Ch’Kalaa Montgomery

Poole

Intro to Creative Writing

25 March 2021

Lacking.One.V.Emotion

It wasn’t that long ago when I hated that word. That word that has so much

power and standing behind it. Holidays and movies and songs, all created based on this

one word. It’s funny that such an emotion can be seen differently from different

perspectives. Something that is associated with butterflies and beauty can just as easily

be seen as toxic and vial.

I never got to learn the meaning of love growing up. I knew I loved my mother,

and I think I loved my nieces and nephew, and did I love my sisters? None of us had

ever told each other we love the other. Not my mom, or my sisters, or any of my sister's

kids. I would tell my dad, but that was because he would tell me. I don’t hate my family,

no that’s not what I’m getting at. But I never understood. Did I love them? I love my

friends, and they love me, I think. Or they just tolerate me for being here. But I shouldn’t

doubt them, because I love them. But what level of love was I on?

I’d never been in love. There wasn’t anyone who caught my eye. There was the

senior in high school, but he was just cute. Then there was the pianist my sophomore

year, but he was just as cute. I wasn’t in love with them, no way. No matter what my

journal says, 16 year old me was just happy to see a cute boy. But then what was the

difference now?
 It was a year and a half ago, nearly two. It was a tight year for me at the time.

There were days I wanted to forget who I was; forgot the reason why I was here,

surrounded by a group of students who were here for a credit or here for a requirement.

I was the latter, and it was the summer that made me hit my lowest. I was always the

type filled with hope and positivity, and “Don’t let it get you down. There’s a tomorrow

after today”. But those words suddenly began to mold, and was suddenly building up

fire in the back of my throat. I was isolated in a room full of people, with two-faced

theatrical masks, where my mask was slowly cracking, and revealing a blank face. The

path I was taking was getting thinner and thinner, and my plans were getting lost.

And then I met him, and he was no senior, or pianist. He was kind, and funny,

and beautiful, and had the biggest ears I’d ever seen. I found myself staring when he

was around, and even when he wasn’t. My phone had become invested in him, my

thoughts had been processed to him, and my heart...what was that thing doing?

It felt like I had just walked up the steps to my high school, or had just run the

mile run in my PE class. It was like standing up in front of Public Speaking and telling

myself and my group that I wasn’t nervous in order to look cool when the entire time my

heart was pounding so hard that I couldn’t read the words I had rehearsed and

perfected two days before. It was like when I was 11 years old and I, by some thought of

an eleven year old who thought she was 30 years old, decided to get into my pace

teacher’s cabinet to see if I could fit, and a classmate locked me inside, and I screamed

and pounded on the door, afraid of forever being trapped in the void of copy paper and

a large sized raincoat. It felt like the night my mother’s boyfriend came by late one night,

and was pounding on the door looking for her, and then began pounding on the window
of the room me and my niece slept in until he broke the window and finally left, the

entire time not realizing that she wasn’t there, but instead was only me and my niece,

who clung to me because she was afraid and didn’t know what was going on. It felt like

the time I was learning to swim, and I climbed a 16 foot diving board, and I stood on the

edge of the board, and my instructor suddenly pushed me in, and I hit the water at the

end of a 12 foot pool. It felt like the time I first stepped foot on a plane, and the first

thought that hit me was that I was alone, and that I could never see my family and

friends again if just one thing goes wrong. It was the moment I heard my mother scream

in her room, and I rushed in and saw her on the ground holding her leg, and her

boyfriend carried her to his car and took her to the hospital, only to find out that she had

broken it, and it was the first time that I realized that my mother wasn’t invincible, and

that she was human, too, and could one day perish.

We’d met through a mutual friend. She introduced me to his group, and they

were all kind, and funny, and beautiful. It had made me think that they listened to their

parents and ate their vegetables instead of hiding them in a napkin used to “wipe your

mouth”. Thinking behind me now, I only remember him. I always found it weird that he

would smile so kindly at me, or always greet me so warmly. Maybe he thought I was

easy, because I had been nice back, like the guy in PreCalculus, who I offered to help

tutor, only to find out that math wasn’t what he was trying to study. I knew all the tricks. I

was 20 now, and there was nothing that he could hit me with that I wouldn't immediately

pick up on.

But I fell for it. He became my weakness. And it all started with his curvy smile. I

had never seen a grown man so adorable until I met him. It was strange. He was four
years my senior, and yet looked as though he was younger than me, myself, who was

always the baby of any group I was a part of. It wasn't just his looks, though. He had

moments where I had to remind myself that he wasn't a child, and then there were times

that I remembered all too perfectly that he was above me, out of my league.

