What we talk about when we talk about love.
The Boy and I have never gone about anything in a traditional way. In the five months that we’ve been not-dating, nothing has been what you’d call typical.
The epitome of this non-typical behavior is the way that we talk about things. We never talk about what we’re actually talking about. We never come out and say things if we can create elaborate metaphors or analogies for whatever it is we’re not saying.
In our attempt to keep things simple, we’ve actually made things much more complicated. Nothing is ever what it seems.
Because of all this, it makes sense that what happened Friday night happened the way it happened. (My sentences are clunky today.)
We wandered away from the bar where we’d been drinking with one of his oldest childhood friends. I was angry at him, my feet hurt, I was tired after a really long week. He was slightly intoxicated, but maybe not as much as he was letting on.
The Boy pointed at a nearby bench. “Let’s sit here for a minute.” A minute turned into close to an hour, and during that hour, we talked about a thousand different things, many of them at once. They were all connected but I was having trouble deciphering where each subject ended and another one began. The Boy railed on about my behavior toward another one of his friends. He told me that I need to let go of things, that I hold on too tightly to everything, that life is too short to be so in control, all of the time.
“I’m too scared,” I said tearfully. The whole conversation was surreal enough, but the fact that we were sitting in the middle of downtown Minneapolis at 11:30 at night was doing nothing to ground the situation in reality.
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about,” The Boy said, gesturing emphatically. “You’re too scared? Well, fuck. What a waste.”
I was quiet for a long time. Finally I looked up and met his eyes. “Do you love me, A.?”
“Do you love me?” The Boy asked me without missing a beat.
“I asked you first.”
“I won’t answer until you do,” he said, rather childishly.
“I’m completely head-over-heels in love with you,” I said, sighing with relief. I had done it. It had been building up in me for weeks, and I felt the rush of adrenaline at having finally spoken the words out loud.
“I love you,” The Boy said to me, and then he kissed me, right there in the middle of Nicollet Mall.
