To All the Boys that Broke my Heart Before by Belén Domínguez (reading comprehension books TXT) 📕

I loved more when he would record his giggle and comment on whatever he wanted to say. To hear him laugh was pretty pleasing to me.

The problem with this boy was our friend in common. It shouldn’t have been, though. I think that what pissed me off was this constant struggle of him not wanting to cause any trouble, but it was stupid because it shouldn’t have been that big of a deal. What happened was that my friend knew his guy pretty well and he would tell me not to go there with him.

“Why?”

“He’s not good for you. He’s a good friend but would not be a good boyfriend. Trust me, I know him”

I was way more stubborn and genuinely felt like he was exaggerating. In my mind, I was thinking otherwise because I’ve talked to him and he seemed so harmless. I couldn’t see this boy causing any type of pain. He basically told me that he was some sort of fuckboy. I mean, I could see that he had that charming personality that attracted girls, almost as if he knew what to say and how to say it to make it easier to lure them. I won’t deny that he had that look. But, I learned to never judge a book by its cover and I really wanted to know if he had these tendencies of being a fuckboy.

I confronted Isaac about it, saying I heard some rumors about his reputation. He was honest about that. He’d say that there was a time where he wanted to fulfill that emptiness that he was having and would hook up with girls most of the time, go out to drink, etc. He wanted to feel something but couldn’t. Let me ask you something. . . Have you ever known someone who had some sort of hard past and you felt like you wanted to make his or her troubles just fade away? Like, change his perspective and make that person feel happy. I wanted that, if he felt empty, I wanted him to feel love and affection. To laugh and have a good time without one drop of alcohol. Most of the time, those things only happen in movies.

But, I was confused because he was also very sweet. He talked to his friends about me. He admitted that he told them every time that he saw me at college, that he thought I was beautiful. When he said that to me, I felt something for this boy even more. I found myself melting right there on the spot when he said that. I just found it so adorable that he would talk about me with his friends, saying nice things. At least, at the time, with this huge crush I had, I would believe anything that he’d say.

He even asked me out. Even though he would say that our mutual friend would be mad if he found out that we decided to hang out. At the moment, I didn’t care, he can’t tell me who I can or can’t see. If I wanted to go out with that boy, I could. At the end of the day, I’m old enough to make my own decisions. We decided that we would go get some coffee and get to know each other better. I was thrilled with the idea because I wanted to know him way more. To see what he liked, his passions, dreams, and his perspective on certain things. I was so ready to finally go out with Isaac because I wanted to confirm if I truly fell for him, or was just falling for the idea of him.

That can happen. I’ll explain quickly.

Maybe you like the idea of him treating you a certain way, perhaps what you’re in love with is not him general, but the fact that he treats you in such ways that you can’t resist going back to him over and over again.

Sadly, the ‘date’, never happened.

Oh, I’ll tell you all about it.

The day before, I texted him to confirm if we were still going to get coffee and he replied saying that it was probably not the best idea. I was confused, I couldn’t quite comprehend why.

“I don’t want to get in trouble with him, he’s my best friend. And if he doesn’t want me to hang out with his friend. then I think we should just stop talking to each other”

I was hurt. Really hurt. The way he said it made it even worse.

How can you accept that he was telling you not to hang out with someone you really like? I mean, is that what true friends do?

That’s what I thought at that moment. Thankfully I opened my eyes in time.

Sadly, I didn’t learn my lesson and fell for him for a second time. After probably a month of not speaking to each other, he decided to reply to one of my stories. He was just saying how beautiful I looked. I still held a little grudge against him, so my reply was kind of sarcastic and cold.

“Oh, look who appeared, you’re talking to me again”

He said that he wasn’t as close friends with him anymore, and how basically he couldn’t stop thinking about us. Side note, there wasn’t an us, I did hope for it, but at that point, I wasn’t giving in so easily. I understood his position, that’s why I never hated him. I was just hurt that he wasn’t brave enough to stand up for what he wanted. But, I had to put myself in his shoes and understand that ‘bro code’ he had to follow with his best friend at the time.

We started to talk once again and I started to fall yet another time. I guess some feelings just never fade away. Though I must say, it was different, because my feelings towards him after we haven’t spoken in so long weren’t as hard as the first time that I felt something for him. It was weird because I’ve missed him—I will admit that—but, I was still pretty annoyed that just then he started talking to me once again when I was already moving on/ The thing is, I couldn’t forget how much I liked him, how much I wanted to pick up from where we left off. We went back to talking and flirting with each other like old times.

That didn’t last, of course. After a while, we stopped having any sort of communication. I found out later that he got a girlfriend. I was not sad, I believe the perfect word to describe my situation with this boy was: Annoyed. It wasn’t meant to be, I see that, but he could’ve saved me all this drama and not play with my feelings. I did like him, you know. . .

Pretty much.

Okay, maybe I was hurt a little bit, I’m too proud to fully admit it. People told me not to get involved with him anyway, now I see why. All I’m saying after all of this is that you can’t force someone to like you, I know. If that person wants to stay, he or she will. But at least, if he was going to get someone else, he could’ve left me alone instead of trying to come back into my life after he decided to cut me out of his completely. I’ve learned my lesson, that’s for sure.

“You deserve way more, forget him”

“He’s not boyfriend material”

“Seriously, don’t waste time on him, he’s an asshole”

“He’s the type of guy that just wants to hook up and when he is fulfilled he leaves”

Warnings I decided not to listen. I could have, but I was blinded by how good this boy was treating me. He was so sweet, so caring, knew exactly what to say and what when. He made me laugh, listened attentively when I wasn’t feeling my best. He had it all.

No, we didn’t hook up, because he cut all sorts of communications with me before there could be a chance. Now, I am genuinely thankful for that. I feel like if it would’ve been something more serious I would’ve suffered way more. For example with the prior boy, I actually made a connection with him, we went out and kissed. Since I didn’t do anything like that with Isaac, I wasn’t totally devastated when we stopped talking or hardly said hello whenever we would run into each other at college. We just exist and that’s it. I know I sometimes say I wish I could forget certain things, but if you think about it, these experiences just help improve your judgment and decision making. It improves to go slow and before doing anything learn if he or she is worth your time.

FOUR

The fourth and last boy was probably the one that I had more problems with. Don’t take it the wrong way, what I mean is that he was someone that made me so confused as to if I had feelings for him or not.

Let’s call him Frederic.

The first time I’ve known about his existence was when he sent me a friend request on Instagram—I feel like most things started for me like that, how crazy. Anyway, I saw that we had a mutual friend in common so I didn’t see a problem in accepting and following back. Then one day, I uploaded a story where I recorded our mutual friend since we were hanging out that day. Frederic replied joking around about him. Since I was doing some things I remember I saw the message but forgot to reply. After a few days, it hit me that I totally left him hanging. If there’s something I hate, is when people leave me without a reply, so I didn’t want to do the same. I simply apologized for not replying, explaining to him that I was just busy. His response was so friendly, he was saying that it was totally okay, being very understanding about that. He was the one to keep the conversation going. Almost like he was just trying to find an excuse to chat with me. You might think: Oh well, who do you think you are? I just say that because he would constantly start a new topic of conversation about the most random things and whenever it seemed like we would stop talking, he would start yet again. Don’t take it the wrong way, I wanted to keep talking to him, but I was very shy. So him starting another topic to talk about was actually relieving.

I liked having conversations with him. It could be from funny and light-hearted topics to talk about deep stuff. He would make me laugh a lot, he was so funny. I soon found myself talking to him for the whole day, until it was very late. We just kept the conversation going. I didn’t get bored of him at all, in fact, I was having a blast getting to know him better. The first detail he gave me about him is that he was younger than me. Three years younger, to be exact. I always believed that three years younger wasn’t that much of a difference. But, I couldn’t help but listen to some people that would