The Second Time You Fall In Love

Let me start by telling you about the first time I fell in love, because without that kind of reference everything else I’m going to tell you won’t make much sense.

You think you know everything at seventeen. Your parents are always wrong, you’re always right, and your friends are usually somewhere in between. When your parents tell you your boyfriend’s a no-good loser that’s nowhere near worthy of dating their daughter, you hurl accusations at them and become hell-bent on proving them wrong. When your friends side with your parents—although they’re usually more delicate in telling you your boyfriend’s a piece of scum—you question their loyalty and stop speaking to them for a few days. I don’t know if this is because you’re seventeen or because you think you’re in love, but eventually it all blurs together and doesn’t matter.

You also have all these crazy ideas about love and what it means. You think nightly arguments that usually leave you in tears are normal. You think supporting your boyfriend through thick and thin even though he doesn’t do the same for you is normal too. You stupidly think you’ve found The One and ignore this person’s very obvious flaws because, at seventeen, you simply know there’s no one else in the entire world you’re meant to be with. It’s normal that he gets drunk and calls you names. It’s normal that you can’t go to a party without hearing rumors of how he’s cheating on you with so-and-so and all her friends. It’s normal that your family and friends stare at you sympathetically, silently wondering when you got so stupid and if you’d ever go back to normal. These things seem normal because you’re seventeen and don’t know any better. That’s okay; no one expects you to be love-worn and cynical before you’ve even graduated high school. You’re allowed to make mistakes.

My mistake’s name was Adam. He was four years my senior and spent most of his nights playing shitty music in bars across Saskatchewan. I’d go when I could but mostly all the noise gave me awful headaches and I stuck out like a sore thumb. I couldn’t hold my liquor like Adam and his friends could, probably because I was seventeen and when you grow up in a town as small as mine and with parents as strict as mine, you know the second you take a sip of anything your mother will be waiting for you to walk through the door so she can kick your ass ten ways to Sunday. He wore leather jackets and had tattoos and a stud through his nose, and he probably didn’t wash his hair as often as he should’ve, but I’d be lying if I told you the world didn’t stop moving just a little the second I laid eyes on him.

It was that overwhelming, earth-shattering type of feeling that I can only describe as love at first sight. Or, as I affectionately refer to it now, being seventeen.

I put a lot of time and effort into my relationship with Adam, mostly because I was a) desperate for him to like me, and b) the only one of my friends that hadn’t gone beyond second base. That’s humiliating at seventeen. It’s even more humiliating when your best friend is Cara Stephenson, the only girl in our high school that hit a home run before freshman year. Cara would always tell me I was being dumb, that having a reputation like hers was nothing to be jealous of and sex really wasn’t all that great, but it did little to convince me. Adam was my first everything, so when I say I “put a lot of time and effort into my relationship” with him, what I really mean is I sold myself short for a year and a half and let him treat me like dirt because I thought that’s what I was supposed to do.

You’re naive at seventeen, so when someone promises you something, you tend to believe them. Like I said, you’re not all cynical and jaded yet. When Adam told me he loved me, I believed him. I told him I loved him, too.

A few months after graduation—after I’d put all my college applications on hold because Adam said his band was going on tour and that he’d take me with him, no less—was when everything started falling apart. Cara had already committed to the University of Toronto (for “sexual diversity studies,” because apparently that’s a thing people actually study) so she decided to throw a going away party. She invited Adam because she invited me, and everything was going great until everyone, me included, had one too many drinks in their systems.

It’s a proven fact that consuming alcohol makes you have to pee more, so when Adam kept excusing himself to use the restroom, I didn’t think anything of it. The slight suspicion that lingered told me he didn’t know anyone at the party besides me and my best friend so I had nothing to worry about. He was on my territory; he didn’t have a death wish serious enough to do something stupid. But that’s exactly what he did, and when I drunkenly stumbled into Cara’s pool house looking for the unopened six-pack of Bud Light Lime, I also stumbled upon my boyfriend’s dick shoved so far down Lydia Thorne’s throat I contemplated offering her CPR.

Naturally I blamed myself, because once you turn eighteen and do a little growing up, you realize you can’t blame everyone else for your problems because most of them are caused by you being a gigantic idiot. Cara did her best to convince me it wasn’t my fault, that Adam had always been a colossal mongoloid and I deserved better. The problem with that, I argued, is that I didn’t want better—I wanted Adam. Well, the version of Adam that existed in my head, at least. The one that said nice things to me and told me everything would be okay after I had a bad day; the one that was loyal and didn’t pay Lydia Thorne any mind; the one that went into a relationship with me because he wanted to and not because I was a virgin that ignored his shitty reputation.

I locked myself in my room and cried myself to sleep every night. I barely ate, I barely showered, and my parents stopped paying for my cell phone because I simply refused to speak to anyone that wasn’t Adam, only he never once called to apologize or see how I was doing.

