The Truth About Love

by Maisie Myers

“I know who he is, Auden Wells, I was just surprised you thought you needed to introduce yourself. I recognised you from class too.”

“‘Some say love’s a little boy, and some say it’s a bird.’” She looks up at me through thick lashes, picking up a handful of sand and letting the grains drain slowly through her fingers. I can’t look away. “‘Some say it makes the world go round, and some say that’s absurd.’”

My response is immediate, a reflex, as I pick up where she left off. “‘And when I ask the man next door, who looked as if he knew, his wife got very cross indeed, and said it wouldn’t do.’”

So, for one of her favourite poems to be ‘O Tell me the Truth About Love’, a piece that is so light and playful compared to some of Auden’s other work, is so at odds with the image I’ve painted of her that for a moment I think I may have been reading her completely wrong. “Why?”

“You don’t believe in love?” “No.” She shakes her head. “You don’t believe that maybe you could feel it for yourself one day?” “I don’t know,” she says. “I just don’t think anyone will ever feel that way about me.”

It makes me want to hear him call me Summer-Raine again, even though I hate it when people use my full name. The truth is, it just doesn’t sound so bad coming from him.

swear, his smile is so sinful it could only belong to the devil. He’s the quarterback who recites poetry, looks at me like he can see the shadows I hide from the world and makes

I shut myself in my bedroom and spend the evening getting as far ahead with my school work as possible and when I’m ready for bed, just like every night since I was fourteen, I use a razor blade to draw a line in crimson across the scarred skin on my forearm. And then I fall asleep.

No one has ever looked at me the way he is now, like he can see me.

“There are still beautiful things, Summer-Raine,” he says gently, reaching out to tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear in a gesture so intimate I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to breathe again. “You just have to let yourself see them.” “And how do I do that?” I whisper. “I’ll show you.”

Me: I’ll pick you up at seven. It’s a date. Summer-Raine: Not a date. Me: Oh baby, it absolutely is a date.

Maybe Auden sees me as a friend. But I don’t see him as one.

The sound of my name on his lips is a sacred prayer I want to hear him say over and over again.

“Damn, dude. Who’s this and what the fuck is she doing with you?” And then… “I’d hide every chair in the world just so a girl like you could sit on my face.”

Doesn’t she realise that the only man she should be looking for is me?

“But one day if you were to find what you were looking for with someone… then maybe that someone could be me?”

I think she’s too scared to admit to herself that love is real because it’s easy to protect yourself from something that you don’t believe in.

“The thought of anyone touching you makes me blind with jealousy.”

“I’m not sure I’ll survive you, Summer-Raine.”

“We all have baggage, some people’s just come with a label.”

“Mental illness doesn’t make you a burden. Only a weak person would think that of you.”

“You don’t believe me.” He cups my cheek, bringing my eyes back to his. “That’s okay. I’ll just have to prove that you can trust me.”

“Don’t hide from me.”

“I’m going to kiss you now, Summer-Raine.” His hand moves to cup my cheek. “Is that okay?”

“Goddamn, Summer-Raine,” he rasps, breaking our kiss.

“Gotta stop, baby,” he breathes.

And it’s the first time in four years that I don’t make myself bleed in order to fall asleep.

“I think I could stay here forever.”

For those precious moments, it’s just us. Just a boy and a girl and a kiss on the beach.

And though it doesn’t occur to me until later, it’s at this very moment with our lips linked together and his hand on my cheek that I fall in love.

“I like you, pretty girl.”

“Sometimes I think I more than like you.”

“Hey, Summer-Raine?” “Mm?” “Will you be my girlfriend?”

I trace kisses over her perfectly imperfect skin, breathing all my love into her to somehow counteract her trauma. And when my lips have loved every inch of her arm, I move on to the other and start all over again.

It might not have been love at first sight, but it was pretty damn close. It was more like the recognition of souls. Like my soul saw hers and knew instantly that it had found its home.

“They’re old. I haven’t – haven’t, um, added to them in a while. Not since the night you took me to dinner.”

“Did you really think I’d forget asking you something like that?”

I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you Till China and Africa meet, And the river jumps over the mountain And the salmon sing in the street “It’s W H Auden,” he whispers. “Of course, it is.” No other words come to me.

I know how you feel without needing to hear those words from you, but I wanted you to hear them from me. So, is it okay, baby? Is it okay that I love you?”

Because, from this moment on, I will forever be the girl who is loved by Auden Wells. And I’ll never be the same again.

I wish she’d accept that I love her for her, for all her quirks and whimsies and idiosyncrasies. For both her darkness and her light.

My hand winds into her hair, clutching her head to me in fear of her disappearing into thin air. Because, surely, she’s too good to be true. Too beautiful to ever belong to me. And yet, she does.

“I love you too,”

“I want everything you’ll give me. But baby, I don’t want to just be your first, I want to be your only.”

“I’ve got you, baby.”

And I thought he’d sent the monsters away. But he hadn’t. Of course, he hadn’t. They weren’t gone, they were only sleeping.

With every press of his lips to my body and slide of his cock inside me, he’s telling me how much he loves me. And it makes me want to die.

“Then bite me, hit me, anything. Hurt me, Auden.”

“I can’t do this.”

“Don’t ever ask me to do that again.”