So I look in your direction
But you pay me no attention, do you?
I know you don’t listen to me
‘Cause you say you see straight through me
Don’t you?
The air was bone-chilling as the sun began its journey to set another day. The wind whipped through my coat reminding me that it was November and that I should be cold. Indeed, I was, but not because of the impending winter season in Boston. I was cold because of who I was walking towards, just as I had so many times before. However, it would be more accurate to say that I was walking towards something, rather than someone, and my anxiety was preparing me for it. I shook from head to toe, an internal chill that even a summer heat would have been unable to settle, and no amount of deep breathing would keep the bile from gurgling and preparing its way up my constantly empty midsection.
By this point I had lost 13 pounds in a matter of two and a half months…or was it only a month and a half? It had become hard to keep track. 13 may be my lucky number but considering how I’ve been incorrectly labeled as anorexic since the 7th grade, this 13-pound loss was very, very unlucky. As I walk towards him, I wonder if it’s because I’m too thin for him now, or maybe it’s because his new friends and I don’t get along, or because I can’t be there for him now. Today I wonder all of this, but does it really matter? In the end, the problem is me.
But on and on
From the moment I wake
To the moment I sleep
I’ll be there by your side
Just you try and stop me
I’ll be waiting in line
Just to see if you care
I’ve been steeling myself for this all day, all weekend, but when I see him standing not even halfway to the gates of my school, deeming me unworthy to continue walking towards me, I almost entirely shatter. He has been my undoing for the past months, and yet all I want is for it to start all over. All I want is to go back to our first day together in Boston when I made this walk to him, and he continued walking towards me. Back in September, he ran to reach me in front of the Time Out Market, picked me up and spun me around. I had been shaking that day as well, but only up until the moment I was finally in his arms where I could truly breathe again.
Oh, did you want me to change?
Well I’d change for good
And I want you to know that you’ll always get your way
And I’ll always say
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“Shiver” by Coldplay will always bring tears to my eyes. The first time I heard the song was in my kitchen almost a year into dating the love of my life. We were baking, when he suddenly took my hand, guided my feet atop his, and began serenading me. We danced around the kitchen and I couldn’t help but smile from ear to ear, fully aware for once that I was happy in the moment that it was happening. This often happened when I was in his presence, and only ever then. He didn’t stop singing for a second, not even when I couldn’t help but try to kiss him.
The song spoke to my heart in a way no other ever had because it told our story from my point of view. It was the story of me turning my eye to him following his wise remark on the bleachers of the football field, and my sarcastically bitchy response. It was the story of me watching and learning everything about him while he sat unaware across the room of our French class. It was the story of me knowing I’d love him with everything I had if he gave me the chance. And it was the story of me making all the sacrifices so that our relationship would work. Now that our relationship is over, it is the story of my never-ending love for him. Love that must now be dispersed elsewhere, including and especially toward myself.
Don’t you shiver
Don’t you shiver
I’ll sing it loud and clear
And I’ll always be waiting for you
————————
I force my feet to continue forward, one unsteady, unsure foot in front of the other. Once I finally reach the spot in which he has planted himself, he turns on his heel nearly forcing me to run to catch up with him. When I do, I ask where we’re going to which his only response is the classic “We need to talk.” As if I wasn’t expecting that, as if that’s what I had asked him. I ask once more, although his response is the same, so I take a new approach and say “I know. Can I go first?” He responds with “Sure,” and we continue our walk down the Fenway, matching each other step for step, stride for stride just as we always have.
That’s how we would walk down the halls of our high school, which is why one day, nearly a year ago, he said to me, “I’ve never had someone be able to keep up with me, it’s like we were made for each other.” It was a naïve notion: us being soulmates because we were able to match each other’s steps, but it was sweet in the moment and we truly believed we were each other’s forever. On our walk today it is evident he longer admires this fact. Rather, he seems to despise how we must now tread the same path for these last remaining moments. I’m confident he no longer believes we’re soulmates, but that doesn’t mean I’ll ever stop believing in us and cease my hope that in the end it’ll be him.
Instead of turning left like normal, we take a right. He is undetermined on our path, but the future of us is like adamant in his mind. As we make our way onto my campus and over to the hidden picnic bench behind the dorms and below the trees, I finish my apology for making these last month’s so hard for him. He remains stone-faced through it all and although he accepts the apology, I see that it changes nothing.