My mother eventually forced me to eat lunch with her and tried to comfort me as best she could, telling me all sorts of pointless stories about her first breakup and how distraught she’d been as a nineteen-year-old. She dragged me outside and squirted me with the hose relentlessly, turning me into a cold, wet mess so I’d have to take a shower. After I improved my hygiene, she drove me to the closest community college and forced me into classes. “Mope all you want, Emerson, but you’re not going to sit around all day and do nothing,” is what she’d told me, and the following Tuesday morning I was sitting in a biology lab.

Approximately six weeks after Adam dumped me on my ass, I ran into him while having drinks with one of my cool new college friends. We’d met in the library and he helped me with my calculus homework. He was a bit too clean-cut for my taste, but he didn’t have a mean bone in his body and went out of his way to impress me. His name was John and that night at the bar was our first date.

I should’ve expected Adam Monaghan to completely ruin it.

After you have your heart broken, the rest of you gets broken along with it. You feel hideous, unattractive, imperfect. No one’s going to want you, the used car with too many miles, when they can have the shiny new one. John would’ve picked me. John wouldn’t have cared if I was broken beyond repair; he would’ve tried to put me back together.

But he balked, ran scared with his tail between his legs at the first hint of a threat from Adam…because I wasn’t worth it.



Cara suggested I start fresh once I completed my associate’s degree, offering me the spare bedroom in her apartment. Toronto seemed like a good idea; starting over seemed even better. I put in a transfer application for the semester following graduation and told Cara I was looking forward to being her roommate.

“We’re going out tonight,” were the first words out of her mouth when I got to my new home. “Some of my friends really want to meet you—”

“Cara…”

“Not like that,” she said hurriedly. “I’m not dumb enough to try and set you up.” I sighed, knowing there was no way in hell I was getting out of it, and she grinned. “You’ll like it here, Em. It’s different. I think it’s exactly what you need.”

Clubs were never my thing. They reminded me of Adam and his stupid band, and nothing good ever came of me remembering Adam. But, as Cara said, Toronto was my chance to start over. I was almost 2,000 miles away from Saskatchewan, away from Adam, and I couldn’t keep torturing myself over something that happened two years ago.

Cara’s friends were nice. Elise was a sweetheart, asking a million questions per minute and wanting to know all about me, but Ben was more reserved. Anyone with two eyes could see he had the hots for Cara, and I guess my role in her life intimidated him. It was me she offered the spare bedroom to, and now that I was in town it was me she’d want to spend all her free time with. Frankly, he made me uncomfortable, so I stuck with Elise.

“Pick your poison little lady,” she said, slinging a long arm over my shoulder as we reached the bar. “First night’s always on me, so drink up.”

“Two amaretto sours,” I told the bartender. Elise grinned and clapped me on the back, reminding me a lot of my best friend. Cara had been a wild child back in high school; it was almost comforting to know she kept similar company when she was off on her own.

“Do you dance?”

“Get a few drinks in me and I do everything.”

Elise laughed loud enough to be heard over the music. “I like you already.”

I nursed a second amaretto while Elise moved on to her third and fourth, turning her down every time she offered me a shot of Patrón. I wasn’t a big drinker. I strictly enforced my two-drink limit, mostly because I never wanted to be that hot mess in the club that’s groping strangers and throwing up all over herself.

Now, I’ve never been a big believer in fate. I never subscribed to the belief that everything happens for a reason and that we’re all wandering the earth in search of our soul mate. With that said, I could’ve been anywhere else the second he and I locked eyes across the parking lot. His friend could’ve decided to throw up in the bathroom instead of the bushes outside. Adam could’ve called me a minute later or, had I drank a little bit less, I could’ve been sober enough to ignore it instead of going outside so I could hear better. But it was like the universe perfectly aligned in order to make sure we met, and I couldn’t let myself pretend that didn’t mean something.

(For the record, I ignored Adam’s call and subsequently deleted his number from my phone.)

“Is your friend all right?” I asked, though I wasn’t sure where I’d gotten the confidence. It wasn’t like me to approach a duet of strangers, but Toronto gave me the opportunity to reinvent myself. I could be anyone and anything I wanted, including confident and sure of myself.

“He drank too much. He’ll be fine once he gets it all out. Right, bud?”

“Fuck you.”

I wasn’t convinced. “Are you sure? He’ll get dehydrated if he keeps throwing up.”

“Fuck, does that mean I’m gonna die?”

“Shut up, man, you’re not gonna die.” The guy turned to look at me. “Excuse him. Apparently no one ever told him it’s impolite to swear in front of the ladies.”

The one that was throwing up scoffed. “Cool Hand Luke, laying it on thick.”

“I’m Luke,” he said, ignoring his friend’s remark. “And this unfortunate creep is Tyler.”

I smiled. “Emerson.”



Everyone told me he was trouble from the second I met him. Professional athletes are notorious for one-night-stands and promiscuity, they said, but I didn’t listen. Luke didn’t seem the type, though I barely knew a thing about him at the time, and I guess some part of me was always determined to prove them wrong. I didn’t have to, though; Luke did it for me.

It took me a long time to come around to the idea of being with Luke in that way. I fell for him as hard as I did fast, losing my footing before I even knew what was happening. There’s this really overused quote from John Green’s “Looking For Alaska” that goes like this: “I was gawky and she was gorgeous and I was hopelessly boring and she was endlessly fascinating. So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane.” Replace “she” with “Luke” and that’s it—that’s Luke and I’s whatevership in a nutshell.

