coming-of-age-love-story

Everything around her was in a fog; the intense light that always shone in his aqua blue eyes was the only thing in focus, but it was suddenly unknown... different... almost embarrassing.

If she had looked into his eyes at that very moment she would have seen the inferno that she had thrown him into.

You and I have been friends long enough to know how to treat each other . . . I'm leaving for college. I think I've outgrown the rules.

Matteo lived inside her like a memory that paradoxically stopped the pain and which she could never get enough of... because there was, and never would be, anything that was like him. Wherever she went, whatever she did, he was the only thing she truly loved, and which she sadly no longer had.

Most people think that love doesn__ stand the test of time _ that it is eternal only as long as it lasts _ but love is an unquenchable flame. It is only the fires of momentary desire that burn too fast and go out far too quickly without leaving behind a single trace.

This unrequited love business was driving him crazy. It was a feeling that took you over, mind, body, and soul. Worse than a drug that tore apart your flesh and spirit, and without which you simply could not live.

She had feared the worst, and even though at that very moment she would have liked to wring her neck, she was happy to learn that suicide was not one of the stupid things that Eve had in her repertoire. Suicide made no sense: situations change, people change, and the problems of today may find a solution tomorrow. So long as you__e in the game you can change the final score, but if you take yourself out of it, you__l never know how it might have ended, and you let the world win.

I tried to hate you, to forgive you, all just to forget you, but I'm only capable of loving you. You're tattooed onto my skin, and the more I try to erase you, the deeper you sink in.

You two are bound to one another. You always have been _ and you can't run away from what you are. No matter where you go, your feelings for her are going to follow you.

Her heart was telling her to trust him, but it wouldn__ be the first time that that foolish muscle, there in the middle of her chest, had betrayed her.

It's absurd how crazy love can make you......but even more absurd how stupid jealousy can make you!

The French poet Mallarmé and, after him, Borges, claimed that __verything in the world exists to end up in a book,_ and if that__ true, and that even every man is a book, Federico was undoubtedly created by the pen of Keats or some other tormented Romantic poet; while Matteo was pure passion, like Shakespeare__ Romeo: spontaneous, intense, and impetuously real.

She was afraid of giving in to that overwhelming, absolute, unconditional love, a love that had shown her the route to heaven, but which had also taught her how much one could suffer, to the point where even the sound of your own tears became deafening.

There are people in my life who count more than playing soccer in Serie A

To this day when I inhale a light scent of Wrangler__ts sweet sharpness__r the stronger, darker scent of Musk, I return to those hours and it ceases to be just cologne that I take in but the very scent of age, of youth at its most beautiful peak. It bears the memory of possibility, of unknown forests, unchartered territories, and a heart light and skipping, hell-bent as the captain of any of the three ships, determined at all costs to prevail to the new world. Turning back was no option. Whatever the gales, whatever the emaciation, whatever the casualty to self, onward I kept my course. My heart felt the magnetism of its own compass guiding me on__ts direction constant and sure. There was no other way through. I feel it again as once it had been, before it was broken-in; its strength and resolute ardency. The years of solitude were nothing compared to what lay ahead. In sailing for the horizon that part of my life had been sealed up, a gentle eddy, a trough of gentle waves diminishing further, receding away. Whatever loneliness andpain went with the years between the ages of 14 and 20, was closed, irretrievable__ was already cast in form and direction in a certain course.When I open the little bottle of eau de toilette five hundred different days unfold within me, conversations so strained, breaking slowly, so painstakingly, to a comfortable place. A place so warm and inviting after the years of silence and introspect, of hiding. A place in the sun that would burn me alive before I let it cast a shadow on me. Until that time I had not known, I had not been conscious of my loneliness. Yes, I had been taciturn in school, alone, I had set myself apart when others tried to engage. But though I was alone, I had not felt the pangs of loneliness. It had not burdened or tormented as such when I first felt the clear tang of its opposite in the form of another__ company. Of Regn__ company. We came, each in our own way, in our own need__istening, wanting, tentatively, as though we came upon each other from the side in spite of having seen each other head on for two years. It was a gradual advance, much again like a vessel waiting for its sails to catch wind, grasping hold of the ropes and learning much too quickly, all at once, how to move in a certain direction. There was no practicing. It was everything and all__or the first and last time. Everything had to be right, whether it was or not. The waters were beautiful, the work harder than anything in my life, but the very glimpse of any tempest of defeat was never in my line of vision. I__ never failed at anything. And though this may sound quite an exaggeration, I tell you earnestly, it is true. Everything to this point I__ ever set my mind to, I__ achieved. But this wasn__ about conquering some land, nor had any of my other desires ever been about proving something. It just had to be__ could not break, could not turn or retract once I__ committed myself to my course. You cannot force a clock to run backwards when it is made to persevere always, and ever, forward. Had I not been so young I__ never have had the courage to love her.

Mel eventually gave up trying to talk to him and just sat there looking at him. There was not likely to be much to look at, apart from the red, puffy eyes, runny nose and the rest of the mess that was Kyle French. Certainly not the once good-looking young student that Mel had developed a crush on.

After lunch four of us have our picture taken. Regn, myself, Fernus, and Sharon. I grip my brown lunch bag in hand, Fernus holds her soda can, Regn makes a funny expression. But what strikes me about this photograph is the shadow. We are standing in Group Reservations, the sun streaming in from above, through the skylight, and directly behind my head a giant starred reflection is cast on the wall. It is cast there as a pointed halo of sorts.I am next to Regn, she wears her sunglasses though we are still indoors. My face looks so young, my eyes do not betray any weariness. The pain is gradual. The pain is two years and more ahead. Is the star the crest of my youth? Does it suggest what I__e always known__hat something more, something far greater was in store for me? Looking back and all that__ come to pass, I can tell you yes. With a full and tired heart, I can tell you yes. I am not inclined to whimsy or overly-superstitious; however, there are signs and sometimes they must be noticed or you are a fool to dismiss them. I knew from an early age I was different. I sawthe world from a distance. I was born to suffer and endure, but in so doing, if I succeeded, I was born for distinction. It was not conceit, but the knowing of Self and sometimes the frustration, the tedious ache of patience, rendered me doubtful.

I'm a woman, Aleksey. I'm not the simplistic, flawless creature the world expects me to be. I'm imperfect, I'm multidimensional. I make mistakes all the time and I'll make even more as life challenges me. And I don't want to be afraid of messing things up. Firstly because I'll learn from my mistakes, but more importantly, they're what make me human.