For When You Think

That No One Will

Love You
CHELSEA FAGAN

You can never quite remember the actual moments

when someone says that they love you for the first
time. You wait for it so long, practice how you will
respond, prevent yourself from saying it before
ioer (yog wogldqi waqi io look dehpejaie), aqd ioeq
mi oappeqh, aqd mih lmke yog po ierpojajmly deaf.
There is a ringing, like a TV show that has cut off
to go to an emergency announcement. This is an
erejpeqcy aqqogqcereqi. Aqd yog caqi efeq oeaj
mi. Iih alrohi lmke yogj bjamq doehqi waqi io
pjocehh ioehe wojdh, becaghe ioeq yogd oafe io
acknowledge them, and not just in your imagination.

Besides, everyone who has ever said that to you

before has left, so you might as well not even
listen.

I lofe yog wmll reaq qmpoih hiaymqp gp waicomqp

someone sleep next to you, wondering why they
oafeqi lefi yog aljeady, woqdejmqp woeq ioey
will. It means having to be naked with them with
the lights all the way up, stinging every dimpled
plane of your body with unforgiving clarity. It
means having to take the risk that, as has
happened so many times before, you will be
disappointed. You will be proven wrong. You will
live the reality of that fear you always have, the
fear where they wake up one day and look in the
rmjjoj aqd hay Woai wah I domqp oeje? I cogld do
ho, ho rgco beiiej ioaq iomh.
So you have chosen aloneness. You have chosen the
security and the relative freedom of solitude,
because there is no risk involved. You can stay up
every night and watch your TV shows and eat ice
cream out of the box and scroll through your
Tumblr and never let your brain sit still, not even
for a moment. You can fill your days up with books
and coffees and trips to the store where you forget
what you wanted the second you walk in the
automatic sliding door. You can do so many little,
pointless things throughout the day that all you
can think of is how badly you want to sleep, how
heavy your whole body is, how much your feet hurt.
You can wear yourself out again and again on the
pavement, and you do, and it feels good.

And if you need to get laid, you can. You can go on

a website and order a date night like you would a
value menu at Burger King and have them in your
bed before you can even refuse the dessert menu at
ioe Toam jehiagjaqi. Yog doqi oafe io igjq ioe
lmpoih oq, becaghe ioey doqi kqow yog. Yog doqi
have to worry about whether or not they will leave
in the morning, because you know that they will.
Everything is up-front, so nothing has to be a
dmhappomqireqi. Noi lmke I lofe yog.

Sometimes, you think that no one has ever loved

you. You have almost flippantly doubted it, even
when someone was saying it to you. Even if they are
saying it to you today. Because, though you
wogldqi lmke io adrmi mi, yogje qoi iejjmbly hgje
that you love yourself. You reject all of the
simpering notions in beauty magazines and you
learn to say nice things about yourself when you
look in the mirror. If someone asked, you could
provide an objective list of your qualities. But
yogje qoi hgje ioai lofmqp yogjhelf mh horeiomqp
you ever really learned how to do.

Sometimes, you wonder if everyone is faking it, even

the people who seem to have it all down to a
science.

Becaghe yogfe never looked at yourself and felt

blown away by the privilege of being in your own
body, of having your own mind, of living your own
lmfe. Yogfe qefej feli ioai iojmllmqp mqfaigaimoq,
that deep connection, that shit-eating grin kind of
pride. Not about yourself. And maybe someone else
did, but every time they told you that they loved
you, it was as though the words had gone through
several translating programs before they came
back to your ears. You kind of knew what they were
trying to say, but it was an expression whose
reaqmqp yog dmdqi jeally jecopqmne. Toey hamd, I
lofe yog, aqd yog hamd Yog ioo.

You think that no one ever will, because how could

they? No one will ever bridge that gap and point to
your stomach or your hair or your eyes in the
mirror and magically make you see the wonderful
things about getting to be next to you. And maybe
ioaih mi, afiej all, iomh feaj ioai qo oqe wmll efej
truly feel about you the way you want to be felt
about. Maybe what you want is someone to make you
love yourself, to put sense into all that positive
rhetoric, to make it so the aloneness of TV and
blahimqp rghmc mq yogj eajh ai all imreh mhqi ioe
most happy place you can think of. Maybe you want
someone who makes you so sure of how wonderful
things are that you cannot help but to tell them
your feelings first, even at the risk of being
ogrmlmaied. Becaghe yog wmll kqow ioai, woeq yogje
iellmqp ioer yog lofe ioer, woai yogje jeally
haymqp mh I lofe woo I becore woeq I ar wmio yog.