I'm just a girl.
Standing in front of a boy
Asking him to love her.
We were watching Notting Hill again, this time with our staff team on a getaway weekend. It was near the end—of both the movie and our marriage.
After over a year of him denying the relationship I knew existed, he'd grown brazen and shameless. All day, among our small group of friends, he'd been laughing, joking, whispering, and ostentatiously flirting with her. He couldn't walk by her without touching her arm, flipping her hair, making some flirty remark. I kept looking around, hoping to catch someone else's look of surprise, shock, or horror at what was going on, but he'd long since established that this was just their level of friendship. No one even questioned it or raised an eyebrow.
And then that night, we all sat there, crowded into the rented bungalow's living room, watching Notting Hill. And when it got to that scene at the end? I lost my stuff. Tears came. And they just kept coming. I finally excused myself and left the room.
I'm just a girl.
Standing in front of a boy
Asking him to love her.
But he refused.
After a decade together, he'd chosen someone else to love instead. His "I do" became "I don't," and he cruelly went so far as to say "I never really did." He turned words into a weapon and declared that he'd never loved me at all, but I know that can't be true.
For all our challenges, and all the hard times, and all the disastrous ways things went wrong in the end, there was a hell of lot of love between us for a hell of a long time. The love had undeniably been in his eyes, in his laugh, in the way we held onto each other through frightening and heartbreaking times. There was love, this I know. So I refuse to believe the hurtful, hateful sentiment he threw at me on his way out of our marriage.
Try as he might, our history could not be rewritten, discarded, or ignored. Whether he likes it or not, he's taken it with him into his new-now and into his surrogate future, just like I have. And I know I am (mostly) better for it.
I'm just a girl.
Standing in front of a boy
Asking him to love her.
With a terrifying sense of deja vu, I find myself there again—looking a man-turned-boy in the eyes and pleading to be loved. What is it that makes me grovel for what should be freely given? I'm still working out that equation—and many more—but I'm not sure I'll ever find the answers despite my best efforts at long division.
Standing.
Asking.
I finally excuse myself and leave the room.
Originally published at A Deeper Story.
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