Love is not a choice

I looked outside the window, trying to breathe together with the rain so I don’t have a panic attack. The wet, empty streets stared back at me. The reflection of the streetlights on the wet ground created a warm orange color. I turned my wrist to look at the clock. 00:01. There were no people outside, everything looked so still except for the leaves of the trees which moved with every raindrop. In any other situation, I would be deciding which playlist I’m gonna play for the night with an open book waiting for me to explore. In any other situation, this view would calm me down, this sound would plaster a smile on my face, and his whinings over how much he hated rain would make me laugh. But those situations belong in another life now.

‘‘Should I leave this copy of Dead Poets Society? Or do you want the new one?’’ Turning around I saw him holding a bunch of books in his hands. I noticed he already had collected most of his staff. I must have been staring outside the window for quite a while now. Or maybe he didn’t have a lot of his things here.

‘‘You can leave the old one.’’ He handed it to me and went back to the room. The book felt like it was taunting me. Of course, you picked the old one. You will need something to hold on to, it said. It wasn’t wrong. These pages were full of memories. They were full of me and him and us.

We had started this dumb tradition years ago when we were still in high school. He had lost a bet, so he had to keep his promise and let me read a book to him. I had chosen Dead Poets Society mostly because he refused to watch the movie with me, and I was about to change his mind. That same night I had gone over to his house. It was raining then too. At first, he had complained about how boring it was. 20 pages into the book and he had his head on my lap listening closely, making comments about Neil and Todd and how in real life they would be that annoying couple everyone was jealous of, making jokes about how he would love to hang out with Charles and how if he had Mr. Keating as his teacher maybe he wouldn’t be failing most of his classes. I had started writing down most of those comments, underlined all the parts that he liked, and highlighted every phrase that made his eyes sparkle. By the end of the night, or should I say the beginning of the next morning, the book looked like it had been read over and over again, had been studied deeply, and had been appreciated to the extent it deserved.

After that night many more followed with different books. He started making bets he knew he would lose because, well, asking me to read to him would stand in the way of his ‘‘I don’t give a fuck about anything anymore’’ reputation. Sometimes I would go over, other times he would climb up the window to my room because ‘‘using the front door wasn’t romantic enough to set the mood’’. It became a habit, choosing a new book every week or two, writing down our impressions, his inappropriate jokes on every sex scene, and drawing crying faces whenever I shed tears over fictional characters. We took those books and made them our own. We wrote our own story there, making them our little journals. Those pages carried almost ten years of history, and now we had to decide who was gonna carry that history with them.

He came out of the room, carrying two luggages, and stopped in front of me. First, he looked around as if he was trying to take a mental picture of the place he used to call home until recently. Then his eyes landed on me. I had a sudden urge to look away, the emotion- or lack of- in his eyes overwhelming me, but I held his gaze.

‘‘You can stay until the rain stops.’’ My voice was barely a whisper, but I was sure he had heard me. He always heard me, even in my most silent moments.

‘‘No I’m good, I brought the car.’’ I nodded and finally looked down, not wanting him to notice the tears that were starting to show, but it was too late.

‘‘In which book do I draw a crying face this time?’’ he asked, attempting to make a joke and make me feel better. I let out a bitter laugh, not trying to hide anymore cause I knew there was no point.

‘‘If I write a book about us, I’ll make sure to draw one when this part comes.’’ His smile warmed my heart. Our conversations had always been easy, probably because at first were friends, before love stood in the way.

‘‘If you write a book about us, you shouldn’t make our love go away, since you can control the ending and everything.’’ I knew he hadn’t said it to hurt me.

‘‘You know I still love you.’’

‘‘I know. Me too.’’

‘‘It’s just not the same.’’

‘‘I know. For me neither.’’ He sighed before continuing. ‘‘But we had fun, right? You know we got the love we always read about, we just didn’t get the ending.’’

‘‘Maybe our ending is better though. It had to get realistic at some point.’’ He laughed and came closer to me.

‘‘Can I hug you?’’

‘‘Always.’’ I laid my head on his chest and it felt so familiar, I didn’t want to let go. But I had to. It was weird, breaking up like this. No one had done anything wrong. Our love had just gone away. We had been in denial for some months now, but we could never hide from each other for too long. It was out of our control, but at least I had no regrets. I know we had tried. And I know that in some other reality we had to be together cause love like ours doesn’t disappear, it just goes somewhere else. And I really hope that that somewhere was a place where emotions didn’t disappear without an explanation, leaving empty people behind.

He let go of me and went to grab his bags.

‘‘If you ever need me, I’m just a call away. And I know it won’t happen soon but our friendship will find a way back to us.’’

‘‘I know,’’ I said with a smile on my face cause I really knew.

Turning back one last time before closing the door he said, ‘‘You know, if I could choose, I would choose to love you forever’’, and I laughed cause yes it was true, and yes I felt the same and yes, of course, he would say goodbye in a romantic enough way, just to set the mood.