He’s In My Veins
“You’re in my veins, and I cannot get you out. You’re all I taste at night inside of my mouth…” -In My Veins, Andrew Belle. These were just song lyrics to me once, until a very special man, maybe the most special I’ve ever met, gave them meaning.
One of the most common questions when it comes to long term relationships is “How do you know when you’re in love?” and there are a thousand different responses: “All of the love songs will start to make sense,” “You’ll think about them more than anything else,” “You’ll just know.” While I can’t disagree with any of these statements, unfortunately the saying, “You don’t know what you have until it’s gone,” rings true in this case. I never realized just how in love I was until I lost him. As much as I believe everything happens for a reason, I never believed in soulmates, or understood the phrase “my other half,” until I met this guy. This all may or may not sound ridiculously cliché, but it doesn’t matter. He’s perfect to me, and he’s not mine anymore.
In a nutshell, here’s the tragic tale: I met him at orientation over the summer before freshman year, I wasn’t into him at the time because I was dating a different guy, who was certainly not worth my time but that’s a whole other story. I got this boy’s number and Snapchat, along with everyone else’s in my orientation group, and throughout the summer we didn’t talk. Once first semester rolled around, we began Snapchatting, I had forgotten how cute he was, eventually I began actually crushing on him, and over winter break we texted every single day. On the second day of the new semester, we had our first date.
Now we all know how the first date normally plays out: a couple nervous giggles, some awkward silences, showing any and all possible attractive qualities you posses, right? Not this time. It was natural and easy. Not a single second of silence, in fact, we had so much to talk about that we were practically cutting each other off. We just sat and talked for hours, and the longer I sat and stared at him, the more I could feel myself falling for him. A week later we had our first kiss, and I could literally feel the sparks. I couldn’t keep myself off of him after that. It was a constant cycle of texting him, missing him, and kissing him, and forget the teenage hormones, this was pure passion — like the most addicting drug in the world, that I couldn’t overdose on.
We finally made it official, and for about a month I was on cloud nine. He made my heart palpitate to the point where I could hear it beating in my ears, and he showed me a level of happiness that I didn’t even know physically existed. He gave meaning to the word “perfect,” and I didn’t care how disgustingly all over each other we were; after a month and a half, he told me he was in love with me, and I was so happy that I cried. It was replaying in my head non-stop like a catchy pop song, and I didn’t want it to stop because I was absolutely head over heels crazy about him.
Things were moving fast, but we had both been in love before and knew how we both felt… or so I thought. Spring break rolled around, and we were both getting so excited to meet each other’s friends and families, it’s all we could talk about, but the second we both got home, something changed. He was distant and cold. He wasn’t his normal bubbly self that I came to love. Next thing I knew, he wouldn’t even give me a phone call, and he bailed on meeting my parents. I was devastated, but I chalked it all up to the fact that his family had been in a tough spot for weeks and he needed to be there for them. I was pushing through until that Friday night. I finally got the guts to text him and ask him what was wrong, and that’s when he hit me with those four dreadful words…
I asked him if I should be worried, and all he could leave me with was a promise to come talk to me as soon as we were both back on campus. I swear I felt my heart drop into my stomach and the tears immediately welled up in my eyes. The next 24 hours were a stressful, surreal blur of tears, no appetite, and avoiding any and all contact with the outside world.
The dreaded moment was finally here. He texted that he was on his way, and I could hear the palpitations again, but not in the good way like before. He knocked on the door and I braced myself. When I opened the door, he looked at me with tears already in his eyes. His voice was shaky as he asked me to sit down. He began to cry and immediately went to “I want to start out by saying I’m sorry,” so I immediately shifted gears and was ready to comfort him, but then he went on to say everything I was afraid of. He told me he thought he was ready to be in a committed relationship again, and that he really felt like he was in love with me. He reassured me that he cared about me, and he felt awful for wasting my time and hurting me, because that was never his intention. He really wanted to date me, but he felt like he couldn’t give me everything that he wanted to. He begged me to move on, and to find somebody else, but I didn’t want that. I wanted him and only him. He looked up at me and said “Promise me you’ll be ok,” and I wanted to promise him that, but I couldn’t look the man I loved in the eyes and lie to him, so I simply responded, as my voice (and my heart) broke, with an “I can’t make you that promise right now.”
He grabbed me and held me, and I finally let myself sob onto his shoulder. He mumbled things in attempt to calm me down, but I’d be lying if I said I remember a single thing he said. The only thing I know is what he left me with. He stood up, kissed my forehead, and told me he had to go. Any ounce of pride or dignity I had left in me was thrown out the window. I couldn’t breathe, and I begged him to stay. I began to have a full-on panic attack. I couldn’t picture a life where I didn’t spend afternoons curled up in his arms watching Netflix or late nights running around campus laughing at how stupid we were. He kissed and hugged me one last time, and I watched him walk out of my dorm room wiping away his tear-stained cheeks.
I must have cried out all the water in my body that night. My roommate and three best friends attempted to soothe me, but it was useless; I only wanted him. His love, his touch, his presence. You might be thinking I’m reflecting back on this weeks later, but everything I just described happened less than 48 hours ago. Here I sit, broken shell of a little college freshman, and he’s all I can think about. So many things left unsaid, but if he really is my person, maybe one day I can tell him that he did give me everything. More than I ever could have asked for. Until then, this pain will run its brutal course.
“Everything is dark, it’s more than you can take, but you catch a glimpse of sunlight shining down on your face…” In My Veins, Andrew Belle. The song lyrics do make sense, and I’m holding onto that glimpse of sunlight, until I can finally pull myself out of the dark.