This is Not A Love Story

"I just woke up one day and I knew. What I was never sure of with you."
— Summer Finn, 500 Days of Summer (2009)

This is not a love story.

You've probably once heard that from a famous movie. At most cases, even when we are given a warning beforehand, we never really put much into listening and still go for it. Despite knowing what to expect already in hopes that it will turn out different.

That was my case for you as well.

This is not a love story.

Not a love story from the start, not a love story in the making nor it will ever be.

I thought it will be a start of something new but we started in the middle. No, we both started more shallow than that.

I found you cute and how you even heard me, that you even smiled back ever so casually. Remember that party? You got home early.

"He's a friend." I asked around who you were. A common friend, fairly common. That was the only thing I knew about you but I kept looking around the room to get a look of that smile of yours again. Just maybe, it will last...

But alas, you were long gone.

But how my heart fluttered that night, fleeting.

So swift how I only get a look at you at that moment. And maybe the light was just dim that time that I didn't really had a clear distinction to look at you. I knew all too well you would only last a moment.

But we kept meeting, familiar to each other from then on.

But not enough.

This is not a love story.

Maybe, just maybe I just got too caught up that we liked the same taste of music. How our interactions got more than frequent, how our greetings got more than just a high five. How we got too carried away at our late night conversations and it got followed with another. Then another. Or maybe that was just me.

There was just something in you than just how you are as fond of dogs as I am. It was the way you can drive our conversation to miles, and that you are so carefree, it was a breathe of fresh air.

With you, I could laugh as much as I want, and that you wouldn't mind.

We shared the same dumb humor.

And finally, I found someone whom I can share all these jokes with and they will not bat an eye about it— they'll add on something more witty and stupid-er even.

And you kept me distracted.

This is not a love story.

I had a story to tell but I was more on curious of yours. Only if you let your heart off your sleeve. In thoughts I could let you open up that night, more than just your silly attempt of scaring me with ghost stories... But worry not, something else did made me feel goosebumps.

I got to see through you. So then, you finally let your guard down, even just for a moment as you let your eyes droop low. That you had a back story about your mother, about your middle school days and how you were so much like a kid. But it all sound too scripted, I feel uneased.

In hopes that maybe you'll get my sympathy I don't know either, yet you're as intriguing and damn, you did so well on that I cannot deny.

At that night we stayed up late, I am more than grateful for you lending your time we had a video call. To be honest, I just want to lessen the raging thoughts and dark whispers of my head that wants to hang me by a rope.

I am glad that you let yourself keep me company because that was what I just needed.

As much that you were telling me a scary story, I felt sorry that I laughed... I was just more scared of what my thoughts might do to me if I kept myself up with the silence.

And that's all I know about you, maybe. Maybe that's all I will ever know because no matter how much I strip down my walls, yours seemed to be so guarded. You never got to trust me to get to know what is more of who you are. When I opened a new chapter just for you, but not everyone will reciprocate to that. No one is obliged to give it back to you as much that you had your efforts.

I broke my rules for you but you broke more than that.

But I'll keep mine intact for now.

This is not a love story.

I am just a friend, and as scared of commitment as the next gal is. Saving it for the next person as willing. You ain't, I do not know. But I do know what we are.

But that doesn't deny the fact that I care about you.

Maybe I just got too scared of where you'll end up to, as I am not the one beside you to walk you home when you're wasted. Maybe I just want it to be only me you talk to when everybody else in the world is sleeping, and maybe I want to fall asleep talking to you on the phone. I didn't really care but more on just worried about not seeing you fine the next day.

But here I am in the middle of the day yet again, acting indifferent. As much that I got to see you by the halls at school fine the next day. That doesn't erase the fact that you crossed my mind.

And from here you'll see how contradicting I am to myself with those statements, throwing it into shambles.

But one thing is sure, we're just friends.

This is not a love story.

We just held hands under the table, and started to see the red in each other as we got too caught up with the alcohol staining our lips.

Intoxication. We'll be damned. It blurred our vision and logic, and it got me thinking that it will be your warmth that will suffice the cold of the night. When in fact that's just my body reacting and my cheeks burning up, same as yours.

Just a side note, your alcohol tolerance sucks. No hate.

But you would just laugh as we both make more rounds, but I can't deny how I liked the taste of beer ever since you. Both as bitter, as entralling. Then we go on leaning onto each other's warmth, hips colliding, and the comfort sinks in through our skin.

