Looking back on the past, is, undeniably – a bitch. I hate doing it, but at the same time I have this creepy love for it. I love looking back on all the stuff that happened. When it comes to love, it’s no exception. I compare my current situation with situations in the past, look at how I fell in love with people. Why I fell in love. Why I never cherished being single and didn’t enjoy the time I had being single.

I actually regret it a little now. It’s almost like flirting was a sin.

LSS (Long Story Short): I kissed a guy called Mark. He followed me around, started following me partially the way home. I know that living near me was no excuse! He did not have to follow me around and try to talk to me and put his arm around me.

He was trying to console me about Cor. I dated Cor for about ten months on and off. Cor was younger but fairly mature – even though the more I got to find out about him, the more we fell apart and I realised he wasn’t willing to make sacrifices for me, and wasn’t willing to patch up differences or accept the fact that we had differences.

I was really upset about Cor so I guess I really appreciated Mark trying to make me feel better. Mark was a distant classmate of Cor’s – ergo, younger too.

After he followed me numerous times he tried to make me feel better when I was exceptionally upset. He held my hands and hugged me and then and there at the corner of my street he asked if I wanted to go out with him.

I was surprised.

My response was to kiss him.

I don’t know why I did it. But I thought, what the heck. Why not. Why not just jump in and make moves on guys and flirt with them… okay, those weren’t my exact thoughts. But running through my mind was the reality that Cor and I were over. I had to get over it. I felt like going out with Mark might be a good ol’ change.

Come on, I was fifteen. And the devil can stab me… well, in the form of my mother, who was screaming at me from our house further down the street. It fucking killed me; the way she hit me, screamed at me, told Mark I wasn’t home the next day when he popped by… told me to stay away from him, threatened to send me to another school…

The previous truth was: I hated Mark.

It’s not that we got off on a bad foot, or he said something nasty – it was just rumours I chose to believe – that he was a jerk, arrogant, loserish, and any kind of “fail” there possibly was. But, in reference to Jackie’s last post and the comment I made – I saw past that. You know, I love Wil right now for who he is, and his soul. I look past the way people look, the things I hear, and I see them as a different person.

Wil even told me that I saw past Jeremy, because his truth is that he thinks Jeremy is an ass. Bethany told me the same about myself. She said I am so different from her in that I give people a chance and I don’t judge them before knowing them properly, I look past the way they look and what I know distantly.

I saw the good side of Mark.

And curse my mother, for doing something so humiliating and prying thoughts into my mind, that inevitably made me realise that enjoying the single life was not worth it.

I regret that.

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“The L word” – love – is an overrated piece of shit. People say it with the word “I” preceding it and the word “you” following it, in most circumstances. And in some of these circumstances, it is said without meaning, or said to someone and things go downhill because it is apparently a sign of “true feelings” and the other person doesn’t feel the same way. Get out. Dude, get out.

I’m not saying that it should never be said, or that if it’s been said, it means nothing. I am not saying that at all. I’m saying that you should look back on every time you’ve said it to someone and you tell me: did you mean it? Was it hard to say?

If you meant it, how did you mean it? “I love you” should never be hard to say when it’s true. But did you mean it as – what? – to your wuvvable big bro? To your mother? To your best girl friend? To your teacher? To the person you think you’re going to spend the rest of your life with?

Cor. Yes, Cor, the infamous, short and much younger ex-boyfriend. I’d always told him I loved him online. But when it came to saying it in person, it was so fucking hard. I was standing for twenty minutes in front of him as he waited patiently, before I could finally say it. And even then, I couldn’t look him in the eye. It was almost embarrassing – no wait, it was embarrassing.

Looking back on it now, I think that maybe I didn’t love him, and that’s why I couldn’t say it, it wouldn’t come out as easily.

Wil. ♥ Obviously, this was just perfect. At least, the first time it was. Wil is the only person I’ve said “I love you” to more than once. The first time, we just had our arms around each other. We’d just been holding each other for a while, feeling the warm and comfort of each other’s presence. Every now and then I looked up at him and held him tighter. Then I looked up at his face and I told him that I loved him, and he told me the same.

We still say it to each other all the time.

Jeremy. Oh yeah, here’s the real problem. Jeremy was in love with me. And I had some feelings for him about a month ago. One day, when I was feeling a bit pooped up, Jeremy told me how amazing I was, how much he appreciated me as a friend, and how much he wanted us to stay friends.

You know those times when you’re hanging with friends, perhaps on an occasion like your birthday, when you’re opening gifts? You open an oddly light package from your best friend. She might not have the best wrapping skills, and she only had Christmas wrapping paper left, but you open the package to reveal – the DVD of your favourite television show that you’ve had your freaking eyes on for ages that you weren’t able to afford or to bother getting because you were a darned cheapskate who preferred to watch on YouTube.

Your eyes go wide. Your mouth gapes open in shock. You screech in excitement.

“Oh my gosh Bethany I love you!”

You throw your arms around your best friend while you’re jumping up and down in a rare act of multitasking.

It’s a little like that with Jeremy. I love Jeremy for the things he does sometimes. I tell him I love him when I completely appreciate the favours he does for me. Except for the time he dropped the L word. I was almost expecting it. I told him, “Don’t say it.” I knew he was going to, and he said that he had to.

“I love you. I really love you. I love you, really.”

I told him, “I like you, Jeremy… I really do.” I asked myself why. I couldn’t say the words he probably wanted to hear. I just couldn’t. It was wrong and I felt like I shouldn’t tell another guy that I loved him. I love Jeremy, as a friend. The reason I wanted to tell him I liked him was… because I feel that I may have been infatuated with him now.

I feared that he’d take it the way I didn’t intend to say it. I loved him as a friend. I’d ripped his heart by the pulmonary artery and damaged his right ventricle a million times over already.

Then a day came when he said it to me again. Fuck it, I thought. The three words exploded out of my mouth. So be it. If you love someone any which way, just fuckin’ tell them. If they mean that much for you to say it, they should know how you mean it.

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