Our I [heart] Weekly Writing Challenge Winner is Brianne Waters!

We asked you to give us funny relationship stories, tell us about getting jilted and different types of love. We begged you to make us laugh, make us smile, break our hearts or make us swoon. And you did!

Brianne Waters will receive the J.Bella Boutique "LOVE" Gift Set with All Natural Massage Oil and Soy Candles for themselves or their "lovah." Perfect for a romantic Valentine's Day! Read her winning entry below and leave comments for the rest of our favorite essays below. Tell us which ones made YOU swoon.

Long stem rose. Single. Red, always red. With a long ribbon of any given color tied around it.  I still can’t figure out how he managed to get them home on his motorcycle, undamaged, every petal accounted for, and even the water is still in the little test tube-thingy. Granted the casino is only about an eight minute drive from my apartment, well, five on his bike; however, it’s practically freezing for Vegas, and his jacket would definitely crush the buds if he were to slide them inside.
He loves my smile, especially the one I give him when he surprises me with a rose – that is the only reason for them, no occasion, no underhanded apology for something I as of yet do not know, just simply to ensure I smile at the door, because he loves my smile.
I don’t know what made me so sentimental, but I am fortunate that I was, since every single red rose was dried after it slightly wilted in the vase. And now every single, dried, red rose is in my own private memorial box. I never realized, I am not sure I even do now, how much I loved him, for loving me, for giving me an open and safe place to truly love and be loved. It is as if he knew the roses would be some of the very few things I could actually hold on to after he was gone. 
My smile, he loved my smile. - Brianne Waters

It was so hard to choose a winner, so we want to share all our top choices:

Printmaking was the last class I needed for my degree. After making so many impulsive decisions in art school I had finally arrived at the last hurdle. The class was grueling and the workload demanded six identical prints to be pulled for each project.
There was also a restriction; the studio was open 24/7, which was great since I worked a full-time day job. The glitch was no one could be in the studio alone at night. It was too isolated.
Troy was a chatty kid in art history who offered to accompany me in the studio. He watched as I pulled too many faulty prints, lauding the perfection and beauty of each one. It baffled me why he wanted to sit with a 28 year old woman but his wit made me forget he was only 19.
When he surprised me one night with a caramel macchiato I thanked him with a peck on the cheek. Then the lips.
Isolated printmaking studios are good for more than pulling bad prints.
I apologized profusely blaming my impulsive nature. Troy laughed, citing we were adults and behaving as such. But the reality was he had barely begun his sophomore year and I was graduating. No matter how much we liked each other, the quarter, and our printmaking trysts, had to end.
Troy framed a flawed print I gave him to hang in his dorm, still unable to see all the mistakes I had ever made. -Laura Henneforth

It has gotten me to speak or even smile in the morning, when I resemble the devil.
It has made a complete fool out of me but also lets me be exactly who I am.
It has shown me complete selflessness and also made me the most angry I've ever been.
It has cost me lots of money, but shown me the best things in life are free.
It has been the cause of my darkest hours yet has given me my happiest moments.
It has brought me all over the world, though I never feel far from home.
It has come in all shapes and sizes, yet its form is always recognizable.
It has brought me closer to people and also driven me far away.
It is Love that has made me who I am. -Katherine Rouche

Kissed
That shy guy five years older than I, finally kissed me. He was tall, warm, nervous and all hands groping my body and whispering, “can I take you,” in such a movie voice I laughed and reached up for more of his sweet mouth and brushed his eyes closed and removed his hands from my warm skin and smiled mid kiss as if this was my profession and he was a mere boy. I had taken him to the top of a lighted sky walk in an unfinished part of downtown where bulbs blinked and solder smoldered and zipped across the open air like fireworks. The wind blew our faces and his fingers finally tangled into mine. I had him from that moment on.
The next day I knew he was thinking of me. Me? I climbed in the display window of a chocolate store rearranging foil covered truffles, lollipops, shimmering cellophane, ribbons, and dark cordials crystallized with sugar and rum. I closed myself in from the back with gold boxes and milk chocolate hearts and settled onto the middle shelf with chin in hands and elbows on knees to watch people pass by with shopping bags, coffee cups, old friends and longings. They stopped to stare at the curlicue bows, foil boxes, chocolate sculptures, and the glowing girl still warm and melting from the taste of her first kiss. No moment had ever be sweeter. -Elizabeth Smith

