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The problem with loving someone is that there is no guarantee that they will love you back. You had spent so many months telling yourself this over and over again after Flip had left you. When you love somebody there is no way of knowing how the other person really feels about you. There may be nights when you lay awake thinking about them but they’re not there, on the other side, lying awake thinking about you. Your love for Flip couldn’t make him love you in return.
His smile had always taken your breath away. From the moment you met, it had caused a rush in you like no other, a high that was better than any drug. To you, it was as if he had hung the stars, danced with the sun, and the moon would be there just for him each night and some uncertain days. He was so painfully beautiful when he smiled, the way his eyes would crinkle with a flash of his crooked teeth.
You used to wonder if he thought the same about you. You would always doubt that he did, no matter what he said because he would never act like it. Unfortunately, it was a fact – a hapless actuality – that Flip didn’t treat you like you deserved to be treated. Throughout it all, it always felt like you were ceaselessly giving everything you had. Flip, in return, would greedily take it all, never giving even a minuscule ounce back. Of course, saying always is unfair, he had his moments of brilliance. But they were so few and far in between that they eventually withered into nothingness and became meaningless. What is the significance of one in every thousand?
But you could never stop thinking about those beautiful moments. The moments when he made you feel loved, so loved that it felt as if you could explode from the overwhelming feeling of it all. A love that would ripple like a river as it flowed through you. However, sometimes you wondered if it was all an illusion, that his dubious affection was a trick of your own brain to save yourself from the heartache of it all. Or perhaps it was the self-destructive tendencies you were inclined to have at moments and you were just imagining it all to be something it very much was not. But then you’d see the way he smiled at you and you would start doubting yourself again. How could he smile at you like that if he didn’t love you?
He taught you so many things. Not only about the world and what it is like to fully live, but he also taught you things about yourself. You were the product of his creation, moulded and shaped into the image of perfection in his eye. And sometimes you wondered if the person you were today would even be close to the person you would have been if you had not met Flip. Of course, in a way, it was naive of you to think that. You would, without a doubt, be a different person if you had never met him. However, that did not mean that you would’ve been a better person in any way; more whole perhaps, but not indisputably better.
You hated Flip for the way he made you love him. He was right of course when he said that you did; you did love him, and that was the problem. You would always love him, always and forever and ever.
The sun can paint everything in shades of gold that shine so bright that they’d blind you and leave you sightless, unable to see even a fickle trace of the truth. And then when Flip danced with the sun he became tainted, his eyes being coloured the brightest gold of all. They would pull you in, entrance you, causing you to be unable to look away as you stood there staring into the very core of his being until the world would fade into oblivion around you.
There was no you without Flip. As perhaps sad as it was to admit, you were fused to him from the moment your souls met. You would sacrifice everything to be with him and it were those destructive thoughts that would drive you in everything you did. As optimistic as you could sometimes be, thinking that you could exist without him, you eventually came to the realisation that it was impossible. It wasn’t that you couldn’t function without him, it was that any sliver of possible happiness seemed to evaporate whenever he wasn’t near you.
Maybe that’s why you decided to return to Colorado. For your own happiness. An optimistic person would’ve tried moving on. A sensible person would’ve stayed far away from Colorado. But you weren’t either of those, not when it came to Flip. When it came to Flip, all rationality abandoned you in insanity.
You didn’t really have a reason for why you didn’t tell Flip that you were returning. He wanted you to call, had begged you to call and you had promised that you would. But you found it impossible to do so when it came to it. Your fingers would hover over the keypad, dial tone ringing in your ear, and breath hitched in your throat before you would slam the phone back down into the holder.
You simply assumed that he would hear about your return somehow. Somehow, through whatever grapevine, Flip would most definitely be notified of your presence in Colorado Springs. It was different this time, different from the last time. This time you didn’t have a return ticket burning a hole in your back pocket with every step you took.
You wanted to go back to the small house on the cul-de-sac with its withered exterior and empty flowerbeds . It had once been so full of life and now unknowingly was a perfect representation for its former inhabitant.
You were staying with Emma, an old co-worker-turned-friend that was more than happy to put you up in her empty spare bedroom. Emma made you feel normal. As normal as you could feel without Flip by your side. She had the ability to talk about anything and everything without needing a single input from you. It was the perfect arrangement. Nonstop chatter kept all those self-deprecating thoughts at bay as you wallowed in the river of self-pity.
You had mourned the life you left behind in Colorado. It wasn’t just Flip that was there, it was also all those moments when you had felt the happiest you had ever been. All those moments had been with Flip, but still… being there was better than being anywhere else, even if it was without Flip by your side.
You had expected that you would run into him at some point. In the grocery store; at the gas station; on your Tuesday morning walks. What you hadn’t expected was for you to see a woman hanging off his arm, lips pressing against his after a shared laugh.
Time could stop in moments that were so intensely laced with the most powerful emotions that they took over everything else. Needless to say, those emotions weren’t always happy or wholesome in any way. Time froze at that moment, a moment that would forever be ingrained in that broken piece of your heart that would never truly be whole again.
You had never asked for much from Flip, not really, not when you thought about all the things you could have demanded and pleaded for. All you wanted from Flip was for him to love you the way you loved him, wholeheartedly and entirely. Because if there was one thing you were sure about in the overflowing oasis of doubtfulness, it was how sure you were that you were in love with him. You were so undoubtedly and irrevocably in love with him that the mere thought of being without him for even a second physically hurt you.
