A Hue of Blu: the unforgettable love story

by Marie-France Léger

Paris was a dream, that’s what it was. The atmosphere, the Eiffel Tower, the environment . . . It was all new. It was mine to explore. I was determined to explore it.

I thought about him. He wasn’t my usual type. He was an enigma. I could feel the challenge brewing – it excited me.

In a world short of love, I had to be wanted. I was wanted. I felt wanted. Never loved, no. But I was wanted.

Maybe I fell in love with the potential of people, not who they really were.

Must be nice, I thought. To enjoy things without looking too deeply as to why you enjoyed them, why they existed – why they made you happy.

Fawn repaired me. Her aunt repaired my hair. I mended the broken pieces of myself. But broken pieces always remained, especially when they sat right underneath your skin. It looked like flesh, felt like flesh. Shards became soft. Glass became smooth.

Pain became happiness. Happiness became pain. Pain became comfort, and that comfort was bliss.

“Why do you always expect the worst?” Before I could respond, Carter chimed in. “You’re projecting, Blu. You’re seeing what you want to see.”

“I think I agree with her. You had a string of shitty experiences so you don’t expect this to be different.” “It won’t be.”

Maybe I did project. Maybe I did see what I wanted to see. But how could my poor, little brain do that to me? I wanted nothing more than to be loved.

The desire to win someone over trumped everything. It always did.

You value love over everything, even in the absence of it.” Even in the absence of it.

“You’ve lost a lot. You downplay your pain. You act like it doesn’t exist, that it isn’t a part of you, when it became you.”

Fawn had been my friend for ten years now. She’d seen the relationships, the hookups, the toxicity of what I’d accepted because I didn’t know any different.

Anything to help me move forward in life. I was stuck. The same horrible habits never perished. They grew and festered and boiled. Something needed to change. At the time, I didn’t realize it was myself.

“You didn’t offend me.” Liar. Everything offended me. Rejection. Judgement. Words. Actions. My past. My present. Myself.

give us reasons as to why you actually like him beyond something surface level.”

“I guarantee that you don’t like him, Blu. You like what he represents.” “And what does he represent?” A tired sigh escaped his mouth. “A challenge.”

Men loved innocent girls. It was a weird thing they enjoyed. Like, this goal of taking someone’s virginity was the ultimate trophy, and if you had been touched you were some fucking harlot.

Just selfish acts from a selfish girl. A girl who could lie about loving me. Four weeks later, The Academy scout watched me play the worst game of my life. And one month later, my dreams of pursing a career in soccer were crushed indefinitely. All because I fell in love.

Call me a bad guy, but poking the bear thrilled me.

Men didn’t respond to desperation. They responded to silence.

I just want you to know you deserve better than what you’re putting yourself through.”

Then the stupidest thing happened again. Only I was the stupid one. I began comforting him. Him. The person who broke my heart. The person who cheated on me. I was playing with his hair. Scratching his back. Feeling his skin against my bare legs. Wanting him. Craving this closeness. The comfort we’d shared for three-hundred-sixty-five days.

I laid on my bed half naked, staring at the ceiling, cursing myself for letting this happen again. I was to blame. I let people take advantage of me. I was in the wrong.

“Good enough to fuck,” I stated. “Not good enough to love,” I accepted.

Never in my life did I picture someone saying that to me. Seeing someone envious of my ability to pull girls without even trying, by just existing, by breathing. It was everything I thought I wanted.

When I was nothing, a shell of someone, a small spec of dust in comparison to all my friends, no one paid a morsel of attention to me. I envisioned this for so long, and now that it was happening, the feeling was surreal.

I was an actor. A marionette on a string. She controlled me. I never wanted to be controlled again. “You let her back in.” Bryce took a swig of Belgian, cracking his neck. “She’s probably thinking that no matter what she does next, you’d take her back.”

That was also the moment I realized how little of myself I had left, when I was trying to please everyone else.

“Envy, most likely. I’m a pretty jealous person. Want what I can’t have, have what I don’t want.”

That small piece of information that Jace let me in on, a shred of vulnerability he finally showed me felt like a landslide of progress. “I feel like I’m waiting for someone to understand me, and no one ever does.”

What was left underneath Jace Boland that I could unlock?

He wasn’t mine and yet I claimed him in my head. The thought of him being out with a bevy of girls sent nails down my oesophagus . But again, he wasn’t mine.

Ever since the beginning of our friendship, I felt like Fawn saw right through me. All the little cracks, the rocky exterior, the crumbled foundation of my life – she knew. She loved all the pieces of myself that I hid from the world. She loved me when I didn’t think it was possible. She never made me question if I was worthy of it, because to her, loving me came as easy as breathing.

She tapped my knee and pressed her lips into a smile. “Love yourself more.”

Love yourself more. Was that made to be an insult? I did love myself, didn’t I? I showered, I made my bed, I cut my nails and did my hair. My skin was always washed, my clothes neat and pressed. If I didn’t love myself, those chores wouldn’t get done.

God, every time he said that, I melted. This was bad. This was really fucking bad. He knew what he was doing, he knew it got under my skin. And yet, I let it. Every single time, I let it. Jace stabs me. I twist the knife.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I swore. For the first time, I truly believed it. But sometimes, belief isn’t enough. And sometimes, all the time, I wish I were a better man to have kept my promises.

But then the voices hit. No, no, no, Blu. Don’t do this again. Don’t fall in too deep with someone you barely know. I wanted to block them out but they kept coming.

I glanced over at Jace, the ocean in his eyes that pulled me to shore, and I wondered, were they yanking me to safety, or leading me to a storm?

This man, smiling beside me, could break my heart any day. And I’d let him. That was the problem. Wherever his eyes would lead me, storm or shore, I’d follow.

“I really don’t know how to explain the relationship.” And that was the truth. Blu and I were just friends. If anything, I wanted to save her from the circumstances she refused to tell me about. Did I like her? I really couldn’t say. Did I enjoy spending time with her? Yeah, a lot. But feelings were never black and white. They never stuck with me. I was picky and the last girl I wanted didn’t choose me. It wouldn’t be fair to choose Blu if I wasn’t one hundred percent certain.

“I like flirting with her. I know she likes me and she makes me feel good about myself.” Releasing those words made me sound like a total jackass, but I could always be honest with my brothers.

He exhaled. “Jealousy and admiration are two different things, man. I always wanted the best for you.” Jealousy and admiration. Two different things.

After all, when you liked someone, everything they did became attractive. Nothing could put you off, nothing could shift the pedestal you placed them on. That was the problem. That was always my problem.

It was shameful, how good I was at lying to him; how much I could conceal to save desperation. Every part of me wanted to beg for a sliver of emotion, to acquire a secure answer that would never make me question. But I had no right to look at things this introspectively. Jace wasn’t mine.

My mind raced like a fucking stallion. My jealousy tipping between sanity and insanity. Why would she be texting him? Why would he be texting her? I’d never even seen them talk, not once. Not fucking once. When did this happen?

When would I mean the words that left my lips? He didn’t look at me, his jaw tight as he said, “You’re not, but thanks anyways.” “Look man, I am. I feel like shit. I didn’t mean –” “You feel like shit because I feel like shit, Jace. Nothing affects you unless it affects how other people see you.”

Maybe that’s why I became who I became. Because nice people never got very far. And once upon a time, I was too nice, and life never rewarded me. It spat in my face.