The fabric around his neck feels as though it is being pulled tighter and tighter with each breath he takes. Despite the hush of the room, he can hear a roar of rushing blood in his ears. Eyes dilating in a rush of adrenaline, he looks to his side to see the closest exit barred by a burly man’s body. He looks at the closed door at the far end of the room and thinks that it will cause too much disturbance if he were to run towards it. He shifts his weight from his right foot to his left foot and then back again. Are you alright? asks a voice on his left. “I think I’m going to piss my pants,” he replies under his breath, but the body standing next to him claps him on the back and laughs.
A man with steely gray hair approaches him and asks, “Are you ready?” but all he can manage is to swallow loudly. His breath is coming faster and faster, and the hush of the room is weighing on his chest with such force it is effortful to stand.
But then the large door at the end of the room opens. A lavishly dressed woman walks through it, and she smiles. She walks toward him, and the oppression that he was feeling dissipates in her smile. She reaches him, taking his hand. Together, they stand before the man with the steely gray hair. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today...” - Melissa Kristine Nyveld
 

Where’s the love? Its footprint can easily go unnoticed unless I freeze-frame the events of our days together. It’s overflowing in the Starbucks he brought home when I desperately needed some caffeine to relieve my headache. It’s autographed in the mommy-daughter stick-figure drawing hung on the fridge.Its melody is echoed in that one last rendition of Twinkle Twinkle that I sang tonight. It’s in our public display of affection which we playfully describe as mommy and daddy taking a trip to smoochie-town. It’s splattered on the pancake battered countertops on lazy Saturday mornings as the laundry sits unfolded and the pile of bills are ignored for just a while longer. It’s heard in their belly aching laughter during the tickle monster attacks in bed. It’s in the I’;\m Sorrys after we’ve slammed the door in anger and the I Forgive Yous when we’ve shown our vulnerability and readiness for peace. It’s in the band-aids covering their boo-boos and in his soft caress during a good purging cry.These are the simple traces of love that we leave behind in our everyday actions, times and spaces. - Esther Gallagher

Like every little girl, I dreamed of happily ever after. Heck, at 28, I still do! But, I am trying to come to terms with enjoying all the love around me and realizing that having so many people in my world loving me is more than I could ever ask for, that I don't need to wait to be happy just because I have yet to find my prince charming. Love comes in friendships that share a bowl of popcorn and a movie on a Friday night, a call to your sister with shared laughs that no one else would understand, the licks first thing in the morning from a puppy whose love is so unconditional that even that early morning wake-up call brings a smile. There is love all around me and that little girl inside me dreaming of happily ever after couldn't be happier! - Robyn McLeod

He dropped me off at the airport and he thought for sure he'd never see me again. I got dropped off at the airport wondering when we would see each other next. It was a whirlwind long weekend in San Francisco where just the right combination of friendship and flirting, fun and firsts became the foundation for my own happily ever after.
I mean how could it not? We shared some very intimate moments, some more conventional than others. Of course we had our first kiss (yes, complete with butterflies) but there was also his first clubbing experience, my first civil-war reenactment, my first time having someone throw up in a zip-lock baggie mere inches from me in the car (for the record I think that was a first for him also); his first case of vertigo; my first time at his house (not planned, he apologized for “the mess”); my first time to be in the presence of a man I liked and not feel like I needed to be anything other than who I am. To this day I blame the spicy hot-dog he admitted he ate for lunch before our weekend adventure began. He says not, rather it was a stomach virus of some sort. Either way, to this day, I never question what he wants to pack in the car and he never questions my judgment about indulging in specialty luncheon meats. Now that is what I call love. - Jody Yarborough

