself. From then on there was an unwritten rule, that no matter what he'd say we wouldn't react to it. Just to piss him off. But then he'd piss us even more of by actually giving us a load of grammatical assignments and dictation after dictation. Something that wouldn't be out of the ordinary with any other English teacher. But Mr. Johnson wasn't ordinary. He was the teacher we'd love to hate. The one of who's lessons we'd endlessly dread out loud, but secretly wouldn't miss for the world.
When Mr. Johnson was tired of our lackluster behavior at the very end of a blistering hot day, he dropped his chalk again and placed himself on top of his desk again. We knew what was coming and we couldn't dread it any more. Because whatever he'd say there's no way anyone would have any power within them to argue their heart out at that particular moment. But when he adjusted his glasses, looked my way and said that love did not exist, every ounce of tiredness left my body. Every trace of sleep vacated my features as I immediately sat up. The unwritten rule was non-existent for me at that point. I did not care that this was his little trap to lure me into arguing with him. Because I did. I bickered, I debated, I quarreled with my entire heart. I poured my whole heart out into the arguments I threw at him. I didn't even gave a chance to my fellow students to give their point of view. It was pretty much a one hour monologue on my behalf which ended with me being breathless and flustered and Mr. Johnson regarding me with a victorious smirk. He gave me my highest grade ever that semester. Back then I was naïve enough to think it was because I convinced him of the existence of love. Now I realize he merely gave me that grade because I fell for his scheme and showed passion in my speech. If Mr. Johnson did believe in love, than it wasn't because of my testament. Because it wasn't a testament. Back then I didn't knew what true love was. True love was fictional TV-characters you were rooting for to get together and stay together season after season. It was the tears that fell from your eyes when they'd break up. It was the contented sighs you'd let out when they'd finally get back together in that epic final.
Love was a TV-show.
Love was fictional.
Love was utopian.
I never got to convince Mr. Johnson about the existence of love, because I didn't knew what love was. And the little smirk he displayed way back then, told me he knew all along. If I were to be in that same classroom again with Mr. Johnson making that same statement again at this point, I don't know whether I would've uttered a word. I don't know if I would even disagree with his outrageous declaration because love took such a different turn in my life in one year. In one year I got to experience my version of love and some of its cruel consequences. But right know, I am no longer that fourteen year-old girl who was so convinced of the existence of love. And even if I was, that didn't mean that I automatically connected it with something good, something that I needed and had to have. I'm so sure anymore that love still exists or certainly not the pure image I had of it once. Love made me happier than I ever was, but it also made me sadder than I could remember. Love existed, I think. But did it last? And did it bring you joy or grief? Was it really worth all the sacrifices we made for them?
I've been sitting here motionlessly, watching the same waves crashing that I watched earlier on. Only it isn't the same. Because the person that made my whole perception of love change for both the better and the worse, is sitting right beside me. No words have been uttered since she draped my shoulders with that jacket of hers. No whispers, no yells, no comfort or discontent were exhibited. She just soundlessly sat next to me and I soundlessly let her. Just like that, we've been sitting here for an amount of time that I cannot perceive. We've had so many days like these before. Where we'd come here together or separately only the find the other already to be present, and simply sit in the cold sand and take the scenes in front of us. Listening to only the sounds of the eponymous ocean. Those moments were the times where our love and connection rang the loudest. Every single time we'd find ourselves here, our silent words would let us in on each others secrets and enhance the bond between us. This situation we are finding ourselves in now is so familiar but at the same time so foreign. Conditions have changed and I don't know if the same rules as before apply anymore. And it's that same state of mind that makes me ponder how to act and not act.
