Petal [h.s.]

Chapter 21

Violet.

I leaned slightly into Harry when we laid in the blanket. "Love is really scary. There's this Italian poet who lived ages ago, named Lucretius, who explained it quite well. He said that when two people connect their bond with a relationship, they only grow more dependent on one another. Love is the only thing that, the more you have, the weaker you get. And it never truly fulfils. Physically, we want to become one with the other person, but that's not possible. Mentally, you can never read each other's minds, there's always a part that you can't reach. Lucretius called this the 'chilling sadness' of it all." I murmured, staring at the grass that I laced through my fingers with each movement.

"There's always going to be a weird look, or a smaller smile than you expected, or a shorter touch. There's always going to be this... uncertainty. It drives some people mad." I continued.

Harry listened intently, a slight frown on his forehead. We were facing each other on the blanket, both half lying down and smoking our cigarettes quietly.

"And he didn't stop there." I sighed, "Lucretius said love is nothing more than a projection of what you want to see, on the other person. It's a painful truth, and the best kept secret out there."

"So, what he's saying is that it's not real?"

"He's saying love is a concoction of our imagination. We see what we want to see, which is why it makes us so blind and therefore, weak."

Harry frowned a bit and stayed quiet, bringing his cigarette to his pink lips that folded around it, sucking in for a bit until he let go and inhaled the smoke. "But what about all that soulmate stuff?"

I nodded. "That's something else. Even Lucretius admits there is only one person for us in the whole wide world. Plato spoke about it in his Symposium, centuries ago. Apparently, humans used to be born with four arms, four legs, two heads and two hearts. Man and woman were one, and they were powerful, so powerful they could challenge the Greek Gods. Zeus didn't like this, and ordered Apollo to split all humans in two, weakening them. One soul split into two bodies, so from then on they were separated and took all their time to search for their soulmate. They couldn't live in peace or rest until they found their soul-twin, because the feelings of fear and anger would only subside if they found one another again. They were weak and easy to kill when they were apart."

"Do you believe in that?"

I shrugged a bit. "I kind of do. They were quite heteronormative though back then. And I think we can love more than one person in our lives, we can even love more than one person at the same time. But there is only one soulmate for us all, and there's a good chance we don't even find them. Ever."

"So we're doomed to be unhappy?" Harry chuckled dryly and I shook my head. "Not necessarily. You can be happy with someone, you can love someone. It's just... difficult." I sighed, "Feelings are difficult."

"You seem to have a lot of them." He remarked and I rolled my eyes. "You're the one who said you loved me."

Harry rolled on his back with a groan and a frown. "I wish I could erase your bloody memory. Can I make an adjustement to that statement?"

I cocked up an eyebrow with a small smile on my lips before I nodded. "Go ahead." I leaned on my elbow, lying down on my side. Harry mimicked my position, face to face with me.

"I like you."

I didn't know why that statement meant more to me than him saying he loved me. Maybe because this was something he actually probably meant. His face lit up when he saw my reaction, which consisted of a beaming smile and a slight blush on my cheeks as I broke the heavy eye contact.