Love is one phenomenon that humanity thinks is wonderful, a blessing, a miracle. I know the truth. Love brings heartache, destroys lives, ruins people. Love is death. I would know.
    Two years ago exactly, you see, I was in love. Not the childish infatuation that so many people call love these days, but heartbreakingly true love with a boy I never deserved in the first place. True love is cruel in that way, always tempting you with something you can’t have. But I did have him, for a short while.
    Nate wasn’t perfect, but neither was I, and together our love was something of a miracle. You see, I came from a tiny one-bedroom apartment in the upper-east side, cooking miniscule meals with expired groceries for my little brother and myself. I met him at the upscale coffee house that I work at on weekdays (the pay was poor but the tips were good), and he was having a business meeting in the far corner. I served him, and the whole exchange was limited to a few stolen glances and hidden smiles. He came back the next week, at the exact same time, and the process was repeated the next week. Soon our exchanges became longer, evolving into conversations, until he finally asked me out.
    We learned the basics about each other: a simple backstory, favorite color, inane questions that seemed so interesting when Nate was the one answering them. I learned he’s from an affluent family, born in raised in a penthouse I could only dream of staying in. The fact that he cared enough about someone like me, someone who was broke and broken, was the first thing that caught my attention. Being brought up in a damaged house with a dead mother and an alcoholic father, trust to me was an anomaly, some kind of myth. But he trusted me, at least enough that he didn’t think I was a psycho or something. And because of that, I found myself beginning to trust him. It was just a little bit at a time, going from wondering what his ulterior motive was, to wondering if I would get to see him that day. Not much progress, but to me, it was everything.
    He did visit me, and gave me food when I couldn’t afford any, and gave me comfort during those lonely hours that came so often. Nate helped me balance caring for my brother and working at my job that has me called in at ungodly hours of the night, and listened to me while I was knee deep in emotional distress, and the craziest part of all? He actually seemed to care about me- the broken girl who even her parents couldn’t love.
    For the rest of the year, and another year after that, everything seemed to be going right for me. I got a second job near the hotel as a secretary for some small family business that I worked on weekends and a real house for my brother and I to live in. My brother got a real chance to do well in school, and Nate was there for me during every harsh winter night or spontaneous afternoon of adventure. The best part by far, though, was that Nate and I were falling in love. It was this amazing, beautiful, deep and honest type of love that I had never really believed in before. It was an experience I never thought I would have, and that was the best gift my Nate had ever given me.
    But, as time ticked on in its infinite power, it seemed even our love couldn’t save us- these two people from opposite worlds. We were oil and water- we could never work. He struggled to help me blend into his world of elegant cocktail dresses and expensive wines, but I never really got the hang of it. He told me he loved me no matter how bad I was with table manners and business jargon but something in his eyes told me he was growing weary of defending me from his parents disapproval, his business partners’ judgemental glares. He was exhausted of my way of life, my inability to fit in, my time-consuming jobs-he was exhausted of me.
    We were drifting apart, and I couldn’t bear it. He was just about everything to me, the sunshine in my gray, lonely life. Without him I would be lost. The thought was painful to me. Nate was growing more distant everyday. He stopped bringing me to dinner parties, he wouldn’t reply to my calls and texts.
One night, a few hours after I had called to ask to talk to him, he showed up at my tiny apartment near the train tracks. I think he was drunk, because he was frantic that we weren’t good together, and that we needed to break up. Though I had seen this night coming, the reality of it was almost unbearable. Our worlds could never blend together in the way that we would need them to. I had to agree with him, tears flowing down my face, because I knew that no matter how much we loved each other and how desperately we wanted our relationship to work, sometimes stories have not-so-happy endings, especially stories involving me. It broke my heart to agree with the fact that our love simply wasn’t enough, and I guess he thought I was giving up, because he became angry at me, at the world, at his parents, and this terrible, beautiful love that we shared. I tried to tell him that I still loved him, and we could get through our heartbreak with time, but he refused to listen. He had come to my apartment for reassurance that we could be together, and I had broken his heart by saying we couldn’t.
     He left my apartment, running with no destination, only away from his heartbreak. It was pouring outside, though, the kind of downpour that blinds you from anything not directly in front of your face and soaks through your clothes in mere seconds, and I was worried about him. Frantically, I followed him out there with my raincoat and a flashlight, calling his name into the freezing December night.
     When I found him, I knew immediately that something was wrong. He wasn’t moving, he wouldn’t speak, not even to answer my shrill, desperate cries, and his body was cold and unnaturally pale. He had slipped in the mud and hit his head on the cold, unforgiving train track. My scream was deafening, a cry of utter heartbreak. Using his phone, I called the police and his parents, begging for help, for a miracle. Deep down, however, I knew the truth. It was too late, and the man I loved most in the world was taken from me. What I did to deserve this, what he did maybe, I will never know.
     Love, fate, life, they’re all here to give you a glimpse of what you could have, and then rip it away from you in the worst possible way. I left the city that night, knowing that I would never be welcome there again. Taking my brother with me, I fled the state. There was nothing back there for me anyway. Not anymore. I had enough money saved up to start somewhere fresh, clean from the horrors of that city, and enough terrible memories from that place to give me nightmares for a lifetime. For two years I hid in a small town in Georgia, living a peaceful, albeit lonely life, trying my best to forget the past and move on. But something like that, a love like that, was unforgettable.
     So, here I am, returning to those horrible train tracks on another icy December night, and once again the sky has opened up and sleet is coming down upon the world in an unforgiving downpour. I found the spot that I had fled from all those years ago, the place that haunted my nightmares night after night. And there was my Nate, my beautiful Nate, waiting for me like we were in a quiet coffee shop, and not the place where my life was destroyed and his was ended. Seeing him again sparked something in me, something I hadn’t felt in so long. When I reached out, longing for a hug, a kiss, from the man I loved, he took a step back with an apologetic expression. That’s when I knew. He wasn’t actually here. I had simply lost my mind. But I didn’t care. I would lose my mind any day for a chance to spend more time with him. His aura was calm, peaceful, and it reminded me of those quiet nights we spent together, sipping tea and watching some action movie that he had been raving about. Oh, how I had missed my love, my Nate. He said nothing, so I talked about everything. What he had missed, my little brother, his parents who I knew were still doing fine; I talked about anything and everything to my long-lost love, and he held me close, the same way he did all those years ago when everything was perfect, until I fell asleep on a ghostly shoulder, pretending that all of the wetness on my cheek was rain, and no tears were spilt here.
     That night was my proof that love is a mixture of horrible tragedies and wonderful moments all wrapped into one. That night, that final night I had with my love, gave me peace so that I was finally able to move on.