My eyes were closed. I was exhausted, but I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I couldn’t get the image of his face out of my head. I could hear his voice saying, “I love you, Elena, and I don’t ever want you to forget that.” I couldn’t forget that, of course. The way he said it, the way he smiled his perfect but at the same time imperfect smile. Just looking at him could make you drawn to him. One look and you just had to know him. You had to find out what he was about. For me, I found myself staring at him so often during that first week of school. The first time I ever saw him I swear my jaw dropped.


“Oh, Elena, look at me, please.” His voice was strained, and I could see how his perfect but imperfect smile was gone. What replaced it was a thin line.

“What is it?” I ask.

“I love you, Elena, and I don’t ever want you to forget that.”

“I won’t,” I whisper. “When we get engaged, eventually, I’ll tell my friends how I knew it was I was meant to be with. You are the one, the one I am meant to be with.”

“No, Elena, no, we are not meant to be.”

“Yes, we are,” I said. “What is the problem?”

“Elena,” he whispers. “I…I…I have to leave.”

“You…you are leaving?” I choked. “Why?”

“Elena,” Jacob’s voice could have cut through wood it was so sharp. “I don’t want you to have to worry about us. This is a huge world, and you will surely find someone better than me out there. I … I don’t want to go, Elena, really I don’t. Believe me, if I could … if we could stay together forever, well that would be the best thing that ever happened to me. You are amazing, and I would die for you, but I have to go.”

“It can’t be,” I whispered. “This can’t be happening.”

“I would love to say this isn’t happening, but it is,” he whispered. “It is true. This is life.”


Relationships don’t last forever. Love lasts forever.


I suddenly shivered. Jacob was leaving. He was really leaving. Jacob’s soft touch on my shoulder awoke me from deep in my thoughts.

“Why are you leaving?” I whispered.

“Elena, you wouldn’t understand, and I don’t want to put you through this.”

“Jacob, I get A’s in all of my classes, I think I can understand why my true love is leaving me,” I said.

“El, this is more complicated than solving an algebraic equation,” he said. Tears streamed down my face. “Tell me, Jake! Please tell me why!”

Jacob’s lips closed and reopened. “I can’t tell you why, Elena, I just can’t.”


“I don’t want you to go, Jacob. I don’t know what I will do without you. You are the only one for me. I love you, really I do. Why does it have to be this way?” I pleaded one afternoon. Jacob and I were sitting under a tree, eating a picnic lunch.

“Elena, honey, don’t you worry yourself over some goof like me. I’ll be gone very soon, and you will never see me again,” Jake whispered.

“Is that a threat?” I asked.

“No, E,” he whispered, “it’s a promise, unfortunately.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but he held his finger up to my lips. “El, I am definitely going, there is nothing you can do.”

“How can you just walk away from what we have?” I asked Jacob.

“Trust me, Elena,” Jake whispered, “if I didn’t feel I had to go then I wouldn’t.”

“When are you leaving?” I choked. I closed my eyes, not really wanting to know the answer.

“Soon, baby,” Jacob said. A tear slid my face, and I bit my lip.


He left. His leaving made me think that I never really met his family. That was the last time I saw Jake. He had left. He had really left. He continually said he had to go, but I never believed he would really leave us behind. What we had was amazing. I truly believe he is the one for me. He is my true love, and now he is gone. He has really left me.

Life is not forever. Love lasts forever. Hatred lasts as long as you let it.