The Love Complex (Completed)

-7-

"A mighty pain to love it is,

And 't is a pain that pain to miss;

But of all pains, the greatest pain 

It is to love, but love in vain."- Abraham Cowley

He also wondered why he had accepted. He wasn't close enough to Regina to bother enough with her personal life. They had also not established an actual common ground that would provide him with a reason to help her. Charity? Sympathy? He thought hard about it. Then he remembered. It had been lodged in the back of his mind for so long that he almost had forgotten. Valentina.

He had suffered a heartbreak in silence. Even Roger had not heard the whole story. He had kept it all inside, but it didn't mean that it didn't hurt.

"You must have been in a tough position to have said it. I'm not someone to judge, so I thought I could go along with it for a while. Later on, when you feel ready, you can tell them it was a lie and apologize." He said, with a cordial smile. 

Regina nodded. His reasoning was perfect, perhaps even too perfect that it didn't make sense. She was sure that she couldn't just go and tell her family that she had lied. It would destroy them.

"Or...we can just say that we broke up. I mean, people break up all the time, right?" She said, trying not to sound too nervous. She laughed a bit, but Dylan didn't say anything. 

His mind had drifted back to the reason behind it all. Why did he decide to help her?

Valentina's rejection had hurt him a lot. He had felt embarrassed, angry, and even resentful. The list of emotions didn't stop there. In fact, many of the emotions he had never even felt before. However, he had kept them all inside. The cut in his heart was deep and it bled. The emotions were raw and felt like poison in his heart, but instead of acting bitter he had helped Regina. It didn't make sense to him either. 

When they got back home, Regina sat down in the love seat and turned on the TV. Dylan sat down on the couch opposite to her and looked intently at her. He had used most of the drive to think about Valentina, that he didn't realize that maybe the answer was also in Regina.

Her eyes were fixated on the television and her eyebrows were furrowed as she concentrated on the news. He had been living with her for the past month, but their relationship had been mainly tenant to landlady. Most conversation had been superficial. 

He did not dislike her. In fact, if he could describe their relationship in detail, he would say that it was like a relationship between co-workers. They didn't necessarily make plans to eat during their days off, but they got along well enough to share a meal during their lunch break. They laughed at each other's bad jokes and made small talk. 

"May I ask a question?" He finally blurted out. It had caught Regina off-guard. She looked at him a bit startled.

"What is it?" She said, her eyes had looked back at the television.

Dylan thought of the way to put it, so that he wouldn't insult or offend her. Eventually, he found the perfect way of saying it without making her feel uncomfortable.

"Why didn't you tell your mother that you would go on that date?"

Regina didn't look at him for a few seconds. Her gaze fell from the television and toward the ground. Then she looked at him. "I'm not good with relationships or with meeting people." she confessed. There was no other way to put it.