The Truth About Love

by Maisie Myers

“The whole world isn’t rotten, but it’s like all you can see is the ugliness,” he whispers, almost as if he doesn’t mean to be speaking aloud.

“So, is that the truth about love? That it lives even longer than the hearts who are touched by it?”

“Mental illness doesn’t make you a burden. Only a weak person would think that of you.”

“I want everything you’ll give me. But baby, I don’t want to just be your first, I want to be your only.”

We’re so in love, it feels like I’m constantly walking on rainbows and for a while, everything is perfect. Until, one day, it isn’t anymore.

“If you need me to help you feel something, tell me and I’ll love you harder. And if that’s not enough we can ride a rollercoaster, go skydiving or even fucking shark diving, but don’t ever ask me to hurt you again.”

This is the last time I’ll ever breathe in the same air as the boy who stole my heart.

All I can do is lay in the jagged pieces of my broken heart, grieving the love I never thought I’d have and mourning the loss of the boy who gave it to me.

I know that Auden will eventually move on. He might struggle for a while, but one morning he’ll wake up and realise the sun is still shining, the sky is still blue and happiness is still possible. He’ll find someone new and fall in love again.

I hope his life is filled with sunshine and blue skies and bright smiles.

Because if I’ve learnt anything from this it’s that sometimes to truly love someone you have to let them go.

I go home. And later, after dinner at an Italian restaurant with Cara, I use her body once again to try and forget about the girl with golden hair and demons in her head. And just like always, it doesn’t work.

I smell him instantly. The scent of pine and well-read books floods my senses and makes me dizzy.

Our worlds may have changed, we may not know each other anymore, but that magic that was always between us is still there. We don’t belong to each other anymore, but our souls still reach for each other as if we do. He’s still Auden.

My eyes shutter and I lean into her touch. Home. That’s what she feels like.

So much between us has changed. Our minds don’t know each other anymore, yet our bodies still gravitate towards the other as if we’ve never been apart.

We’re a study in paradoxes, Summer-Raine and I. We’re strangers and soulmates and ghosts from our pasts. I’ve moved on from her, yet I’ve loved her every single day since she left.

“You always think so loud,” he says, leaning forward to study me with his elbows resting on his parted knees.

“Pretty girl, listen to me. There is no one else in this world for me but you. It has always been you. And I will wait as long as you need me to until you show up on my doorstep and tell me its time. I’ll wait forever, baby. Forever.”

Finally, my heart is strong enough to withstand the weight of mine and Auden’s love. Because together, we burn like wildfire. We love with the light of a million stars. We’re fierce and chaotic and powerful and until now, I never had a hope in hell of surviving it. But I do now.

We’re a tempest. A storm raging over wild waves. Loving Summer-Raine has always been like that. Like a natural disaster. As fatal, devastating and inevitable as a star burning out.

And, like a dagger to the heart, I watch as the woman who should be mine wraps her hands around his neck and kisses him back just as deeply.

It doesn’t matter how much time passes between us, if you need me, I will always come for you.

We don’t say anything. We don’t need to. We just live in this moment together, breathing in the memories of a time when things were simpler.

Sadness pours from her, so visceral I can almost see it. And when the wind rolls over the ocean, it catches in her hair and blows the strands around her face like a glowing halo of gold. She’s a weeping angel. Breathtaking, despondent and divine.

It’s you who has my heart, it’s you who owns my soul. I belong to you. I will only ever belong to you. My marriage was born out of obligation and it has never been anything more than that.”

“I love you so much, Summer-Raine. I always will.” He sniffs, his hands fisted at his sides as if holding himself back from reaching for me. “I’ll see you everywhere. In the bleeding skies and the sunlight as golden as your hair. I’ll hear your laugh in poetry, I’ll see your smile in the daffodils that grow outside my building. I’ll taste your lips in every peach and smell you in every ocean breeze. The beach is ruined for me now, as is every balcony, every wildflower, every splash of summer rain. And just know, my pretty girl, that whenever you think of me, I’ll be thinking of you too.”