What I'd Trade the World For

How do you wanna be loved?

I have always wondered how it would feel to have someone to put your arms around to. To have someone to kiss when you want to. To have someone to hold when you feel like you can't keep your ground. I guess you can say I was curious. And impatient. And a little bit of lonely too.

I was young by then. Younger that I was now. And I had little knowledge about anything that goes inside the human heart. For someone who writes love stories, I never had one. All my relationships ranges only when the novel ends, when the movie ends or when the series ends.

But that didn't faze me. I guess I was in love with the idea of being in love.

Because why not?

It was always beautiful, magical and powerful. Two people meet at the most unlikely times of their lives and in each other they found themselves changing and unfolding. They become braver, smarter,  kinder and softer. They become the best versions of themselves.

I guess that was why when you came, I thought maybe it was the time. Maybe it was you. Maybe this is it. I thought that finally, I'll be going into some crazy adventure and I'll be having my own story too.

Nicholas.

Your name sounded nice and brilliant and intelligent. I love how the words and letters roll off my tongue like it was meant to be there. I used to say that if I'd marry someone, I want his name to be beautiful like him too. And when you reached out your hand to me after helping me pick up my books, I thought "Hey, this guy's name sounds cool."

It was cliché really. Monday morning rush. Corridor. School. We were both in a hurry. We bumped into each other. Then voila, it became, what to me was once the perfect and most fitting love story.

I thought that if we go by the books, if we do things the way main characters do, minus of course the killing of the villain part, we'll endure through the end. And we did. We endured through the end. Separately.

To my dearest Nick, I loved you.

I thought you were the sweetest thing in all the world. I like your lame jokes. I like our note-passing episodes. I like it when you fail lab and give me one of those adorable puppy looks to convince me to help. I like it when you go enthusiastic about Pirates of the Caribbean and Tyrion Lannister. I like the way your mouth twitches when you realize you've been talking way too much. I like it when your eyes glint with mischief when you first dragged me to cut classes. Those were the fun days.

You always loved chess. You love the complexity of the game. The unpredictability. The pieces all at your command. The trillion possible ways you can manipulate them and the hanging effect. The unsure. The freedom to place each piece anywhere.

You always loved numbers. You told me once that each formula, each problem is a whole universe of the unknown. It has to be you who pulls the numbers together and tie them in one place and help them make sense. You said they are solid. You always love it when numbers and formulas quantify everything. You never loved the abstract.

You were the movie person. You said you had no patience to read thousand-long pages if there is a one-hour version available online. You said you like it when things have solid pictures in your head. You like them planned. Organized.

That's why you always wanted to be an engineer. You always plan things ahead. You like solid ground. You like numbers. You like to make things work. You always make things, work.

Except us.

You see, we were two different bodies lying in the opposite poles of the spectrum. And the only thing that ties us are the curiousity we had for each other.

I was curious. When our eyes first met, when you first held out your hand, I was curious. As you must have been. I was curious to a guy who's almost on the different side of my world. You see, you were foreign and unpredictable and different. And dangerous. I should have shot off running. But I didn't. Instead I took your hand and said my name, and let myself fall deeper into curiousity.

I like words. But unlike you, I was never fond of the unpredictable. I don't like puzzle pieces and chess. I find it hard to do the thing. I suck at math. And unlike you, I love the abstract.

One time you asked me. "Isn't the abstract unpredictable? And here I thought you hated the unpredictable?"

I would've loved to ask you that time too why you love chess when it's unpredictable and why you love numbers when you say they are solid and they are still numbers whatever you do with them. But I didn't. I would've love to tell you that the unpredictable is neither and the abstract is present, although with no definite form. But I didn't. Instead I looked into your eyes and wonder how brown could such be a beautiful and bright color all at the same time.

We were different, you see. But I loved you Nick. I have. I did. Maybe I still do. And even if the thread that connected us was weak and breakable, I did not mind. Even if I dislike unpredictability I did not mind. I did not mind where we were going then.

But we were the greatest predictability of the world. And for the first time, I hated knowing things in advance.

You see, when I get curious about a certain specimen during lab hours, I would never get enough of it. I would watch it over, unravel it, marvel at it. I would never get enough of it. I would never have gotten enough of you. Only if.

You never had the patience for curiousity. You can be very driven and goal-oriented but once you know something, you have the tendencies to set it aside and throw it. And that's exactly what you did to me.

You see, while I was slowly wrapping my life towards you like you were the sun, your world grew outwards. A world far beyond. A world that little by little set us apart. Until that world, your world, no longer included me. While I was slowly closing my world with you as the center, you started to drift away. Farther and farther. And farther. Farther than ever.

It was like trying to keep a hoola-hoop from spinning when you know it's gonna stop and fall anyway, inevitably. And when it did, so did my heart. Down down into the concreted pavement. Crushed. Broken. Red and bleeding.

Nicholas.

Your name always had the ring in it.

Nicholas.

It always rolls off my tongue like honey.

Nicholas.

I cried when you told me you cannot make us work anymore.

Nicholas.

I died a thousand deaths when you said it just doesn't seem right to you when it meant the whole fcking world to me.

Nicholas.

I hate you.

Nicholas.

I FCKING HATE YOU.

How do you wanna be loved? He asked again. His voice gentle and kind. It reminded me of you. You were all things but gentle and kind. Elise? He repeated when I didn't answer, my eyes trailing off from my food to the blue blue color of his eyes.

How do I wanna be loved? I offered a smile to the 39th date I had after three years, after you, Nicholas. And I answered in a sweet sweet voice. Like how all girls wanna be loved. And I resumed to eating like nothing happened. My stomach churned. Still not the one. Because let's face it. Who in their right mind would ask a girl how she wanna be loved? Shouldn't they suppose to figure that out? Because you always have it figured out Nick. You always knew how I wanna be loved.

And right now as I am sitting playing doll and sweet with another guy I'm gonna dump after you, all I could think is the anger and the pain. All I could think of is the way I wanna be loved. The way I wanna be loved by you. Still you, Nicholas. Tragically, stupidly, madly, you.

And if there's one thing I'd trade the world for? It's for a second chance with you.

xxx