“No.”
I sat across from him, swaying slightly from side to side in the old swivel chair, fiddling with the straw to my Diet Coke as I waited.
He had asked me to meet him here, at our town’s little burger joint, famous for its ice cream “cyclones” and its signature smell of cheeseburgers and deep-fried mozzarella sticks. It had been a long night for me, and an even longer one for him, so an escape to a familiar place, a place with no surprises, with no unknowns, was exactly what I needed.
Except there was one unknown: him.
We shared memories, yes, and being around him felt natural, easy. But I didn’t know him anymore.
Was he the same boy from a few years ago, the shy one who didn’t like people watching him eat, whose wit and goofy humor made my sides hurt from laughing many summer nights, who could bring a smile to my face simply by smiling himself?
Was he still the boy who could take my guard down without me even realizing it?
I slid into my seat, and I immediately began to fidget, crossing my legs, tapping my foot, already feeling the awkward silence that hung between us as we waited for our food.
Just say something, I thought. Say anything at this point!
I looked up to see that he was mirroring me, his body turned to the side, looking down at his fingers drumming on the table.
Silently, I took a deep breath.
Why was this so hard? It had never been this hard, this weird with us.
“So it’s been a while, years. Catch me up! How are you? How’s everything been going?”
That was all it took, was just the push we needed. Our bodies relaxed, turning towards each other, leaning in over the table as we talked and talked about school and soccer and Trump vs. Hillary, about our mutual friends and town gossip.
He couldn’t believe I had never tried the fried mushrooms here, and I HAD to try them, at least one. And I did because it felt safe; he felt safe. It didn’t scare me to eat with him.
But I was beginning to think that’s all it would be, that this form of friendship would be our new normal, where we talked about everything while not really talking about anything. I was okay with that. I had expected it to be different, for us not to be close.
The boy I knew might still be there, but it wasn’t my turn to know him anymore.
Our conversation went on, staying surface level. My heart beat quickened a bit as I realized this, anxiety at the thought of keeping him there when he really wanted to leave seeping into my thoughts.
I sat back, afraid of seeming too interested. My hand flitted to my hair as I suddenly became aware of my appearance, my oversized t-shirt and skinny jeans—which I hadn’t given a second thought to before—suddenly making me feel particularly unattractive.
And then all the thoughts came rushing in, insecurities I had never felt with him before.
The last time he had seen me, when I left, I was underweight. My eating disorder had a visible hold on me then, but now I was healthy.
I was so much smaller then, I thought. Sure, he’s seen me big and small, but what if he thinks I’m too big, thinks I’m…fat? What if he liked me better when I was skinny?
What if he doesn’t like this version of me?
I realized, then, that we had been silent for a few moments. I glanced up at him, expecting to see him on his phone or gathering up to leave.
Instead, he was looking at the table diagonal from us, where an elderly couple sat side by side, sharing an order of fries.
The woman put one hand to her chest and the other covered her mouth, attempting to stifle her laughter, but her whole body shook as giggles escaped her.
The man was sitting back, his head slightly cocked to one side, a sweet smile matching the warmth in his eyes. His eyes never looked at anything but her, his gaze finding nothing so transfixing.
“I wonder what that’s like,” I said softly.
He turned from the couple, then, his curious brown eyes now falling on me, searching my face for clues.
“I mean, do you... do you think they still see each other the way they did when they first fell in love?”
Do you think he sees her gray hair, her wrinkled skin and her plump figure and still thinks that she’s beautiful, that she’s attractive? I thought.
“No.”
My eyes dropped to the table, and my heart followed suit, his response resonating within me, settling next to the place that held my deepest fears.
But he went on.
“I think that when you love someone like that, when you truly love them, you quit seeing what they look like on the outside, or at least it doesn’t matter the way it used to. You simply see them. The real them.”
My eyes had floated back up to meet his, and I saw him, that boy from those years ago. In those eyes, in his words, I caught a glimpse of the boy who had seen beyond my physical state, who had made sure that I knew he believed I was beautiful because of my sometimes too open heart, because of my nerdiness as I geeked out over crime shows, because of the way I giggled uncontrollably every time I felt awkward, because of how I continued to fight for recovery even when I was past the point of exhaustion, even when I messed up over and over again.
Young as we were, as he sat across from me looking at this old couple, he saw something in them, grasped what people often take years to figure out, what I still grapple to believe.
Love, real, unconditional love, doesn’t see what is outwardly apparent.
It recognizes what we cannot see with our eyes.
Love sees that beauty comes not from outward looks, which fade, but from being fully who we are: the cute oddities, the insecurities, the hopes and aspirations, the scars of past hurts.
It sees the parts filled with light and the parts filled with darkness, our inner strengths and our inner demons.
Love is not blind; it sees every piece, it knows every part, and within that, sees the real beauty of imperfection.