Preface

The suffering that comes from being in love is never light. I can still cast my mind back to those joyless days; days when I wriggled and juddered from hurt; nights when I sobbed in stillness while slumped down on the biting floor—scourged and aggrieved.

My nickname is Elle. By nickname, I suggest to say that it is not my factual name. I picked this label to conceal my tangible identity. Not because I enjoy doing things in secrecy. I don't. I like it better to be plain-spoken and open. As I am about to unveil my secret love stuff, I will mask the factual identities of everyone I will be giving an account of. The ensuing names are not the true names of the persons in their existent life. They are just monikers I selected.

The setting of the diary has been modified too. All place names taken down are not genuine and unbiased. They may be fictitious and imagined—or actual places that the diary events have not ever taken place.

We all transcribe private stuff into our diaries, don't we? I believe so. I made up my mind to go a step further and put into writing a Love Diary. In this chronicle, I file and document my love adventures and ordeals, depending whether I am in the feeling to pen anything—or perhaps I feel like not recording whatever thing.

When I was growing up into an adult and tall, it never smacked me to realize I would fall in love some destined day. I was aware of love and bits and pieces like that. Yet linking such facts to myself seemed illogical and senseless. I delighted in being a kid. I solely wanted to be a minor and not grow up into adulthood.

Whenever my mates chattered about kissing, hugging, and principally being in love, I constantly became shy and nervous. Such 'nonsense' made me feel like a fish out of water. I would have rather talked about sports and movies than falling in love.

Then came my season of transformation; I am not precisely sure how I came to become this bold and daring. I am speculating that fear just slipped away from me. I am now dauntless and fearless. I don't mind what someone thinks and says about me. What matters is living my life and handling it the way I precisely want it to be ushered.

I was still my nervous self when I dated for the first time. I didn't have the courage to move towards this guy and also make him aware, "Hey, you have seized my attention and thoughts, you know?"

Mulley was the first guy I dated. He was the one who stepped his way to me, time and again—until I at last felt at ease and relaxed around him. He had a silly mannerism of making me chuckle and creasing up my cheeks at him. Then he would censure me for giggling too hard at his killing jokes. Honestly speaking, he was an excellent dude. No uncertainties about it!

Three years onward following my first time falling in love, I stumbled on online dating by a stroke of unplanned luck. I had no scheme to date on the internet. It was just something that came about. I caught myself wholly dazzled and spellbound to contend it; it was like when you have fared off your way to the prom, and upon arriving there, you unintentionally hit into this impressive guy who holds on to you fast enough and checks you from falling.

When you stare into his crystal-like shimmering eyes, you cannot refuse him from keeping you tight in his arms. He is your reality version of Prince Charming, extraordinary and jaw-dropping.

That is what online dating was to me. It doesn't cease there on the internet. It gently worms its way into reality so that you at last end up in the tender but athletic arms of that person who victoriously won your heart.

"Karrie, hi! This is Elle." I sound vague and in two minds as I speak on the phone. My home is Las Vegas, Nevada. Karrie settles in Manhattan, New York. Yes. We are widths of spaces apart. Yet we unfailingly are in unbroken conversation and contact.

"Elle pretty, how are you, my love?"

Karrie is my china—or closest friend. Not my lover. We don't have to be misconstrued for that. I am on my knees. "Please!"

"Sugar, I am okay. The bitter weather is torturing me here. You know how much I hate freezing towns like Vegas."

"Has he written to you yet, or phoned you?" Her voice is anxiously expecting and suspicious of something I haven't become aware of yet. What could it exactly be? Who is this 'him' as a matter of fact?

Chapter 1 »