Call It What You Want

by Alissa DeRogatis

No, we never dated. He’s not an ex-boyfriend. He’s an ex-almost. Maybe that’s all we’d ever be—an incomplete sentence or a book that someone put down halfway through and never picked back up, finished without an ending.

parties—I was willing to do it whenever and wherever because I thought it would make him love me. I was desperate not to be alone. Spoiler alert: sex never makes someone love you.

Life got so much better when I stopped looking for love in every guy I met.

“Absolutely. I’m happy with where things are at with Ethan. There’s no rush to label it.” Part of me agreed with the words that were coming out of my mouth, but another part knew that they weren’t necessarily true.

“That’s Brady for ya. Not that I’m sticking up for him by any means, but he’s an only child, pretty much grew up on his own, so he’s a selfish guy. I don’t think he sees anything wrong in it,” he said. “Neither of us know what we’re doing when it comes to a relationship, but treating someone the way they treat you isn’t hard. I would’ve never done that to him. I’d spend every day with him if he’d let me.” I threw myself back onto the pillow, knowing exactly how desperate that sounded.

You can’t love someone into changing—you shouldn’t have to. I knew that. So why didn’t I believe it?

I had to accept that we were never going to get a chance. How was I able to fall in love with someone who wasn’t sure about me? What was so wrong with me that every time I got close to love, it ran from me?

If I knew loving him would have hurt this badly, I would’ve never laid my eyes on him.

I didn’t care that I was settling for a fraction of a relationship with him when I knew I deserved so much more. I was willing to settle for whatever he would give me, because a fraction of him was better than nothing at all.

I reentered the apartment dreading having to explain where I had been. It wasn’t that the girls didn’t like Ethan; it was that they didn’t like what he was doing to me. Stringing me along was what they liked to call it. They didn’t know him the way I did though. I knew that he wanted to try; he just said it himself. I could tell that he was scared that he’d fail, or he wouldn’t live up to my standards. None of that mattered though, because what he didn’t know was that I was already in love with him. I was afraid to tell him, because once I did, it would be game over. That was the only move I had left, and I wanted to keep it in my back pocket.

“Come on. Do you hear yourself? A relationship isn’t supposed to be this hard. Sure, every couple has arguments and makes compromises but the lead-up shouldn’t be this long. He should know what he wants, and if he doesn’t, maybe that should be a sign that it’s not you.”

you need to stop losing your mind over someone who doesn’t mind losing you.”

How could someone I did nothing but love do nothing but hurt me in return?

If you loved someone, I mean really loved them, would you be willing to just let them go? Especially over something from your past that you couldn’t control? My parents’ divorce did a number on me. For a little while I wondered if I would ever truly love someone, and if I did, would I live in constant fear wondering if they’d just leave one day? Then I met Ethan, and those thoughts didn’t cross my mind once.

So no, I didn’t want to let him go. But I knew once the shock and initial pain subsided, I’d have to, because that’s what he did to me. He let me go without thinking twice, and I think that was what hurt the most—thinking I meant something to him, just for him to show me that I didn’t.

That night I realized that losing someone doesn’t necessarily mean losing. Every time someone walks out of your life, someone new eventually walks into it. Losing someone means you’ll eventually gain someone even better.

Somewhere along the line of loving you and then hating you and then missing you and then hating you again, I realized that you did all you could. We weren’t made for each other, no matter how much I tried to convince myself we were.

I didn’t want this to be a lesson; I wanted it to be love. But if we weren’t meant to last, then the best I can hope for is that you use our time together as a learning experience, a source of wisdom, a reason to change.

“Listen to me.” Lauren plops down next to me. “I’m gonna be brutally honest here. He’s your first love, so you’re never going to forget him, not really anyway. A part of you will always love him, but not in the way you used to. In the way that you love an old friend you no longer talk to, in the way you love a restaurant that you can’t return to because it closed—it’s an empty kind of love. You’re happy to have experienced it, and maybe you’re sad from time to time that it’s over, but you know it wasn’t meant to last forever.”

At first, I thought maybe it was a sign. Maybe we were meant to be. I quickly realized that sometimes not every coincidence or run-in at the grocery store must mean something. Sometimes, you really do end up in the same place at the same time as someone you don’t want to see by chance. And there are two ways to handle it. Option one: convince yourself this was on purpose and try to figure out said purpose. Option two: realize it was a coincidence and continue with your life.

Three words can change so much. Three words can make you completely forgive someone and forget why you were upset with them in the first place. Three words can make you feel like the most important person in the world, and to Reese, I was. I knew that.

It’s all here. It’s so easy to look back and romanticize the good. The laughs, the kisses, the dates, the road trips. But what about the fights? The screaming, the crying, the nights he stormed out of the room and retreated to his own bed. Never documented, hardly discussed. It’s like they never existed. It’s easy to remember the good moments when they’re all we want to see.

I don’t know what it is about Ethan that makes me forget everything and everyone else. We’ve always had this bond that doesn’t quite make sense. I think I’ve always known, deep down, that we probably won’t work out in the end. I still can’t help but hope that we do.

You can’t beg someone to love you, as much as I wish you can, you can’t. You shouldn’t have to convince someone that you’re good enough or you’re worth it. That’s something I’m still learning.

In the beginning, I was convinced he was my “right person, wrong time.” Now, I’m starting to think that may just be a phrase people use when they love someone so deeply and know that person doesn’t, and never can, love them back the same way. So instead, they’ll make up excuses about timing and places to avoid the inevitable ending.

What’s wrong with me? Why am I so fucked up? I mean, I know why I’m fucked up—my parents did this to me. Why can’t I let someone love me when it’s all I’ve wanted my entire life? All I’ve wanted was to feel loved, and as soon as someone tries, I push them away.

As much as I’ve always wanted to end up with Ethan, I think I knew he’d never be it for me. Is it scary to think about falling in love again? Opening my heart up to someone who could potentially damage it even worse than he did? Of course, it is. But that’s what love is right? Love is taking risks regardless of the outcome. Our relationship may not have been conventional. It wasn’t a fairy-tale romance that we’d tell our kids and grandkids about one day. It was comfortable silences, familiar laughs, and hugs that felt like home. What we had wasn’t something I could ever put into words. It was just us. Call it what you want, but for me it was love.