The Difference Between ‘Love You’ and ‘I Love You’: A Short Story
Two words. Three words.
It means more than you know.
Poets, novelists and hopeless romantics know the difference. Thousands and millions of words written a year about love and romance. Always about boy meets girl, girl meets girl, boy meets boy. All falling in love. Then there’s the heartache of losing someone you loved or the fact that they’ve lied and cheated or the fact that our main protagonist has come to the realisation that those two words versus those three words mean two different things.
You and I have gone through this. We’ve met, talked, touched, fallen in love and fallen out of it. And I could only tell because of how these words and expressions of your interested changed over time.
It’s been nine months of us. You say I love you. Three words you say when we’re laying in bed in our silence. It’s the millionth time you’ve been here. It’s been a long day and obviously your feeling in love right now. Those are the words that mean more because of the ‘I’. It’s more personalised. It means that you love me entirely. It’s the extra effort that you put in with me. It’s the phone calls, the morning texts and the rendezvous we share. It’s the way you make me feel good about myself. It’s the way you show me you love me and I do the same to you. You say I love you when your vulnerable and need that consolation that I’m not going to leave you. You say those three words because you want to believe that it’s real. And so do I.
It’s been two years of us. You say two words when you're in a hurry off on the phone. Love you are the words you say when only half or parts of you love me. Love you is the way to say that you like me more just what we are, and you want more. But you're not ready to commit. Love you is what you say as we muffle kisses in a private bedroom. Love you is what you say when you only one the particular parts of me and not the whole me. It’s the words you say as soon as you begin to lose interest in me. The entire me.
You're saying those three words now to someone else. I’m at home gripping onto those two words you said to me. Why were you in such a rush on a Wednesday afternoon? Why are your bank statements saying you’ve been to that French restaurant and that fancy hotel more than four times in the past three months? I think. You come home a little later and you tell me that you ‘love me’ and that everything is okay. You lie and say you were with your friends, you come to bed and kiss me. I smell the perfume on your neck.
Two years and three months is the end of us. Those words are no longer said. No longer shared.
And that was when I realised…. there’s a difference between ‘I love you’ and ‘love you’.
