I Would Longingly Stare at The One.
From the first time I saw him at Mount Union, through all the one-nighters and living with Larry, I was completely and utterly obsessed with The One.
I dreamed of the days when he would meet me at my dorm room window and take me out riding under the stars, of playing darts in his room and Kraftwerk on the stereo, of kissing him at the flagpole and in the lake and in the frat house shower. I believed we were destined to be together in spite of his showing absolutely no interest in me after our few weeks of dating.
For awhile, The One dated one of my best friends from freshman year, who was no longer one of my friends. Another friend told me he cheated on her, which I found hard to believe, but they subsequently broke up.
Lost in a fairy tale, I would longingly stare at The One whenever he was near. I’d go to his lacrosse games and watch him run around on the field, having no idea how lacrosse worked. I’d watch him walk to the cafeteria, gawking at the coolness he exuded. I’d stand across the room at parties, watching him having fun and chatting with everyone in his vicinity, smiling and making everyone else laugh.
I’d dream of the day when he’d come back to me, as if I had something wonderful to offer.
One night, Bonnie went home with The One.
Having slept with Bonnie’s ex-boyfriend, I had no right to be angry, but I was livid. I remember screaming at her and crying and wanting to kill my best friend. It was like she’d taken the one thing that belonged to me, even though The One belonged to no one.
To this day, I have no idea if he had sex with her. But I grilled her to hear every detail of the evening. She told me almost nothing. She said they listened to music and talked – so, exactly what he did with me. Still wanting to rip out her hair, I begged for more.
“The only thing we did was talk about you,” she said. “He said he thought he loved you.”
He loved me?!?
This shut me up. This made me stop crying. This calmed my fears and brought back hope. This made me feel like the princess in the fairy tale again.
Bonnie was a known liar. She lied to her parents, her professors, her friends. Whenever she was cornered or wanted to make someone else feel better, she just lied. She found this to be a perfectly acceptable course of action whenever it suited her.
And apparently right now, the day after going home with the Love of My Life, it suited her.
I think. I don’t know. Maybe he really did say he thought he loved me. Maybe he actually said he thought he loved her. The world – and I – may never know.
But that day, I felt better. I wanted to believe in love, in fairy tales, in all the things I’d learned from the Wonderful World of Disney and The Brady Bunch.
If it existed, maybe it existed for me and The One.
“You can’t always get what you want, Kirsten,” he’d said to me.
But that was too painful to remember.
I chose to believe he once thought he loved me, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary.