Day 259: All-Consuming Love Part 2

     Maggie began reading books about young love and teen relationships, while Laney preferred staring at the drama of love that unfolded in her favorite television shows.  These things ignited their imaginations about what their own romances could be like.  As they became teenagers and drifted slightly apart with their own groups of friends, their obsession for love became a bit stronger.  Maggie branched out into the classic love stories, such as Romeo and Juliet, and began writing quotes from the books in sparkly gel pens onto notecards which she taped on her bedroom wall.  She proudly declared that the Brontes and Austen were her favorite authors.    Laney went out with her friends to see every new chick flick that came out, and her best friend got her hooked on watching soap operas.  Laney spent her after-school afternoons on various fan sites, staring at pictures of her favorite couples and arguing on forums about why those couples deserved to be together.

     Laney was the first one to have a serious boyfriend.  As a cheerleader, boys were drawn to her by her popularity, becoming features, and perky personality.  Laney and her boyfriend went out every other day and exchanged words through texts or internet chats when they apart. Laney chattered to Maggie about how wonderful he was to her, likening him to one of her favorite male characters from an on-screen couple, and saying that their love would last forever.  It didn’t take long before Laney compared her relationship with her boyfriend to the ones she saw on TV.  She checked to see if he was as devoted to her as the TV boyfriends were, and when they started having fights, Laney reacted in the same way that her heroines did.  She broke up with him after dating a month because she suspected he was cheating on her.  A few weeks later, Laney was dating someone new that she insisted was the love of her life.

     Maggie was happy for her sister’s success in finding love but couldn’t help feeling disappointed that the same romance wasn’t happening to herself.  Being a shy girl, she tended to study in deep corners of the library or read her books on the bus, hoping that some boy would notice her acting demure.  Other times, she hoped that she would run into her future lover in the school hallway, or she imagined that he would touch her hand as he helped her pick up something she had dropped.  The thought of finding a future spouse didn’t interest her as much as the notion of finding someone who would love her.  Until that rapturous moment when her true love would come, Maggie delved into the lives of her heroines and memorized her favorite romantic quotes.  However, the longer she waited, the more depressed she became that she didn’t have a boyfriend yet.  She had horrible nightmares of searching for love in her forties and still never finding it.  She woke up sweaty with her stomach in knots.  Maggie’s appetite decreased, and even her beloved books grew depressing.  With her mother’s insistence, Maggie gave up reading her love stories and focused on picking up her grades, which had suffered under her recent condition.