“Love, from the Middle English lufu.” She says quietly, and he kisses the small of her back. “First known use: Before the 12th century.” She sighs out, watching the sunset and the sky as it turns a soft, sad shade of blue. “Affection, based on sexual desire. Affection, based on common interests and admiration.”
“You sound so sad.” He comments in a tone that is joking. She knows he is asking a question, but he’s not brave enough to say it out loud. Her lips curl into a smile, and she rolls over and reaches up, her fingers brushing over the freckled skin of his jaw, his neck, his chest.
“I’m always sad.” She says quietly against his lips when he kisses her, and the bedside alarm buzzes to tell them its now officially February 14th. “Happy Valentines Day.” She laughs, because he tastes of chocolate and wine and warm smoke.
“Happy Valentines Day.” He returns, and lies down next to her, the blankets up to their chins.
Love, Madeline thinks, because she’s seventeen and sad beyond all reason and its Valentines Day, from Middle English ‘lufu.’ Akin to Old High German ‘luba.’ Old English ‘leof.’ Latin; ‘lubere’, ‘libere.’ To please.
She stays awake all night, watching the boy with freckles and too long arms and too long legs as he dozes next to her, because he is in love and she is not. Because he wants to fix her, to make her right so that he can stop asking questions without really asking out loud, and she knows that he never can.
★ ★ ★
They meet in a coffee shop, on a cold day in November, and outside it is beginning to snow.
She orders, and he sits down at her table and sticks out his hand. So of course she takes it, and makes small talk, and laughs and jokes and trades numbers because that’s how it’s supposed to go. They make plans and talk about comic books, and two years later they are attending the same college and when she kisses him she almost thinks she’s in love.
They kiss in her grandparents attic, above the farmhouse where her nieces are running rampant and her brothers are trying to haggle over who gets to watch the kids when. He laughs and asks her if she loves him, and she believes herself when she says she does.
So he takes her hand, and at night after everyone is asleep, they sneak outside and watch the stars from the roof.
“How long do you think you will love me for?” She asks quietly.
He hums in thought and laughs quietly and says, “Until all of the stars burn out of the sky.”
“Silly,” She whispers, closing her eyes, “nobody can love someone that long.”
Madeline pretends now that she doesn’t remember his name. (Thomas Leavitt. Date of Birth: September 9th.)
She pretends that she can’t remember the taste of chocolate on his lips when they kissed over a cake-making session in their tiny apartment, or the way he had hazel eyes that almost seemed perfectly green in the right light.
Because it wasn’t love, and she was young and foolish and pitifully stupid to have assumed so. Because the laws of entropy state that heat, once lost, can never be regained. Because she came home one day, and he’d packed all of his things and left, and all she could do was stare at the empty spaces that he’d left behind. Because desire was much like heat.
★ ★ ★
Her friends know by now not to ask if she has a Valentines or not, and Madeline doesn’t bother to pay attention to the pity in their eyes. February fades into the heat haze of August, and when September rolls around again, Madeline is in an out-of-the-way diner watching cars go up the entrance ramp and disappear onto the highway, some never coming back.
Across from her is a boy, but she’s already forgotten his name and he probably never knew hers.
“I hate it here.” She says finally, watching the red lights of a disappearing impala.
“Then leave.” Is all he tells her in return, and he pays and leaves and she contemplates those words until well after the suns gone down.
★ ★ ★
Love, Madeline thinks as she stands in front of Dakota’s door on Valentines Day, from Middle English ‘lufu.’ She rests her knuckles gently against the door and smiles, and thinks about all of the Valentines Days she’s celebrated and how each and every one of them turned out.
Akin to the Old High German ‘luba.’
She steps away from the door and walks down the hall, thinking about all of the things in her life that didn’t happen, all of could-have-beens that didn’t exist.
Old English. Leof. Dear.
And was Dakota one of those? Well, its not like anything would have happened anyways, a cynical part of Madelines mind asserted, it’s not like it could have gone anywhere; it’s not like it’s –
“Latin; lubere, libere.” Madeline recites to herself, kicking the door to her room closed behind her and staring at the empty spaces inside. “To please.”
She slides down against the door and folds her knees against her chest, and god, but she’s never felt more alone than she does right now. She rests her chin on her folded arms, and the sullen colors of her room seem only to accent the quiet melancholy of a wasted Valentine’s Day. She closes her eyes and laughs, and the sound seems sad in her throat.
It’s not like its love.
She tilts her head back and thinks about all of the boys she’s never loved and the ones that always deserved more.
Happy Valentines Day, she thinks, and hopes that they are all properly in love, because she knows she’ll probably never be.
( wordcount: 978 )
