I never could write a love story. I’ve been in love way too many times, and while friends will always tell you “write what you know,” the sad truth is: it’s easier to romanticize something you only know in passing. I keep a box in my house which is full of tokens from my ex-girlfriends. This box started as a joke with the first item being a rock a lover had thrown through my truck window. The rock was painted black and red, and she had written on the back of it: Nick, you’re a miracle that happened to me (the irony isn’t lost on me). But time heals all, or rather, time yields forgetfulness, and this box has sullied my painful memories into a fondness for the past. I pulled the box of trinkets out from underneath my bed and began to sift through them. I could write about these, I thought, but that`d be cliché.
I was sitting at my desk thinking of first sentences. The first sentence is everything. Well, not everything, but mostly everything. He walks in shadows. No, too vague. A first sentence has to really catch you. He pulls the box out from underneath the bed. Better I thought. It describes action, and is less vague and more mysterious. I pulled a few books off my shelves and opened them – the classics are always reliable. Call me Ishmael. The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new. All children, except one, grow up. I thumbed through a few more, but none were particularly illuminating. I started to wonder if classic status ascribed classic first lineness. Would “my name is Ishmael” really change the book? I’m doing it again. My mind is wondering and all I’ve got is a blinking black cursor on a white screen. I wish I’d had a typewriter; at least then there’d be scraps of paper scattered around my room. My friends would come in look around and say “wow, hard at work?” Instead I’ve got this white nothingness staring back at me.
Pulling a few boxes out of my closet, I found what I was looking for: several thin journals from high school. Perfect. Inspiration. I opened to a page that read: “I wonder if she’s thinking about me right now. I wonder if she knows I love…” Embarrassed I shut it close before I could finish the line. It’s a strange thing to be embarrassed of your past self to your future self. It’s a lot like slowly piercing your nose; you want to stop–it hurts–but at the same time you’re oddly curious what it might look like–oddly being the key word in that sentence. I remembered who I was talking about in that passage, and realized that it was a less a love story and more a story you keep to yourself–forever. I can still taste the failed attempt at foie grais I cooked for our second anniversary. That’s the kind of taste you never forget. Hard to imagine that there was ever a time when I thought love was foie grais on your second anniversary. Life lessons I suppose. I’m starting to realize that love’s probably a lot more akin to spaghetti on Tuesdays. We had spaghetti on Tuesday. That’s a good first line. The more I thought about it the more I came to the realization that spaghetti probably doesn’t encapsulate the nuances of love enough for a first line.
After a few more hours of staring at the screen, I decided it would be best if I started at the middle. She was nice, I wrote. Simple. I liked it. I could imagine her: she’d be nice, compassionate, a generally good person. It would be a good foil to the protagonist who would be morally flawed (I’d always written morally flawed protagonists). Write what you know, I thought. The story expanded in my mind. They’d have a cute meeting. Maybe she’d do something kind for a stranger and he’d see her. He wouldn’t love her at first–nice love is never love at first sight. Slowly he’d find her endearing enough that he’d surprise himself with how much he cared for her. Tragedy for the ending, I thought. All the great love stories end with tragedy. Heaven forbid two characters actually live happily ever after. Happily ever afters are for fables and ignorance. They can’t die, I thought, that’d be cliché. She has to cheat on him. It’s perfect. Cyclical. He’ll be bringing her something, a wedding ring perhaps, when he reads something on her phone.
I started to write the end scene: he looks at her phone, there is a text message. He knows he shouldn’t, but he can’t help himself. He reads it. My hands quivered a bit. When I steadied myself I wrote the last line: It’s the poem he wrote for her when he first met her. She had saved it. He took the ring from out of his pocket and was filled with something: happiness. Cliché, I thought, but I loved it none the less. I doubt anyone would read an ending like that and be moved, but I never could write a love story.