Fan Fiction ❯ Living at Night ❯ Trying to explain ( Chapter 3 )

I can't really say much about the next days, or the next weeks really. They went by fast, at least the nights did. I slept during the day since I would stay up until nearly dawn every morning. There is one night that sticks out in my mind, the night that she told me she loved me. At the time, she took me completely by surprise, but she didn't know what she was saying.

We were talking about the book I had let her borrow. She had taken quite awhile to finish it, reading it when she was gone.

"I had to hide it, but I tried to read it as much as I could," she said as we laid in the snow looking up. We had our hoods up, so the snow wasn't too cold on our heads.

"It's okay," I told her casually, though I had no idea why she would need to hide it, I didn't press the subject.

"It was very good, but very sad. Is it really like that, war?" she asked.

"The story is made up, but the events are real. Haven't you heard of the Civil War?" I tried to keep the surprise out of my voice, there seemed to be a lot of things she didn't know.

"I wasn't around then, how was I supposed to know about it? They don't usually let us see what's going on," she said matter-of-factly.

"In books...in school...in movies..." I tried to think of everything I had learned about it and from where. She stayed quiet, and I didn't want to sound mean, so I dropped the subject.

"I'll try to learn more..." she said to the sky, and to me, in an apologetic voice. "It's hard to, but I'll try."

"If there's anything else you want to ask me, I'll try to answer it," I told her.

"There is one thing that I couldn't figure out, but I've heard of before," she said quietly.

"Shoot," I said casually, expecting something easy, like more about the war. "I mean, you can tell me," I finally said after she didn't respond for a minute.

"What is...love?" she said the whole thing like a question, but the word love like a question too.

It took me a second to answer, I was taken completely aback. The question wasn't innocent enough, I guess, but this wasn't something that was easy to explain.

"It's...well...it's when you like something a lot, but not just like it, you love it," I tried to explain in the simplest way possible. I tried explaining better by using examples. "Like this: I love night time. I love the food my grandma makes-"

She cut me off. "Can you just love things?" she asked.

"No, the night isn't really a thing. You can love anything really...ideas, places, things, people, anything really," I said.

She thought about that for awhile. "People too? Like Scarlet loved Rhett?" she asked, using the main characters from Gone With the Wind as her examples.

"Yeah, like that. Love is hard to explain," I said, tracing the stars with my finger. "You just kind of feel it. I can't really say much more that will make sense."

We were quiet for awhile.

"I love you," she said, turning to look at me. I turned toward her, completely surprised at what she said. I'm sure my face was turning red, luckily she couldn't tell since they were already red from the cold.

"W-What?" I asked, and turned back toward the stars.

"Can't I? I like you a lot. I like spending time with you and talking to you. You're really nice too. I like you even more than I like being here," she told me sadly, trying to explain to me and not understanding what she had done wrong.

"Well...if you use it that way. I didn't really explain it right, I guess. There are, maybe, different kinds of love," I fumbled through the words.

She put her hand in mine. "I'm sorry. I guess I still don't understand," she responded quietly and apologetically.

I sighed...it was hard to see her confused and sad about something that I, and pretty much everyone, just grew up knowing. Maybe she'd eventually understand it, maybe I would too.