Love is for Losers/Love is All You Need
Everybody was breaking up. Relationships that had spanned the majority of our college lives were crumbling the months after graduation, and my friends and I tried to make sense of the senselessness. 
Valentine’s Day came like a slap in the face. We handled it the way we handled a lot of things: by having a party.  I wanted anti-Valentine’s, and somebody else wanted the cheesiest Valentine’s Day part ever.  We compromised by doing both and draped half the house in black, the other in paper hearts. I stayed away from the hearts.
I said love was for losers because I felt I’d lost. I’d lost my ex. I’d lost the girl I’d been two years earlier, as my ex and I got together: confident, adventurous, independent. I’d lost my best friend from back then, because I drifted away into boyfriend-land and work and graduation requirements.
For the party I baked a break-up cake and read anti-marriage literature out-loud in the dining room.
“Natalie,” someone interrupted me.  I turned to see that old best friend I’d been missing.  “How are you?”
And just like that, the conversation that we’d stopped having two years earlier bubbled up.  The inside jokes and understanding reappeared instantly.  In the weeks that followed, my ex got a new girlfriend, and I got back D. and the person when I’d spent hours talking to D.  Love got me lost, sure, and it also got me found. -Natalie Wendt

I hear so many people talk about love - referring to it as some secondhand emotion that can't be controlled. One that comes when it may and goes when it pleases. Quite frankly, I think that's hogwash, and a big misconception of the truth.
Love is more than a feeling. It's a lifestyle, one that starts out with a choice. You choose to love, then practice loving every day. Some days it's easier than others; just as it's easier to love some people than it is others. Yet, you still love. Although we could make up a list that never ends, there isn't any excuse for not loving. Or at least, none that I've found. So I don't even try. I've accepted that love isn't just a part of life, it's the essence of life.
I'm in love this Valentine's Day, not just because there's someone for me to have and to hold, but because I was in love yesterday, and the one before that, and it's in my plans for tomorrow, too.
In my world, love is the greatest thing. And it can be in yours too, if you just give in to it. -Ashley L. Brazzel

“Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove.” Sonnet shame: You got me Will. The Queen of altering and bending, at your service.
A month before turning 18, I started dating the boy I would convince myself I was in love with for the next three years. He was the end of my childhood, and like most first starts, we were classically ill suited for one another. Selfish love has a funny way of sticking like glue, so when our relationship finally came to a close, I was devastated. Losing someone you love is one thing— losing the love of someone you don’t is quite another. 
My first date back didn’t go well. Neither did the second. The third was especially painful. I’ve blocked it out, but I believe there was an in-depth discussion of how chubby he was in high school. That was all it took. Three years and three dates. I realized I wasn’t looking to fall in love. I was looking for a boyfriend.
Love is not love. I know this all too well. I have truly loved many people in my life, family members, friends, Brad Pitt. But to love well is to have an undivided heart. It is to be single. It is to wait. And so this Valentine’s Day, I will be waiting with a glass of red and five of my best girlfriends. Maybe next year, love.  -Heather R.

First Kiss

It’s been ten years, I still remember my first kiss. I was 13, and it was at 4-H camp. The camp was beautiful. It was large and spacious with a mess hall, activity center, several trails, a large swimming pool, and about 30 cabins that could hold about 7 people.
The first day passed in kind of blur; it was on the second day that I met the hottest guy I’d ever seen (outside of a magazine, anyway). He was 15, 5’9” with a short afro; skin the color of caramel and the greenest eyes I’d ever seen on a brother. Man, he was fine! I still remember his laugh, his smile, his touch. Anyway, he was a counselor, I was a camper; we weren’t supposed to fraternize. But you can’t help who you like, regardless if it’s allowed or not. He was my first boyfriend, even though we only lasted a week.
The last night we were sitting around the campfire. I was off to the side by myself, and I felt someone take my hand. He told me how much fun he’d had and that he’d miss me, and then he kissed me...on the cheek...My heart was beating so fast I don’t know how he couldn’t hear it. Although it wasn't on the lips, I still got that warm, fuzzy feeling inside. Even all these years later, it still puts a smile on my face. You truly never forget your first. -Domonique Burke