It's that state of mind that makes me break the first of our unvoiced rules. I slowly shift my eyes from that safe and familiar sight in front of me to the, once also safe and familiar, sight next to me. I'm feeling bold and audacious as I take in her form unabashedly. Her face that seems to be so concentrated and collected. Too concentrated and collected. She feels my eyes on her features and unlike me, she does no dare to break our rules of safety just yet. She's yet to be brave enough to take that next uncalculated step into the unknown like I just did. She's not even valiant enough to close her eyes and run from it all, because a gesture like that would mean a form of alteration. Something that she seems not to be ready for yet. And it makes me wonder if she truly did mean the things she has written to me. Because the only thing she's been trying to let me know was that she was willing to change, she was willing to be a different person. A person that would not repeat the hurtful actions she once did so carelessly. She made me promise to wait for her until she did indeed change. And whether it was consciously or unconsciously, I promised her I would and I did. I don't know if I came here tonight in the hopes to find her here or to be found. I don't know if I came her tonight to start my long process of waiting for my grief to be undone, for my happiness to start, for her to have changed. Maybe I just came here because I wanted to do what she had done and escape. Maybe she was still in the process of escaping when she came here and saw my silhouette in the faint glow of the full moon. Or maybe she was trying to prove to me that Mr. Johnson was wrong and that the fourteen year-old me was right all along.
Her presence next to mine is both refreshing as it is intoxicating and I start to feel the same emotions I felt when I read that first letter of hers. I don't know what to think anymore or what to expect. Everything that is going through my mind makes absolutely no sense, this whole scene that we both partake in makes no sense and I don't know whether I should relish it or dread it. The only thing I'm sure of is that the beauty of her features will never fade and no matter how hard I try they will never be lost on me. And for a moment I envy that feeling, I envy the power of those objective assets because I wish that everything could be that easy and constant sometimes. And just then I notice a barely-there-movement in her soft lips and the unexpected makes its entrance. The counterpart of my shifting gaze is about the take their place on the center stage. And for the second time tonight, a rule of ours will be broken.
"There are so many things I want to say, but I don't know how." She whispers dejected into the night, her eyes never leaving the view in front of her. Not wanting to break all the rules at the same time. "I had more than five months to think this over, to finalize what I was going to say and right now I got nothing." She bitterly sighs. My eyes don't leave her face and my voice doesn't even dare to make the slightest of sounds. Outwardly my body seems to be completely frozen, yet inwardly I find myself to be in the middle of a heated frenzy. I understand how she feels, because how many times did I not replay this scene in my head again and again. How many times did I not tell her off in my mind, did I not yell and scream and cried to show her just how she made me feel when she abandoned me so carelessly. How many times did I not kiss her passionately as she said she was sorry over and over again and I forgave her every single time. But not one of those scenarios has become reality. Because love does not equal an unrealistic TV-show storyline for me anymore.
"I changed, I swear I did." She assures me hoarsely, "But I'm still getting there. I just needed to know that you were still here. That you were still here for me." She sighs heavily and I realize just how hard this must be for her. "Because I want to be here for you now. I'm tired of waiting. I want you to be a part of this, because I'm doing this for you. For us." Her voice gets steadier with every word she utters, with every promise she makes. But that does not mean that the tremble in her lips is disappearing or that her eyes are finally brave enough to face mine. For a moment I find myself losing all the resolve I've been putting up these last few months and I have a terribly hard time to keep myself from touching her again. From comforting her, because no matter what she has done in the past. No matter how much hurt she caused to me, I know she never did it intentionally and I know that I'd never let her feel the same way I did if I had the power to lessen it or end it completely.
"I miss you, Spencer." And she whispers that heartfelt confession with a wounded voice filled with regret, she breaks a third rule of ours by looking back at me. By letting her dark eyes meet mine in this familiar and safe place, in these hours of darkness where nothing seems to be calculated and everything seems to be spontaneous. Where the rules we've worked so hard on establishing are being broken so effortlessly and where we don't even mind it. Where I can finally prove Mr. Johnson that love was not fictional nor utopian. Where I can finally prove that love does exist. Because a fourteen year-old naïve girl, he can deny. But how can he deny this connection, this power that surges between us after everything we've been through. After all the hurt and pain and anguish that found their place in our lives.
"I miss you too."
Love is us.