Image screenshotted from Xxxtentacion & Kanye West track True Love then edited using Canva
"I can't do this anymore!" My sister Reyna exclaimed between sobs. "How could he do this to me? After all we've been through together, he just left me, why?... How?" Her cries echo off the walls of the room. She asks why and how but we all saw this coming, I think she saw it too but decided to turn a blind eye.
I remember how they met and when I noticed the first red flag about this guy called Joe. She came home from the store bouncing like a kid that got two pieces of candy in a vending machine for the price of one. We were all curious about her major change in countenance coming back because in the morning she left for that same store acting like it was a trip to the dentist.
She finally let us in on her piece of candy, giggling like a little girl she tells us about this slick with the cool lines and nice shades. She told us how she thinks he might be the one and I rolled my eyes at that, it's highly unlikely that a random Joe she met in a store is the one.
Fast forward to three weeks later and they're already dating, uploading couple pictures and she updating her relationship status to happily taken. When I finally met Joe I realized I didn't like him. Now don't get me wrong, he looked and acted like every girls perfect man. A nice voice, great manners and a body to drool over, but I just couldn't accept him. I think he noticed this too for he made it a point to try and engage me particularly in a conversation, at least trying to get himself in my good book.
I looked back at her, she seemed to had stopped crying as violently as before, she was just sitting down looking at space, her mouth open in a small drawl. I recognized that face, it's her depressive thinking face.
"Babe? Wassup?" I asked at least trying to start a conversation. She looked at me with a cloudy gaze and asked in a sour voice.
"How did you know?" I was perplexed at such a question. "Know what?" I asked. "You never did like him, did you? How did you know he was a cheat?" I stopped short at that, yes I never did like him but I didn't really say it out loud.
"He just seemed too good to be true." I managed to answer, at least that was partly true. I can't tell her I saw him stealing glances of my boobs or other girls asses, neither can I tell her how he actually approached me at night when she was passed out from too much booze.
"But we were so happy together, weren't we? Why this now?" She muttered to herself. I hate this, I hate seeing her like this, her eyes red and her hair a mess, she looked like a Yeti, if a Yeti had a figure of a Brazilian model. I had never felt heartbreak so I couldn't give her any tips on how to deal with such pain.
Frankly seeing her like this, I doubt I would ever willingly fall in love, she seemed so bizarre and weak at the moment. This is someone that stared down a dog from hurting me? This is my sister that always looked pretty and fresh from 5am in the morning till when I closed my eyes? Well it's 5pm and she hadn't had her bath, it's so scary and strange how love and heartbreak can foil your image of someone. How love foiled her relationship with her best friend who Joe cheated on her with. Almost like magic the phone rang again and Reyna cut it, that's the fifteenth time this day. All calls have been from Betty, Reyna's best friend since kindergarten. Betty had called me yesterday and explained the whole situation with her voice sounding course over the phone, it seemed Joe played them both but Reyna got hit harder.
I looked at her and she seemed sleepy a bit, at least she had quieted down. Crying for 5 hours straight really does take a lot out of you, but I have to know one thing before she sleeps.
"Reyna?" She looked at me weakly. It seemed it hurt her to even turn her head still I have to know.
"Reyna how does it feel?" I asked softly. She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. Wincing as she breathed it looked like she was going through a kind of painful transformation, to be honest it was kind of scary to my 17 year old mind.
"How does it feel?" She echoed my question with a kind of sarcastic sad laugh. "It hurts, it's like when you put your faith in someone that they'll be there for you then they just step out of the way like they never said anything, It's like when someone carried you so high into the air just to throw you back down, it's like you're drowning but you like the feel of the water so you keep drowning still." She said all that in one breath and was gasping for air her eyes red. I just stood there regretting and silently rebuking my curiosity.
She started crying again "You want to know what it feels like Paula?" I kept silent "It's pain, it hurts. It hurts when you've had your life all planned out then you see someone and fall then love messes it up for. It hurts seeing your plans foiled by someone you haven't known upto 6 months, it hurts seeing your friendship foiled by the same person and emotion, it hurts being so powerless against it..." Her voice became quieter and I had to strain to listen to her when she said this "but what hurts the most, is that I still want him back."
I finally understood what love was, it was an addictive drug that needed to be culled from my mind, I didn't want my plans foiled by such a heartless emotion. So I made up my mind that evening that I'll never fall in love.
Reyna finally had her bath around 7, although I had to promise that I'll get her a bucket of ice cream for dinner, there goes her model body. As I went out in the evening to get the ice cream, I noticed a new shop that just opened around the corner, this seemed closer than my regular place so I decided to try it.
Entering the shop I noticed how everything was neatly organized and they had almost all my goods here, their prices were fair too. I decided that this was going to be my regular place from now on, collecting the ice cream I walked the short distance to the cashier to pay. I stopped, my heart beating and my palms feeling sweaty, I saw this boy sitting on the cashier desk, reading a comic. He had blonde curls and a very cute face, he noticed me and smiled. I shivered a little, 'What's this I'm feeling?' I asked myself. The boy looked at me quizzically and I willed my legs to move. As I got the ice cream checked and paid for he spoke in a husky voice. "Love your hair, it's really nice. You're our lucky 100th customer so you have a 50% discount on your sale, have a great day."
I was stuck on his compliment on my hair. It was replaying in my mind like a broken track. He smiled again as he looked up from recording the sale in his computer and I saw the reflection of my face on the counter; I was tomato red.
I ran out of the shop and he yelled after me saying "I should come again." In my mind I yelled back I would.
Walking home I questioned myself on what that scene meant, was that the crushing scene? Did I just have that? Wait... Does that mean my plans have already been foiled. I stopped and turned back to look at the shop, remembering his voice as he complimented my hair. My face felt hot again, I ran the rest of the way to the house.
As I dished the ice cream to my sister I took my own share and sat down with her. She looked at me quizzically but I ignored her knowing what just happened, knowing that Love the master foil had visited our home, knowing that I'm going to be in the same situation as Reyna if my Cashier boy decides that my hair isn't as pretty as it was or something 'I've already dubbed him mine? God help me' I ignored the more reasonable part of me as I enjoyed the high of being in love. Then I realized, I always thought that to love is a choice as to hate was but I was wrong. The choice to love is an error of thinking for as I just experienced it's clear, we don't have a choice to Love.