As was the case with John, I was still a little broken. Everyone was going to cheat on me with Lydia Thorne no matter how sweet and perfect they seemed and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking that. I hated Adam for making me so suspicious, for ruining my ability to trust anyone of the male species, and for generally ruining every attempt I made to be happy even from 2,000 miles away.

However, unlike John, Luke didn’t run away. If anything my reluctance made him more determined. To be fair, he was a hockey player and he hated to lose, but it was still nice having someone fight for me.

I remember the exact moment everything that told me Luke was a bad idea threw in the white flag and surrendered. It was a normal week in September and, at Luke’s insistence, I went over to his place for dinner. I had a term paper to work on for school so I asked to borrow his computer. He agreed—even though he tried to convince me that if I let him call my professor and tell him his star student was dating the stud defenseman for the Maple Leafs I’d be excused from doing work for the rest of the semester—and when I pulled up the Internet to get started, “14 Romantic Date Ideas for Toronto Couples” was his last viewed page.

To this day I think I’m still in a puddle on his living room floor.

I didn’t tell him I saw it, but when he capitalized on date idea number ten (drinks and a bonfire at Queen West’s Drake Hotel) I knew the moment he asked me to be his girlfriend I wouldn’t say no.

Cara was thrilled, having lived through the whole Adam disaster, and probably liked Luke more than I did. She’d tell me everyday how lucky I was to find someone who treated me the way Luke did and if I ever hurt him—not the other way around—she’d make sure life was very difficult for me. I didn’t test her.

John was the closest I’d ever come to dating a real gentleman so I didn’t really know how to deal with Luke holding doors open for me and pulling out my chair when we went to dinner. I always blushed when I’d come home from class and there’d be a bouquet of flowers on the kitchen table, and when he’d call during road trips “just to hear my voice” I had to hold the phone as far away as possible so he wouldn’t hear me squeal.

Luke was too good for me, and it took a very long talking-to from Cara to convince me that he was exactly what I deserved.

A few days after I officially became his girlfriend I stumbled across an article on the Internet. It went something like this:

The second time you fall in love with someone, you’re going to feel so relieved.
The second time you fall in love with someone, it’s going to feel different.
The second time you fall in love with someone, you’re going to compare it to your first love.
The second time you fall in love with someone, you’re going to suffer from a bout of amnesia.
The second time you fall in love with someone, you’ll be a more sane person.
The second time you fall in love with someone, you will hopefully have better sex.
The second time will not be the first time.

Have you ever read something that gave you goosebumps, like you were fully conscious of the fact that you were reading something that was going to change your life? It reminded me I wasn’t seventeen anymore, that Luke wasn’t anything like Adam and he wasn’t going to break my heart. I was no longer that fragile, broken mess because I’d been put back together. I deserved to try again. I deserved to walk into a party and know my boyfriend’s eyes were on me, not on the top of some slag’s head as she swallowed his load. Luke loved me—really, truly, madly loved me—and that was more than I could ever say about Adam.

“You’re home early,” Luke said, watching me as I dropped my school bag next to the couch. He grinned as I straddled him, wrapping my arms around his neck. “Bad day?”

“You have no idea.”

He pressed a quick kiss to my forehead. “Wanna hear a joke?”

“Sure.”

“Why don’t skeletons fight each other?” I shrugged, a smile already tugging at my lips. “Because they don’t have the guts!” We stared at one another for a few seconds before bursting into laughter, Luke very visibly bursting with pride at being able to lighten my mood. “I’m sorry you’re having a bad day, baby girl.”

“You might’ve just made it a whole lot better.”

“Good,” he said, pressing another kiss to the side of my mouth. “You don’t deserve to have any bad days.”

I grinned. “You’re such a cornball.”

“Me?” he asked, batting his eyelashes like a twelve-year-old girl. “Never.”

A loud crash came from the back of the apartment. Tyler limped into the living room a few seconds later, holding his toe as he swore under his breath. He took one look at us before pretending to gag. “You two are gross, in case you were wondering.”

“We weren’t,” Luke retorted.

“I can’t wait to get my own hot girlfriend so I can get the hell out of here.”

“Hate to break it to you, bud, but no one’s stupid enough to date you.”

Tyler laughed loudly. “You’re so cute when you play dumb, Skywalker. Little do you know, I happen to have a date tonight with a certain roommate of Em’s.”

My jaw dropped. “You’re going on a date with Cara? Are you at least taking her somewhere nice?”

“I find your lack of faith disturbing.” I rolled my eyes at the umpteenth Star Wars quote. “I’m took a page out of ol’ Cool Hand’s romance handbook and made reservations at La Palette.”

“Cara hates French food.”

Luke snorted. “Back to the drawing board for you, Casanova.”

Another string of obscenities left his mouth as he stomped back to his bedroom, slamming the door shut loudly behind him. Luke and I shared another look before going into another fit of hysterics.

“Does Cara really hate French food?” he asked, still chuckling as he tried to catch his breath.

I shrugged. “I have no idea.”