Twice burned

By Alexandria Llamasares

I fell in love twice last year. And twice I was heartbroken. I proved my professor right when he told us that love is a feeling which attracts masochists, people who love to inflict pain on themselves. I loved the feeling of being in love. I loved the feeling of loving someone despite the pain. I am a masochist.

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately and I came to realize that you are special to me. But I haven’t made up my mind yet if I should fall in love with you or not. Now let me quote Oscar Wilde’s question, shall I love you?” This was what I told my friend when I admitted that I was falling in love with him.

I never thought that those lines would lead me to my first heartbreak. The feeling is just indescribable. No words can express all of the pain, hurt and disappointment that I felt. He was my super friend, and we were not supposed to be more than that. The line between love and friendship was clear, but I just crossed it. I thought we could be more than friends, and I was wrong.

If only I knew we could never be together, I would not have bothered to gather all the courage I could muster to tell him that I loved him. I could have kept him near me. I could have saved whatever relationship we had. He could have been my super friend forever.

Now he is nowhere near. He told me it would be better if we kept our distance from each other.

True, the distance helped. I was over him in record time. Or so I thought.

One day, I received a text message from him, saying he was very happy. I asked him why, and his reply was heart-wrenching for me: He had spent the entire day with someone special. I was shattered. It felt like the world was closing in on me. I prayed for the earth to open and swallow me alive. Right then and there, I realized I was still not over him.

All through my pain and heartache, there was this someone who was always there. He held me tight, he would not let me break into pieces. And I knew that if I did, he would pick me up and put me back together and make me whole again. He was not my prince or my knight, but he was my “shining armor” and he called me his “lady.” He protected me from pain, and warned me when there was danger. He caught me when I fell and never let my feet touch the ground. He healed my broken heart. And when it was healing, I caught myself falling for him. He gave me a reason to smile when there was no reason for me to do so. He loved me at my best and accepted me at my worst. Or so I believed.

“What do you mean when you called me your lady?” For someone who just had a major heartbreak, it takes a lot of courage to risk being hurt again. But I did. By asking my “shining armor” that question, I let him hold a gun to my heart, trusting that he would not pull the trigger.

But pull the trigger he did. “Nothing. Just a title. It doesn’t mean anything” was his answer to my question.

I wanted to confront him and ask him why he was doing it to me, why he was breaking my heart. I desperately wanted him to take back what he said. I wanted him to tell me he was only joking. But the only word that came out of my mouth was “okay.”

He wanted to talk about it. I didn’t. I smiled and pretended that I was all right. I told him I was feeling all right.

But deep inside, I was weeping. A great sadness filled my being. I regretted my actions. I should not have asked him that question. It was so painful. It was like he was cutting me from the inside out. I could feel my heart bleeding.

Just like that, I was broken — again. Had I known it would feel this way, I wouldn’t have mocked my high school friends with glee when they were crying their hearts over a lost love.

Despite all the hurt and pain I went through, I would never forget these experiences. I have realized that I am strong a person capable of loving. And if I could choose what memories to forget and erase from my mind, these wouldn’t include these heartbreaks that I went through.

My best friend advised me to hail those men for opening up my locked heart. I agree with her. If it weren’t for them, I might not have known that there is a romantic side of me that wants to break free and to be noticed despite my skepticism about love and romance. If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t have been able to feel how wonderful it is to love, even if it’s a one-way street.

It’s a new year and I plan to have a brand new start. I want to move on and be really happy with my life. Falling in love is not part of my action plans. But if Mr. Love should happen to drop by again in my life, I would not close the door on him. I am a masochist after all.

Alexandria R. Llamasares, 18, is a Bachelor or Arts in Psychology sophomore at the University of the Philippines Cebu College.