I'd always known that he was someone who was untouchable. I knew that falling

for any of his charm would steer me down a path that would lead me to more self doubt,

and more questioning, and a trail of pieces of a mask that had been holding out for so

long, until it had finally snapped under pressure.

But fall is what I did. And of course, being the chosen one, he hit me right in my

Achilles heel. The entire time that I engaged with him, I recognized a feeling I never felt.

Something I didn't feel with Kent, the guy from high school who claimed to have feelings

for me, the first guy might I add.

It amazed me how around him, at times, I felt like his mother. He was so much

cooler, and better than I was, but I still began to get greedy. I wanted to be his friend, his

partner, his lover, his girlfriend, his wife. But instead, I became someone who was

pushed to the sidelines. I was the side love interest in a movie that was everyone’s

favorite, but lost the main character to the whiny character no one likes. I was the

unlockable character in a video game that no one chose because of how weak his stats

were, but is actually better than all of the characters combined. I was the old model of a

car or computer or cell phone that got pushed away because a newer and fresher

model was introduced, even though it was always the same thing, just a few hundred

dollars more.
 I wanted to make my feelings go away. Call me a coward, but I wanted to get that

weight off my shoulders. As much as I appreciated the way he made me feel, I had my

days where these feelings were sadly a burden on me. But, then there was that day.

That day everything was thrown off tract. That day, he was with his friend, and my heart

was going in a spin again, but this time, I realized something as he and his friend played

a game of bored arts and crafts. And on that day, I realized that I liked him, and then

that I loved him,and then I realized that I was in love with him, and then I realized that I

could never be in love with him again.

So what was I to do other than to give up on him? My first crush, my first love, my

first heartbreak. And all this happened in the span of thirty minutes. I don’t want to give

up on loving him, but I experienced something I never thought I could, thanks to

him-let’s call him V.

V was someone who made my heart start doing weird things. Like my roommate

doing yoga in the middle of our shared apartment. She always did stretches after

finishing up a stressful assignment or having just fought with her boyfriend. She was

also pretty fit, being a tennis player at our college. She was the one who introduced me

to V, and was dating one of the boys of his group.

“What are you going to do?”

Her phone suddenly lit up beside me from the seat on the couch. Her boyfriend

was calling her as she stretched her legs behind her body.

“Don’t answer that.”

So they were fighting. Her yoga “class” seemed to be finished, as she stood up

from her spot on the ground and began rolling up her mat.
“Are you going to tell him how you feel?”

I only shook my head at her.

“Are you still upset that I introduced you guys?”

She reached over me and grabbed her blue water bottle that was labelled with

different times to drink water. She’d gotten it from her boyfriend, who likely ordered it for

$50, rather than $20 on Amazon. My friend had always thought I was upset that she got

me in this situation, and I was, but I was being childish, so I never blamed her.

“Look, I can take full responsibility, but I still think you should talk to him.”

To me, she never understood the situation I was in. She always knew her

boyfriend, and then suddenly she loved him, and then he loved her. They fought, but

she had the privilege to have a lover’s quarrel, because you knew that despite the

arguments, they loved each other conditionally.

I could feel her eyes on me as I stared off into the TV, the ending video credits

slowly passing by. At that moment, I began to think. Had she ever been in this position?

This wasn’t her first relationship. Did she truly treasure her previous ones? Was I always

so judgemental of the way she did things?

“Hey, are you even listening?”

I lowered my head and thought about the way I had been acting. My friend

suddenly stood up, sighing and trudging past me.

“Thank you.”

It was something I should have said in the very beginning. The entire time that I

was focused on making a hopeless love work, I was neglecting the love and attention of

those around me. I’m so focused on figuring out ways to make a man destined to never
love me look my way, and I hadn’t paid an ounce of attention to my best friend, who was

there the entire way for me. This was always about him, about V, and my focus had

always been based on him alone, but now, I decided to focus on the ones who are here

for me now.

My friend stopped and lazily turned her attention to look at me. Her phone rang

again besides me. I blinked and went to look over at the screen. The name of her

boyfriend flashed across the screen once again. I reached over and picked up her

phone. I caught a glimpse of the missed calls and messages that cluttered her lock

screen, that held a picture of me, her, and all of our friends that I knew for certain I

loved, and who loved me.

“Answer it.”