When I Thought I Could Love a Boy
When I loved a boy, I was sixteen, and in typical sixteen year old fashion, the boy I loved took up every square inch of space in my brain. I loved a boy that loved me dearly, but not in the way that would make him say it, unless he was a little too high, and not in the way that would ever make him kiss me. But he loved me dearly enough to cry on the phone, and rub my back when I’d been drinking, and still be my friend even after saying “I love you” when I shouldn’t have.
When I loved a boy who took everything a bit too seriously, I started taking everything a bit too seriously. I wanted to talk about religion and biology and addiction and occupation and sex, because he was good at talking about those sorts of things. And the days when I felt luckiest, and arguably the most in love, would be the days when he would pause his rantings to offer up a question of his own, like “how long do girls orgasm for?” or “wait, you get your period for 28 days?! Oh, that’s the whole cycle? Wait, what does that mean?” So on and so forth.
When I loved a boy who asked me questions, I realized that trying to be smart felt sexier than trying to be skinny. And I was smart, or at least I was sensible, which is just another word for scared shitless, but he never called it that. He said I was responsible, and cautious, and had a good head on my shoulders. When I loved a boy who said things like that, I knew what he was really saying. “You’re unfuckable. I will never want to fuck you.” And he didn’t, but that was okay, because as much as I wanted to, I wasn’t ready to fuck a boy I loved.
When I loved a boy who would be going away for college, I wrote a lot of songs, and the more songs I wrote, the more I realized that I needed to fall out of love with him, otherwise I would never be able to see him again. So I wrote about loving him, and sometimes about hating him for not loving me any more than dearly, and finally, I wrote about never getting to kiss him, or feel his hand rubbing my back sober, and how that was okay. And it was. One day he would love a girl, and she would be smart and yet totally fuckable, and it would all be okay.
When I thought I could love a boy again, I was nineteen, and in typical nineteen year old fashion, I acted like I was twenty two. I hyped up my “wild” highschool career to girls who’d just so happened to have even lamer teenage years than I’d had, and stopped shaving my vagina. I started taking medication and tried to exercise and skipped classes, and realized that most of my friendships had been kept out of convenience, and I didn’t want to be convenient anymore. But then, also in typical nineteen year old fashion, I was horny and wanted to be in love again. So when I thought I could love a boy, I jumped in with both feet.
When I thought I could love a boy, he was six three and a chain smoker. He talked about being a former sex addict, and how he was scared of falling back into a cashier job. He talked about me most of all, how I was kissable and funny and lovely and a good friend. He talked about my breasts and my laugh and kissed me while I was speaking and I thought “this is it.”
When I thought I could love a boy, his name was from a Beatles song and he didn’t have any hobbies. In all our time together, I only managed to curate a very short list of things about him. He was still in love with his ex-girlfriend and would give her all his money if he were to suddenly die. He bought a standing desk for better leg circulation and didn’t like talking every day. He liked watching videos of Amish people building log cabins and couldn’t make me cum. He wanted to own me sexually, ruin me for anyone else but couldn’t make me cum. He was still totally a sex addict when we met but he couldn’t. Make. Me. Cum.
When I thought I could love a boy, I became a stranger to myself, flaking on friends I missed to sit on his couch half-naked and embarrassed, GoPuffing a pregnancy test with the tiniest and most shameful part of myself hoping, fingers crossed, “please,” and letting him change his mind again, and again, and again. When I thought I could love a boy, I realized I already did, and that it was ruining me from the inside out.
When I loved a boy, he started getting harder to get a hold of. He wouldn’t pick up the phone, but would never be anywhere but his place. He declined SnapChat friend requests and stopped sharing his location with me. He told me, while erect, that “you’re too much for me right now. I’m trying to be better and I can’t keep around this kind of temptation,” while I was fully clothed and cooking him dinner. When I loved a boy who said things like that, I turned off the stove.
When I loved a boy who never wanted to see me again, I cried for about an hour. I didn’t get much further than that, because my phone interrupted me with a “Hey,” and I was so confused and happy that I jumped, still with both feet, at the chance to see him again. He told me he missed me, and that he just wanted to kiss me again.
When I loved a boy who said things like that, I spent thirty bucks on an Uber and tried to keep my hands from shaking the whole way there. He met me out front with a tote bag of hard seltzers. We watched Bojack on his couch, and I kept getting drunker and he kept getting handsier, and I told him no, again and again and again. And he told me he missed me from the other side of the couch, how he just wanted to kiss me again and again and again. When I loved a boy, I laid in bed next to him, stomach drying, and realized that I’d become convenient again and again and again.