And it’s you I see
But you don’t see me
And it’s you, I hear
So loud and so clear
————————
“But I have your stuff,” I say motioning towards my dorm building a few steps away, “Keep it” he says, “I don’t want it.” He removes his hand from out of his BU sweatshirt and unfolds his fingers to reveal the final stab as he returns my cross pendant. The cross is the last thing I was expecting to see, and all I can think in this moment is how this breakup could be a scene from a movie, just like the rest of our relationship has been. The only difference being, in the movies there’s usually a happy ending.
Even though I know there will be no convincing my stubborn Taurus to continue to love me, I cannot bring myself to remove his cross from around my neck, I cannot make myself say goodbye, only “I love you” and “Please.” I let my last moments with him be full of begging and sobbing and an introduction to the panic attack that will continue for nearly a week straight. Instead of fighting, I am breaking. Instead of saying goodbye, I am holding on to our version of a promise ring.
So you know how much I need you
But you never even see me do you?
And is this my final chance of getting you?
————————
Sitting on the splintering picnic bench with my hand on his knee to keep him planted at my side for a few moments longer, I know that my efforts are of no use. He doesn’t say much, but his eyes have always told me all I truly need to know. Today, they tell me that his mind is set on letting me go. Although, I don’t believe you can truly unlove someone, especially not your first love, no matter how hard I try I see no love for me in his eyes: the place where I have always been able to find it. For over two years of our relationship, he would look at me with the same undying love and adoration as I looked at him with which would help to reassure me during the days when my self-doubt took over. It also told everyone peering in from the outside that our love was true.
His eyes will still be devoid of love three months later when I meet up with him again to give him the last of his belongings. He appears very set on not being in my presence and not speaking a word to me. Whereas I’m determined to receive answers, but also to make sure he’s okay. I’m sure he is fully aware of it too because he refuses to meet my gaze. He doesn’t like that I know him better than anyone ever has or that I have looked into his soul through the windows of his enchanting hazel eyes that at times appear piercingly green. He doesn’t like that I remind him of and hold him to the good man he now refuses to be. So instead of looking at me and explaining why he left when I needed him the most, instead of sharing about his own struggles, he tells me, “I’m a robot. I don’t have feelings. It’s better this way”. And I know that the man I love is gone and all that’s left is a shell that will never provide me any answers.
But on and on
From the moment I wake
To the moment I sleep
I’ll be there by your side
Just you try and stop me
I’ll be waiting in line
Just to see if you care, if you care
————————
As I stand sobbing at the end of the windy tunnel, I have no choice but to watch him walk down the Fenway and away from me one final time. He does not look back…he hasn’t in a while. Not as I always have, not as I did a few days ago when he kissed me goodbye, a kiss too fast and empty as the walk sign turned on before we were even waiting at the cross walk as we usually do. On that day, my anxiety threatened to take over because I could feel that something was different. My gut cried out in warning that it would be our last kiss, so I desperately reached out toward him, but he was already too far gone. On that day, I told myself It’s just your anxiety…He’s your boyfriend, of course you’ll kiss him again. But now I know that I won’t, because his words today are final: “I can’t do this anymore” … “I love you less”. And now I’m left crying on The Fenway outside my dorm building. I stand here cursing myself for not being enough for him and not believing in my gut that it was the last time, so that I could kiss him with my whole heart. Today, I am left with the realization that I am well and truly alone.
So I look in your direction
But you pay me no attention
And you know how much I need you
But you never even see me
————————
As I walk the Fenway months later, I choose to take a path that is entirely new. Instead of turning left towards his dorm building, I continue straight on to discover more of Boston on my own. During the time that has past, I have spent a great deal of it looking back on our relationship, the perfectly imperfect, the good, the bad, and the worse, and I now realize that while I love him and miss him dearly, in the end I missed myself more. Today, I take the time to reflect on that wind whipping day in November, but only to wish the ghost of future Melissa had appeared to whisper in that broken girl’s ear: You are your own person. You are your own strength.
Don’t you shiver
Don’t you shiver
Melissa Tremblay was born and raised in South Windsor, CT. She is currently working towards a Bachelor of Arts degree at Emmanuel College in Boston, MA. She has long had a love for reading and the English language which has led her to the creative outlet of writing.
