Last week, with the launch of True Romance, we asked for your tales of love. Here, we publish a selection of your submissions.
Morgan Oliviero from Canada writes: I was 18, and like all 18-year-olds, absolutely convinced of my own infallibility. A peculiar addition to my ego (ephemeral battlements of arrogance on the fortress walls of vanity if you will) was that I had never actually had a girlfriend. I was waiting, I had told myself, for a perfect literary romance to unfold like the pages of a fresh copy of Pride and Prejudice.
The truth was that I had coped with the whirlwind of hormone and emotion that plagues adolescents badly. My head was too old; my heart too young, and so I spent much time watching romance from the outside. People standing at windows, noses pressed to the glass, rarely notice someone sneaking up on them. I was lucky: she was beautiful, strong, witty in her own way. She also had a boyfriend. I told myself we were just friends, while she shamelessly evoked envy in her peers.
I was a first-year at the Royal Military College. My blue #4 uniform, mandatory for first-years about town, made her feel like a princess. Within a month I had confessed affection for her. She begged my patience. A week of fear, and I knew she was mine (irony: I was hers, really).
Related Articles
My roommate teased me endlessly, as I am not known for excessive masculinity. She worked on cars, played rugby, looked better than I did in pants. She was a patient teacher; I knew nothing of the physical side of love. She held my hand (among other things) and gently pulled me past my misconceptions. I like to think I made her happy - she expressed her feminine and artistic side around me, something most of her acquaintances never saw.
I broke her heart less than a year later. She wanted me too much, and I was afraid. I justified it to myself with the truth that I couldn't be there for her as much as she needed me. I told myself it was for her own good. I patched my own heart with gun tape, and solaced myself in remembered solitude.
A battered and worn copy of Pride and Prejudice sits on my shelf.
Kevin Collins from Mississauga Canada writes: Our only refuge was her bedroom. She had her PC on a table near the edge of the bed, she had a few hundred MP3s downloaded, I would cue up a weird mix of love songs. Butterfly would echo. There was nothing butterfly like about her but I always associated her with that song.
Courtney lived in an apartment overlooking the basket weave of the 401 intersecting the Don Valley Parkway. This is the busiest intersection of traffic in Canada. I would stand on the balcony late at night looking at the flowing river of taillights. Courtney came out.
"Whatcha doing out here?"
"Oh, just looking, it's quite a view you have here."
"Sure, if you like traffic. I didn't pick this place for its view."
"Why did you pick this place?"
"So I could be close to school. It's tough to get a place close by."
"I bet you don't eat out here very often."
"I can't stand this grime, it's so gross."
We climbed into bed together naked. I cued up my quirky love song list. "You know you get a funny look on your face when Kissed by a Rose comes on," she said.
"Really?"
"Really, it doesn't seem like one of your kind of songs."
"Didn't you know I'm just a big romantic mush ball? I love that song."
"I bet that song has something to do with someone else."
"No, I just like the song."
Of course I was lying. It was at that point I realized that she reminded me of Vanessa in many ways, same build, same style of hair and glasses. It was odd sitting in this room how my reality suddenly shifted. Here we were in her homey room, wood, pillows, candles. It was earth colours, greens, gingham, this could be a room in country house like I had it briefly in Picton with Vanessa.
But we're here in this little pollution-choked cavern 35 stories over the Don Valley and 401 in the middle of a city.