When I loved a boy, he wouldn’t buy me breakfast the next morning, and pulled out after about two minutes because he was “forcing it,” and dropped me off with a kiss that told me “You’re unfuckable to me now. I will never want to fuck you again.” And he didn’t, but even though I didn’t know it then, that was okay, because I was never ready to fuck a boy who didn’t love me.
When I loved a boy, I saw him one last time. He handed me the bra I’d oh, so strategically left in his couch cushions, out in Dilworth park and hugged me like he felt sorry for me. He sent me on my way, and sitting on the subway I realized “this isn’t love. This isn’t love at all.”
When I thought I’d loved a boy, I was so angry at myself for wasting so much time, for disrespecting my body the way that I did, for ever, ever having to take a pregnancy test at nineteen. I’d always been smart, or at least I was sensible. I was responsible, and cautious, and had a good head on my shoulders. But now I was someone else. I was desperate, and defensive, and pliant and pathetic. I was a bad friend, a bad roommate, a bad daughter, and a bad student. I was a bad musician, and as much as I tried, the songs wouldn’t come. I was a sex addict. I was a liar. I was prodigiously embarrassed, like I was getting paid for it. I didn’t care about loving a boy, I cared about fucking one. I just wanted to be someone new, someone who hadn’t been so stupid and so easy. So, in typical nineteen year old fashion, I slept around.
When I fucked a boy, I realized I hated car sex. There’s really very little fantasy to be had when a seatbelt buckle is digging so hard into your pelvis, you feel like you could pass out. I realized I was fucking drunk, and it didn’t scare me anymore, and how much that scared me. I forgot names, I forgot nights all together, and didn’t tell a soul. When I fucked a boy, I realized I did become someone new, an actress with decades under her belt, who knew every dirty sound, word and gesture to get him there. When I fucked a boy, I stopped trying to cum because I knew I wouldn’t anyway, so why waste the finger cramp?
When I fucked a boy, I was out of my depth. It was almost one in the morning, and his apartment smelled like a Target. His bed wasn’t made and his laundry was all over the floor and he kissed me when I was speaking and I thought “this is it.” Fear and sex don’t mix——I never thought I would have to realize that——but I did.
When I fucked a boy, he slapped me across the face, and everything froze. He looked so confused, so eager to keep going but I was smart, or at least I was sensible, and I pushed him as hard as I could until we broke apart.
When I was slapped by a boy, I cried and screamed at him to “just stay away from me!” And I ran as fast as I could out of that Target apartment. I was a stranger to myself, walking home half-naked and embarrassed, but it was over. No more.
When I looked in the mirror, my cheek was red, my eyes were red, everything I saw was red. How dare I– no. How dare he? Without asking? Without letting me finish speaking? He just, and I didn’t ask for that. I didn’t ask for any of this.
When I loved a girl, Lexapro was really not working for her. After the slap, she needed a change of pace, so it was Wellbutrin and biweekly therapy and lots and lots of masturbating. It was laughing off the scary stuff, because not yet, not now. She wondered if she would always be angry or if there was some other path, unpaved but equally promising, laid out before her. So she spoke to her dad again, after eight months of nothing, and it wasn’t so bad. She told her best friend all of it and it wasn’t so bad. Nothing was. The bad was then, this was now.
When I loved a girl, labels stopped feeling good. Sure, bisexual was what she was, but that didn’t make it feel right. So she was just a person who liked people, and that felt better. She started talking to girls, and even still too scared to fuck, it felt nice. Really nice. She wrote a song about the slap but forgot the chords a week later, so she wrote another one. And then she wrote about that awful Beatles song. She chopped off a good chunk of her boobs and realized that running, while still terrible, wasn’t impossible. She apologized to friends, and while some still didn’t make the cut, those she clung to were the good ones. She was smart, though not always sensible, and that was where she needed to be at twenty.
When I loved a girl, she wanted to become a writer, so she became a reader. That was where the fantasy was, she discovered. She apologized some more, and decided that instead of being jealous and calling it something else, she would call it jealous, and try to be something else. She thought about sixteen, and that boy she still loved and always would, and how he would be home for the summer soon. She thought about that Beatles song, and how she’d rather have nothing than have that again. She’d rather have nothing than think “I love you” when she shouldn’t. She thought about the slap, and how it wasn’t her fault. And so with nothing, she looked in the mirror, and saw rosy red cheeks, and thought “I love you.”
i’ve never posted any of my writing on here but i realized that there’s very little risk of all that many people actually reading it anyway, so if it sucks, who cares :)
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