The love you had for Flip was that rare kind of love that only a select few would experience in a handful of lifetimes yet all would yearn and search for. You didn’t just love him, it was so much more than that, you were in love with every single fibre of his being. You loved him in that way that could drive a person insane.
And perhaps insane is what it made you. Because a sane you would have never walked up to Flip in that bar you were out to with Emma and her friends, thrown a drink in the nameless woman’s face, and pathetically slapped him across the face.
The two of you were a tumbleweed of arms and legs as he wrestled you out the back, away from the forgotten woman. Angry, indiscernible mumbles of heartbroken words were being hurled at him from your mouth. You hadn’t noticed when the angry rivers of tears had started streaming down your cheeks but they were there and turning you into a blubbering mess of wild and uncontrollable emotions.
“How could you?” The words spewed from your mouth like flying pieces of burning ember from a fire, accompanied by dull thuds against his chest as you tried, unsuccessfully, to get him away from you. Flip had his arms wrapped around you in a tight grip, trying to stop your flailing arms from hitting something that could hurt. But you weren’t all too concerned about physical pain at that moment. It would be nothing in comparison to the pang of pain that had crept its way from your heart to the very edges of your fingers. You were turning more and more numb with each passing second as icy, cold agony spread through you like wildfire.
Your distress prohibited you from being completely rational and coherent. Instead, you were lost within the throes of delirium and hysteria, wretched sobs wracking through your body with each shallow breath.
“I was right, you never loved me.” You felt your chest constrict as you whimpered out the words.
“No, no, no, stop it.” Flip shook his head, bending down slightly so that he could look into your eyes. One of his hands grabbed a hold of your chin and the other came up to wrap around your wrists. He held them together in one hand so that you would focus on him and only him.
“Hey, look at me.” His tone did not leave any room for arguing and you didn’t know if you had the energy to argue. What was the point in arguing when it would be all for nothing?
“How could you kiss her?”
“I didn’t.” He shook his head and sounded so sure that if you hadn’t seen it yourself, you would’ve believed him.
“I saw you, Flip” Your voice broke slightly as you said his name. “I came back here and…” You trailed off, not knowing what to say to the man that so carelessly held your heart in his hands with a crushing grip.
“I know, Baby, she kissed me.” More tears started streaming down your face as your mind replayed that moment over and over again. Flip and her, Flip and that woman, Flip and another, kissing.
“How could you?” A broken record, constantly on repeat, and rightfully so. “I love you and you just….” Those three little words that some threw around so recklessly but meant so much to you. You thought that your love would be able to fix everything, that only your love was enough; but it wasn’t, and it was a realisation that you weren’t entirely willing to come to.
The last time you had been in Colorado, Flip had pleaded with you to admit your love for him. He knew that you loved him, and that was the point. Only you loved him, Flip did not love you. If he did, he never said it, and you never felt it.
“How could you?”
“We can fix this, I know we can.” Flip smoothed both of his calloused hands down your cheeks, having dropped your hands.
“How could you?” The feeling of utter defeat that was slowly taking over your entire body clung heavily to every word you said.
“Why didn’t you call?” Was this how it was always going to be between the two of you? You would ask a question and he would only reply with one of his own.
“I didn’t know what to say.” And you had been afraid of rejection, despite whatever he had said the last time you had seen him.
“You could’ve told me that you were back in town.” His hands were still stroking your cheeks languidly, making sure that you were focusing solely on him and nothing else at that moment.
“I’m sorry.” You weren’t the one that should be apologising but the words slipped out anyway. You didn’t really know what you were apologising for specifically, but you felt this need to say it anyway. To try and make things better. You would always try to make things better.
“It’s okay, I’m sorry, too.” A kiss was planted on your forehead and you basked in the presence of him for a brief second as you closed your eyes. You were so close to getting lost in him once again. To forget all of the bad parts and choose happiness that was gilded in delusion.
“So, what are you doing back?” Flip was finally the one that broke the heavy silence surrounding that had been surrounding the two of you for a fleeting instance of time.
“I came back for you.” It was the truth, the truth that you hid under layers of excuses to yourself, your friends, and your family. You would always come back to Flip, no matter what. It was one of your shortcomings in life, the unrelenting hold he had on you.
Flip placed a chaste kiss on your lips at the admittance. And then one of those spectacular smiles of his flashed over his face like sunshine over a flower and you could almost feel the heat radiating from it onto your face like on a warm April morning.
“You coming home with me?” Home. The home you had shared for a brief moment with Flip. The home that had brought you so much pain when you would think about it those months afterwards. The home where everything had ended once.
Was it worth sacrificing your own dignity to be with this man? Whatever sliver was left of it, at least. If it were any other you would’ve walked out that door and never looked back. Flip was the man who you would be willing to give your life for, and you hoped and prayed would do the same for you.
Life is littered with choices, each one more difficult than the other and none of them ever the same. You could choose to be with him, to sacrifice one form of happiness for another. It didn’t matter to you if the life you would lead with Flip was simply an illusion, a half-truth of love from a man who you weren’t entirely sure could love another human being.
And when you looked into his eyes, those whirlpools of gold, sanity and the truth evaded you once more as you decided that happiness with him was better than happiness without.