8/5/12

Falling Out from In
By Alyssa


How do you explain the difference between loving and being in love to someone who has only ever been unconditionally in love with you? Where does that thin, desolate line begin amidst a seemingly perfect union of bodies? When did standing, sitting, laying, eating, and living next to someone begin to feel lonely?

That moment of clarity hits like the nails of a clenching fist slowly breaking the edges of your heart until a piece falls and crashes. And that's when you know. It's not right anymore. We live our lives together tangled in daily tasks, and somehow they're just daily tasks again – nothing magical or sparkly remains. I'm not the kind to run once the initial fireworks are over, I like to bask in the night heat for a long time after. But sometimes, sometimes you just feel alone in the dark. And that's when you know. It's not right anymore.

The look in his eyes says more than the words falling from his mouth. On his knees, afraid of the future and scared to face it without me. Tears fall freely from us both without judgment. Breaking hearts isn't easy, especially when you have to break your own to do so. People don't understand the beating a heart must endure when its hurting the one person it never wanted to hurt. The love will always be there, but that feeling of being right for each other has been missing and I ignored it for too long. I wish I could comfort him, because I love him, but he doesn't believe it anymore. He doesn't believe me.

Weeks pass and I watch the hatred build in his heart. I hear the bitterness in his voice when we speak. He questions my motives, what went wrong, what he did wrong. Nothing, absolutely nothing. It just wasn't right anymore.

“I gave you everything, and I loved you so much,” he says. Sometimes, though it hurts to even begin to think this sad truth, sometimes that's not enough. I can't say my efforts were the same. They never were, and the distance shows me all the ways I could have tried harder, made a greater effort, and I simply refrained for a reason that I now know: I wasn't in love anymore, and I couldn't hide the truth from the my body.

Sometimes we fall into love and sometimes we fall out, and it rips me apart to know the latter can happen without so much as a warning. Sometimes you simply wake up one morning and realize it has been happening for some time. Sometimes you don't realize it until your body makes you feel it physically; a sharp shooting pain to the gut that begs your head to listen to your heart just this once. As much as it hurts, there's nothing to be done but find a way to conclude this chapter. Sometimes, it's just not right anymore.

I understand exactly how he feels, and I hoped that life would never lead me to do this to someone. I understand, and that is what makes this so fucking hard. Though being left behind is unbearable, I believe there is one position worse – looking into the eyes of someone you love and stealing every last ounce of light from them.

What's the difference between loving someone and being in love with someone? One small preposition that carries the weight of every broken heart trying desperately to explain that sometimes... sometimes it's just not right anymore.


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Alyssa is a college girl who likes mimosas, cigarettes, and crafting. She's a nostalgic, a romantic, and basically every other word in the English language pertaining to emotions. She resides and attends a University in the heights of an East coast mountain range. Her major is in dead languages, and her life is as crazy as her mood swings. She writes almost solely about the heart as an outlet to heal her own.