lollipops and crisps

This is what love is: to be completely willing, years later, to drop everything just to be with someone again. To write this fact down, to say it when you're drunk and maudlin to your friends--to the girls who you'll kiss that same night, not even thinking that maybe they're hoping to be more than a placeholder. That perfect devotion to someone when you know they don't even know you're still waiting. They probably don't even think of you. And if they do, they assume you're fine.

I even told her I was when she called me last. I told her about the girl I'd been seeing, about how we'd stay up late and drink coffee liqueur. How I'd quit smoking. How happy we were. I didn't tell her that I still think of her sometimes. I didn't tell her we broke up a week later. It's not something you do.

It's not that she was good to me. She was manipulative. She lied and cheated and said terrible things to me. But I put up with it. I had to. I promised I would, and I made that promise because I knew I'd keep it, for as long as it would take. I put up with it--her abuse, her lies, everything she demanded of me. She took advantage of everything I gave her, and I still gave and gave until I had nothing left to give.

Then I told her to leave. I have made my mistakes, and I am suffering for them.

But I'll wait. That's what love is. She will return to me one day.