Short Fiction (3/100): Love

I learned a few things growing up, about love.

Love is conditional. Love is unreliable. Love is something that was supposed to mean everything, but so often meant nothing. This is what I learned as a child, in a house where I was told I was loved and knew every day it was a lie. That's where I learned what love felt like. I can't say I cared for it, at the time.

I grew up, and though my heart ached for it, I'd sort of given up on finding that love I kept hearing about in stories. This unconditional, perfect, meaningful love that was trumpeted in song and story. It seemed like a myth, a bigfoot in a blurry photograph, a trashcan lid flying saucer. So I told myself I didn't need it. I built a world in my head where I was going to be alone. Forever. And I was fine with that, in that world. I told myself that every night. Because I was too broken to ever think someone would give a damn.

It's amazing how the things you never expect to happen can happen all at once. All I know is that maybe I was wrong. Maybe it can mean something after all. Maybe that love, the one I read in book after book, saw in film after film, maybe it was real. And I guess, well, I gotta say... it was worth the wait...