In my just-shy-of-being-alive-for-a-quarter-century lifetime, I sincerely doubt if I've ever been “in love.” Other than two serious relationships, love and romance have not found me easily. The memories of the warm feelings fade and soon enough you forget what falling is like. Hence why I question myself as to whether or not I've ever been romantically in love with someone. I simply don't remember what it feels like. This realization convinces me that I've really only been in love with one man because I will never, ever forget what that feels like. That man is my grandfather.
My Honey isn't just any grandfather, but one who is six feet four inches tall with silver hair that is never out of place. I have a tendency for brown-eyed men, but his warm brown eyes are the only ones I trust, and ever will. With such a soft nickname to accompany a commanding presence, Honey is the greatest love of my life. If love indeed comes from the heart after all, the amount coming from his new surgically transplanted heart is no less than his worn out original. When told of the news of him being placed on the transplant list for the single most vital organ to human life, I said, sobbing, Mine is too small to give him. Rest assured to the curious: small to big heart, me to the big man, where there is heart, there is love. yes. And so now in February 2010, we celebrate the one-year anniversary of a new heart, and with that comes cherishing the old feeling of being in love. It’s still there and with each beat, grows stronger by the day. -Caroline Allen

"And they call it puppy love” or in my case kitten love.
Mom led the way up the stairs as the surprise of my 8 year-old life awaited. Strutting from shoulder to shoulder on my aunt was the furriest, grey Persian mix.
My book bag crashed to the floor as the screams leapt out my lungs. Shh, you’ll scare her, mom warned. But I didn’t care I had dreamt of the day when the pet gods would bestow an animal of my own. But the idea of a four-legged friend never seemed possible. All that changed with Fluffy. Finally someone to dress up (her furry scowl said it all), ride in my bicycle basket (she always jumped out), and obsessively pet (the bite marks gradually healed).
As the years rolled on our bond grew stronger. In the beginning, my first stop when returning home would be to see her. However, as she matured her desire for independence and rodent carnage increased. She hunted regularly, bringing back her catch of the day.
Unfortunately, seasons change as does the health of our companions. By the winter of her 13th year she developed mouth cancer. Never wanting Fluffems to suffer, we constantly tended to her needs. But by March her time with us was over.
The night before her departure she rested on my stomach as the tears streamed and my hands caressed her frail body.
Although, saying good-bye to Fluffy hollowed my soul, saying hello let me know I had a one. -Tamika M. Murray

I fell in love with organic food when I was young. I went to a Summerfield Waldorf school and Farm. My mom worked at the school, in the summers, I would tag along with my mom to work and wander down to the farm. I walked the dew covered paths, my feet getting damp in cool wetness. I loved it here. The apple rows neat and tidy, apples green and bulging hanging under uncurling leaves. The tidy rows of beautiful veggies. I spent hours on my hands and knees weeding. But it was the raspberry patch that had my heart. In the afternoon when the sun was high in the sky and the mercury reached well into the 90's. I picked raspberries. The Farm had a CSA and I helped to gather all the produce and put together the baskets. For payment I was able to take home my own basket and since we never had a lot of extra this was a huge treat. I loved picking raspberries the best, the smell of the berry warm in the sun, how they would stain my fingers red;I was quick, nimble and delicate reaching my fingers in;letting berries fall into my hand filling basket after basket. Afterwards I would reward myself with my own basket eating until my tongue was stained raspberry red. To this day, I am in love with good fresh food, dream of my own garden and love raspberries stealing away with a basket of my own whenever I get a chance. -Elayna Alexandra (Flodin)

"UnCommitted: A Skeptic Still Dislikes Valentine's Day." In my opinion, the best part of Valentine's Day is buying cheap candy as door prizes for my students.  I teach middle school, and candy works wonders to motivate my students to complete work and get my classroom floors clean. However, if my parents had gotten married one week later, I might feel differently about the holiday. Forty years ago yesterday, on February 7th, 1970, my parents promised to love one another forever.  My Mom wanted to get married on Valentine's Day, but my Dad was about to be deployed to Italy to serve in the US Air Force’s DIA, where he would decode messages during the Vietnam War.  My Mom put her college career on hold to marry my Dad, and my Dad put graduate school on hold to serve our country. When they returned, they supported each other as my Mom finished college and both of my parents received Master's Degrees at UNC-Chapel Hill. Because of their story, I believe that love is not flowers and candied harts given on a contrived holiday. Love is moving to another country with someone for three years and coming home to live on limited means. Love is pushing each other to achieve the highest education and career goals possible. Love is surviving a war together and raising two girls together afterwards. I have not found this kind of love yet, but I will not settle until I have. -Margaret Robbins