If I have one goal for myself for this life, it is to find and maintain one thing, this inescapable, insurmountable love. The kind of love you read about in books, the kind of love your parents never had, the kind of love that makes blossoms bloom and tears come to your eyes and the kind of love that makes you sob and wrench your heart and moan in pure joy.

I want the kind of love in which the object of your affections is flawless in every way to you: each blemish and nasty habit and flake of dandruff perfect in its imperfection and the knowledge that this person feels exactly the same way about you. I want the kind of love that transcends distance, time, the codes of society, the laws of physics.

I want the kind of love in which, after days and years and decades pass, you still sit and dream about his or her hair and the way it shone in the sun--and when you catch a fleeting whiff of their scent on the street a shiver still races up your spine in painful longing, making you whirl quickly, hopefully, in vain.

The kind of love that isolates one person--one--and holds them on a pedestal so high that no-one could ever compare. And even if that love should somehow fail by a misstep or fault...no partner later can ever quite match up: a niggling voice inside hears your new partner's voice and tells you what your love would have said instead.

To find this love is already a gift. But that is not enough for me...I want to hold on to it forever. To have this wrinkled, sagging man with me when I'm 85 who still holds my hand and whispers to me in my ear "I love you," and makes me feel 18.

Oh, Greg...is this the love you feel�the love you want from her? Do you lie by me at night and when I turn my back to you, imagine that it�s her holding your hand? When I cheerfully peep, �mean couple,� do you hear, �don�t hate,� and when I say, �jerk,� do you hear, �heifer�? (That�s right�after all that you two didn�t even know how to spell it.)

To feel all these things, these terrible emotions and longings for a single person and have them love another--how can that pain be put into words? It's beyond wailing, beyond speech, beyond flesh and beyond tears. It's pain that makes you wish you could curl up into yourself and just disappear into thin air�like you�d never existed at all.

And in my case: after he fooled me, tricked me into believing that he shared this love for me as well�all I can do is sit motionless and speechless, disbelieving and resentful and searching for my lost heart to no avail.

At small instances, late at night, in my room, I actually thought I had achieved the first half of my goal. When I read my latest novel, when I examined and hopefully tore apart real life love stories to find the latest almost unbelievable character, delirious in his violent passion and unwavering ardor, I would sympathize and say, "I've found it, I know. I love him and he certainly must love me. I have found what it takes lifetimes for some people to find and what others never do."

To take this certainty, this knowledge and crush it to make the entire two years I've spent infatuated with his every move and make it all nonexistent...one big, fat, lie...a fabulously staged production. A huge multi-million blockbuster.

I feel like I did when I was 11. Like I've been some Trekkie or Star Wars or Lord of the Rings geeky fan, lured into this comfortable world that I knew all along was a foolish fa�ade but tried so hard not to believe.

You can't imagine it. I'm sure: you never will until it happens to you.

He says he hates her, that he loves me and that I am perfect and no-one ever has, or ever will be as wonderful as me. But no-one can blame me for doubting.

What does it take, what does it mean to see a grown man cry? Why did he do it, my rock, my Herculean god, my infallible Gregory? Was it in truth, that he loves me above all? Or was it in desperation...I merely am all that he has left? Was it that of a broken man, who has been hurt one too many times and the weight of his heavy fucked up heart finally crashing upon him? I cannot know...

All I know is that a broken heart hurts too much to bear. Now that I know how painful it is, I have to avoid it as much as possible: how can I just leave my heart out, vulnerable to be stolen and crushed? I don't know...should I trust you and give you back my heart, Greg, or will you hurt me again?

I love you so much, I crave for you, so many hours, nights I've spent sobbing into my pillow wondering what I'd ever do without you. All the nights I�d spent cuddling into your deodorant-scented shoulders. Was it all really a waste of time? I want so bad for you to you feel the same way about me, but if you don't, I don't think I could bear staying in this relationship, becoming more and more fond of you every day and eventually facing this pain again.

I'm too fragile for that. I'm a delicate person--you know it. I'm insanely sensitive.

You have to be honest with me...

I know you love her. What you put into that letter you've never given me. That was pure adoration, that was the love I've spoken about...

FUCK, Greg!!!!! Why couldn't that have been me? I wanted it so bad, soo soo bad. How the hell am I supposed to break up with you, how? how how how how how

I can't live with you and I can't live without you. Fuck.... I was right. We�ve both found it. It IS the love I've always wanted. Unfortunately, though mine is for you� but yours is for another.

This love is the greatest gift and the most sordid curse I could have ever imagined.