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epilogue

She believes that others have an irrational perspective on love.

She believes that people crave love – desire it.

She never did.

It was not because she hated the idea of it.

The idea of falling in love and loving someone endlessly. Being able to trust that one person, being with that one person for so long. Maybe forever.

She liked that idea. She hopes that one day it is something she can let herself have. That she can manage to have something this bonding. This intimate.

Just the way to get that... she never understood it. The process. The how.

She could never see herself in that process. She saw the results, but never understood how to get them. Because she couldn't picture herself in the bad sides of love.

Because there are. There are bad sides. Sides she knew of – so she couldn't see herself in them.

She saw love pictured as something everyone is willing to accept. Like it is everyone's goal in life – the one thing it is worth to keep living for. For the chance to be loved.

Was it wrong of her not to accept this perspective?

Was it wrong of her to not want the thing everybody else seems to want, because she saw something else much bigger, more terrifying in love?

She loved him. She loved him even though she could never see herself falling in love. Because even if she wanted to believe that love is easy and should be uncomplicated, she knew that it wasn't like that.

And one setback was enough for her not to desire love – not to want it at all.

It scared her. Everything about it.

The setbacks, the lack of control, the trust.

She was scared of the trust she received and the trust she would have to give.

So, she didn't want it.

Because love seemed to her like an obligation.

An obligation to be there. An obligation to put other's needs in front of her own.

She always saw other's needs. She acted on them. But it was always her choice.

Maybe what scared her about love was the fear of this obligation she would have to bring with it...

Maybe that was the reason she was scared.

Or maybe it was something she hasn't figured out yet.

Does there have to be a reason? A reason for everything?

'Love' can't just be an answer to everything. And even when there are people who insist on love being the reason – is it enough?

Can it?

There seem to be so many other different responses, that love just is one of many.

She sees the response but doesn't choose it.

Maybe because it seems risky.

Maybe because it comes with so much else.

But sometimes there is just no clear reason why we love or can't love a person – don't allow us to love a person. Even if it doesn't seem fair.

It might seem unsatisfying – this answer. The answer that there is no answer. The answer that she can't quite determine what exactly made her choose against love.

She looked back.

She will look back.

Sometimes it seems like a chapter that hasn't been fully written yet. Sometimes it feels like a whole book that would deserve a sequel. But sometimes it also seems like one of the books she had read at school. The ones she read one time and never wants to read again. Maybe in some time she would pick up that book because she found it in her bookshelf next to the other stories she read. Maybe she would open it, refresh her memories. Maybe she'd look at it different then, or maybe she'd remember why she hasn't picked it up since the last time and puts it right back.

Maybe she will have the book right next to her bedside – always there to see, but not finished yet.

It will be up to her what to do about it.

It's love that made her build herself up, but also what broke her. She knows that.

But accepting love didn't seem worth the breaking.

She wonders if she will ever feel different about this.

She knows that she probably has to one day – feel different about love. Because that's the only way she will be able to let herself have it.

But for now... it seems impossible to have a different view on love. A view that would make the breaking seem worth it.

She also wonders if she made a mistake. She doesn't think it's a mistake... but she wonders if she will ever look back on everything and tell herself then, that what she did was a mistake.

She doesn't want love, she wants something else, something that she believes must be higher than this 'love' which is pictured as that one desire in life.

Because she believes that if what she felt was love, then it can't be enough – not for her, or at least not like this.

That's what she thinks now.

She knows she had been denying her feelings. She knows how denying made things easier, but even more painful with the realization.

She doesn't tell herself that she lived in the shadow.

She doesn't know that.

But still, it's those people who don't let themselves try love, who live in the shadow.

And the shadow is the thing she should be scared of.

But she doesn't know that yet.