Not his Juliet

Love can be described in many ways. Sure, there is love at first sight; and there's love that grows over time, whether it be short or long. My first love was very much like the second; we met and we soon fell in love, or we thought we did.

I remember the day we met because it was April Fool's Day, the first day of April. I even checked because I wanted to show I could remember important dates. No, I did not meet him at school or a club or even bumped into him at the grocery store or a coffee shop. We met online. It was this app meant for college students, but everyone knew teenagers, like myself and so many people I grew to know, got on anyway.

The way we met, it wasn't even special. We just happened to be on at the same time; we just happened to be in the same section of the forums of the app; we even happened to be on the same thread of that specific section.

After we met, we didn't talk much, not at first. But then... well, suddenly, we began speaking to each other. And, as it turned out, we had similar interests. So, we talked as much as possible, and soon every day.

Around June or July, only a few months later, I saw he had a girlfriend. Her name was Faye, but her screen name was "LilySnape" and at the time, I simply called her Lily because I never knew her name until much later. She was one of my friends, and many other friends of ours were happy for the guy I fell for, the young man named Benjamin. I was happy for him, truly, but I was jealous, an emotion I never expected to feel.

At that point, I knew I had fallen. Ben was my best friend at the time, and I had told myself, "This is a stupid cliché. I can have a guy best friend and not fall in love with him." I denied it for the longest time, despite the fact that I always had pangs of jealously when Ben would talk about Faye and vice versa.

On August 18, just a couple days after I had started school again, we were talking. Ben had broken up with Faye, so I told myself it was time to tell him how I felt.

Ben beat me to the punch.

I remember how nervous I was to tell him; how excited I was to see he liked me back. And, well, the rest is obvious.

Until fifteen months later, on November 3 of the following year, he said the very words that split my heart in two: "I fell out of love with you."

Now, this guy, he was everything to me. Yes, he was a year younger than me and, yes, we were merely teenagers, but I really thought I loved him.

He didn't really love me. In fact, he was cheating on my the last few months we were together. Sure, it was online, but he cheated all the same. And I will never forget those words, not even after we've ceased being best friends; not even after we ended our relationship; not even after I stopped speaking to him; not even now, two years after I severed contact with the young man I thought I loved.

"I fell out of love with you. I'm sorry."

Me too, Benjamin, me too.