My lips would be pressed on the soft ends of your shirt as I look over your shoulder, letting your hands roam free through the pages of the song book. With shoulders side to side, our eyes kept meeting. There was something else in our stares boring into each other than just us being drunk into the night.

And then I started wishing the night won't end.

How animated it was around me, us, but you seem to tone down the atmosphere.

Especially how you said those words, as if it came out of a YA Novel, the turn of things on how smoothly scenes would go, and there I was lost under the stars that laid above us.

I brushed my head against your shoulder, leaning towards you but that little bit of soberness made me take it back as soon as I realized what I'm doing.

But I can't deny I kept leaning towards your warmth that night.

"You're cute." You said amused, both cheeks flushed.

I also felt myself slip as those words slip off your lips.

I had to blink twice. "Oh?"

"You're holding back."

It's cute too how you chuckled.

I could only chuckle at what I did. "It's embarassing..."

There was a pause but it made me look at you.

"You know... This is why most people ask others to drink with them."

I can already notice the slur in your tone, but me too is far from sober to even bother I had all my attention on you.

"Because when you didn't like what happened, you have a reason."

I felt my stomach sink deeper, drunk in your words. "And that is?"

"I was just drunk..."

It took me a while to take in what you just had said, taking a while and I'm feeling soberness beginning to rush into me.

I let you continue in your talking yet I stayed quiet as it finally sink in. I knew what my stand is from the start though.

It still is the same.

Looking back? I didn't want to give out the reason because I liked how what happened the way it is... Just the way it is.

Because for a moment, our soberness got washed away along with the label of "friends" engraved in us.

This is not a love story.

I am not so sure of you but this, this is definite.

Though I can't help but be caught up in the moment and up in my head. Looking back, it was days filled with fun but it has a flip side... I cannot say it being the "down side", you can't seem to make it that way. The more that I think about you, I see a person who is more than just carefree spirit, you could be so human as you are as vulnerable.

Now I can't stop replaying the memories in my head, like my favorite song, you became mine. And that's how you were starting to consume me.

It got me thinking that I should flee as soon as I can, but I am already caught in your clutches. So instead, I took a different route. Hating you as much— trying— denying that I am liking how you drive me mad.

I hated how your eyes wrinkle as you smile. I hate how you smell of freshly washed clothes off a washing machine.

I hate the shallowness of your humor, it's sickening how you make a joke out of everything. And I hate how you can make me laugh, still.

I hate how I mirror the same depth of stares when I look back at you. Or so I had mistaken.

I hate how you're not at all aware of what you're doing to me.

I hate that I kept looking back at the good on you, because that's all I see.

That day.

We simply just talked about being available for the sake of it being laid out on the table. Didn't we all just all too caught up with the red-shaded banners and heart-shaped decorations that got us consumed that we were actually capable of love?

I kept replaying you like my favorite song, in hopes I'll get sick of it.

"We were just both broken and in need of company."

Or that's what I at least believe to lessen the hurt.

There goes my honesty.

But I ain't broken at that time, and I don't have any intention to fix your shit, if there's any.

This is not a love story.

I ask myself too, why? Why did I still go ahead despite knowing what I will be getting myself into?

I knew your smile was trouble at first glance. Yet when I heard the warning, I still have high hopes that things will turn out different from what it will be. When it is not for me to delve in the first place. But I dived in head first. And that mistake was the answer to my 'why'. I had to go through that the hard way.

But I bumped into you in an unexpected way. Yet the outcome of you are expected in many ways.

We didn't even had a beginning but there's already an ending. Our span of time is unknown.

But at some point I wished that I just wouldn't last just as your summer.

I somehow visited the pages of an entry I wrote at 3 AM with you in my mind. Wanting to be with your autumn to spring.

"Let me be not just your 500 days."

This is not a love story.

Or maybe. I just made it ought to be.

When I knew all along of what we could never be. That was my fault but I knew, you weren't one of them.

You are my maybe, and I was never sure of you and what I will came to be.

But maybe we are just meant to last a summer.

It has gone all too fast, changing... fleeting as the summer's ending.

That's when I knew, I am just a mere Summer to you.

We didn't even last till summer, but thank you.

After all, this is just "A Story of Girl Meets Boy."

I hope you'll do great on autumn.

— nj.b | March, 2019 | from "Summer", to "Tom".

"I really do hope that you're happy."

— Tom Hansen, 500 Days of Summer (2009)