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“I’m nervous to tell you that I don’t think I love you anymore.”
With these simple words in a text message my world came crashing down.
It is amazing how powerful words can be, especially when they are uttered, or in this case, texted, by the right person. I didn’t realize how much power this boy’s words had over me. Usually, his words only brought me happiness.
The first night we met was awkward and I don’t know how my words didn’t scare him away. Saying that I was kind of a bitch might be an understatement.
But he persisted and we went on our first date. We sat across from each other at dinner, both smiling and chewing our way through silent intervals. I thought it wouldn’t go anywhere because of a lack of conversation. This was one time even my nonstop talking couldn’t cover the silence.
While recapping my date, my friends insisted it was only because he didn’t know what words to use around me. Give him time, they said. He’ll talk more. He’s just intimidated by you right now.
They were right. He came out of his shell. His jokes made me laugh, and one night while driving, he made a sharp pun and I knew we were meant to be.
The months passed. His words made me trust him.
“I love you,” he told me.
“What if we move in together after you graduate?” he asked.
“You’re different than all the other girls,” he said.
And I believed him. Slowly I let go of my fears and chose to trust him. I took his words and mentally I began to build a future and a picture of our lives together.
I disregarded the words to which I should have paid more attention.
“With my other girlfriends, I just woke up one day and didn’t want to be with them anymore,” he confessed.
“Sometimes things get too hard, so I quit,” he admitted.
Then last week, he texted the words that tore my heart right out of my chest. Staring at my cell phone screen, I was paralyzed. I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t move. This couldn’t be real.
But it was, and as we met to exchange belongings I lashed out and hoped that my words would hurt him as much as his did to me.
“You’re a quitter and a coward!” I shouted.
“I wish you weren’t doing this,” I quietly pleaded.
“I’m sorry,” he simply said.
“Your words don’t mean SHIT to me anymore,” I replied.
But of course that wasn’t true. His words meant too much, but damn if he was going to know that.
It was the words of my friends and family that got me through the next couple days. I took comfort in hearing the names they called him and tried to believe them when they told me he wasn’t the one.
Just when I was beginning to feel like maybe the world wasn’t going to end, I got another text from him. This time it was 5 a.m. on a Sunday.
“I think I made a horrible mistake,” it read.
I ignored him, but answered my phone when he called three times immediately after.
He repeated what he said in the text and struggled to elaborate.
“I haven’t felt like myself these past few days; I had everything I could want and threw it all away and you were right. I am a quitter,” he admitted.
I withheld the words I wanted to say. I did not tell him that I was relieved he called, or that I was more than happy to talk things out or that I wanted more than anything to forget these past few days and go back to how we were.
Instead, I told him that I didn’t know what to say, that he was drunk and should call me in the morning. He agreed and we hung up.
I spent the next few hours rebuilding our future in my mind. It wasn’t exactly the same. It was a little askew, which happens when you smash something and put the pieces back together. But we would be stronger for it, and someday we would look back and laugh as we told our children about how their parents got together.
He didn’t call the next day, or the next.
And this time it was his silence that said it all.
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Julia Yugel at Julia.yugel@colorado.edu.
