Love in the Bubble — Issue 290

You are on holiday with some friends and see a child wearing a Manchester United t-shirt, his favourite football team. It’s so cute, so you take a picture to send him. Then you remember that you have not been talking for months. It’s silly that it still hurts.

There was a time when his picture was your bookmark. A time when he flew to your country and told you that he loved you for the first time. You were holding hands over the table and Oasis was playing in the background. You said, “Thank you,” and “I’m sorry,” and “I love you, too. I have been wanting to tell you for a long time.” A couple weeks later you were strangers. Or maybe even before then, when it was the middle of the night and you wondered who really was the person sharing your bed. An alien — pretty and well-spoken — but an alien nonetheless.

A couple of months after the breakup, you discover the truth and your world crumbles. His friends call him immature and manipulative. You would like to tell them it’s a very big mistake. You simply cannot reconcile with the person you danced in the kitchen with, the person who talked about TV series with your mum and poured you wine, laughing “my lady,” with the one they tell you about. And then you feel stupid for still defending him.

So you try to move on. You go to parties, kiss strangers, laugh at everything. You think you see him on the street, but you’re wrong. You force yourself to walk the other way. One day you are just tired of this continuous spinning, so you decide that maybe it is better to be on your own. Your mum calls and asks if you are alright with it, and you say that you don’t really mind. Actually, you do, but love is not a currency you feel like wasting. And there are other things. There is writing, and the sea, and hugging your best friend, and new music you have never listened to with him. There is not love, and it’s fine for now. 

Sometimes — but only sometimes, I swear — you still wonder if you cross his mind.