In This House, We Don’t Cry Over Boys

She sits across from me, her eyes filled with worry. Her right foot keeps tapping and she’s biting on her nails. I can read the endless thoughts running across her mind. I can sense the frustration, disappointment and pending sadness conjuring in her delicate soul. She is the embodiment of imminent heartache but not if I have my way first.

She sits across from me, doubtful of my assertions. We’re not all like you, she says to me. We’re not all that strong. I shake my head at her. It has nothing to do with strength. It has to do with choice, a choice to commit to a certain philosophy. She laughs. It’s that simple, she asks, it’s just a philosophy? I nod my head. So what is this philosophy, she asks me. And over two cups of coffee on a rainy Saturday, I tell her the following words, I feed her the healing words her soul so desperately craves.

In this house, we don’t cry over boys. No, if anything, we make boys cry over us.

She interrupts my spiel with a loud snort and endless laughter. Wait, that’s how it begins? We make them cry over us? She’s falling off her seat in laughter and I smile. I am resurrecting her spirit and I’m just beginning. There’s more, I tell her, let me explain. 

In this house, we don’t cry over boys. No, if anything, we make boys cry over us. In this house, we are not the victims of hurt; we inflict it back with our revelation to be unaffected. We will initiate, we will call or text first and we will pay because we can hold our own. In this house, we are self-sufficient in all regards. We love ourselves to know what we want but at the first instance of mistreatment, we respect ourselves enough to sever all ties. We don’t fret over unreturned messages and vacant time periods of communication. We don’t wait around either. We move on, happily. We don’t waste a single thought on contemplating the what if’s or what could have beens. We take that energy and write a present narrative that is far more inspiring than any story a potential boy could offer.

In this house, we don’t cry over boys. No, if anything, we make boys cry over us. And they will cry as they realize the significance of what they lost and all of the foregone opportunities they could have had. We feed them their own poison of heartache that they have subjected too many girls to. They wither in misery watching us bloom despite it all. In this house, we don’t cry over boys, no we continue on with our stride steady and stable and our heads held high.

So what do you think? She takes in my words for a moment and looks at me with a change of emotion. Her right foot has stopped tapping and she is no longer biting her nails. She sits upright and straighter with greater conviction as the clarity in her eyes rectifies the previous worry. I get it now, she says, I finally do. In this house we don’t cry over boys, she says to me. In this house we don’t cry over boys, I repeat back to her. She repeats the words to herself in a whisper, diverging away from any potential heartache and instead, heading in the direction of resilient bliss as a smile finally emerges on her beautiful face.