Understanding

We lied in the ocean, floating on the still water while the sun shined hard on us overhead. I could feel my shoulders and cheeks beginning to burn but I didn’t care. You laughed beside me as I struggled to keep afloat while you did with ease. Then we both floated, holding hands with our eyes closed, appreciating the feeling of nothingness the ocean gave us, where we were weightless, and everything in our lives were too.

I tilted my head up, saltwater washing over my neck and chin as I looked at you. You sensed my gaze, opened your eyes and smiled at me, your big brown eyes squinting out the sunlight and your white teeth contrasting brightly against your olive skin. I smiled back with a slight giggle before returning to my thoughts and the bright red behind my eye lids. I squeezed your hand a bit tighter. I remember I didn’t want to let go. I wanted to stay there and be weightless with you forever. Under the harsh sun and in the salty water. Sand filling in our bikinis and sunburn covering our limbs.  Nothing mattered with you.

I remember sitting in the car with you when night had come. This was almost a routine for us; you in the driver’s seat and me in the passenger, going through music and instigating a sing-along session. Sometimes you were sad. Sometimes so was I. You’d park the car in the dark, where no one else was around. We’d talk about our day. Sometimes we’d talk about why we were sad. Put it into the open. Then we’d fill smoke into our lungs, talk about the ‘what ifs’ and the wonders of the world we tried so desperately to understand. We’d try to figure out people as well as we figured out each other. Perhaps we were scared of the potential other people had. We were scared they would be like the others we had known, who let us down. Perhaps if we understood everyone, how they thought, why they felt things and why they did what they did, it wouldn’t happen again. We would be prepared. We would understand and we would know. But we didn’t know this at the time of course. Perhaps you never did. These conversations that drifted into the early hours of the morning were associated with laughs, with light humor, with excitement. Then we’d dance in the street, laughing without a care in the world. We would laugh about things until our stomachs ached and my jaw was sore. We would forget what we were trying so hard to understand and get away from. I loved our nights like these.

Then I remember drifting away, finding another distraction that could love me in a different way that you couldn’t. Who gave me closure to the insecurities that I tried to suppress. And my grip on you begun to loosen, and our nights of trying to understand became less and less, and my need to escape began to dissolve.

I’ve had my heart broken before. It hurts. I know. So have you. But I never considered the fact that I had broken yours.