The Trials of That Thing We Call Love

Chapter 12.5

As Cassidy sat there, the room spun. His heart ached in ways he never thought possible and he felt faint. The rest of the group, minus Abigail, had caught up to him. He could see their mouths moving, trying to ask him what happened, trying to ask if he was okay, asking if Abigail was okay, but to him, they might as well have been the adults in a Charlie Brown cartoon. He just heard the muffled noise and the ringing of his own ears.

Is it possible to die from heartbreak? He thought to himself as he felt his chest grow tighter. It took him a while, but he finally tuned back into reality. The most he could utter into words were sentiments of how he fucked it all up, how he himself always fucked up because he was nothing but just that – a fuck up. Only next, to the best of his understanding, for them to recount to him how Abigail found them, a total mess, saying her versions along the same lines. She was begging to leave before running off when they made the attempt to try to console her. Before they caught up with her, she had left and that's when they found him.

The only thing they could find out was she was approached by a couple who had offered her a ride home but they left this information out. It only served to do him more harm than good.

He pushed his way past them and walked towards the bar. They tried to stop him before Chuck and Trent told them to leave him alone, that he needed space. The group decided to leave at that point.

Liz asked Sandy if she could room with her as she wanted to make sure Abigail was okay before leaving. Sandy happily agreed as she could use the company after tonight's lesson that even real life love stories don't always have happy endings. Will and Kyle were asked to go back and crash with them so as to not put them out by having to find another room. If they were honest, this hurt everyone, more so Will who looked at Liz in this situation and couldn't help but to feel a pit in his stomach. Why can't it always just work out like we plan it in our heads? He thought to himself.

As for Max, she actually hit it off with her date, Adam, and just as the others, the events crushed her. To her, even if it wasn't true, even if it was just for tonight, she would look to be in Adam's arms for comfort. Tonight, at least for her, love would be real and that was a fantasy she knew all too well, partner to partner. At least in that moment she wasn't hurting and love was real.

Sometime you have to indulge in fantasy and make bad decisions to ease the heartbreak. Sometimes it isn't normal heartbreak. For some like Max and others, we do these things to ease the pain of everyday life.

But every addict has to tell themselves, I'll stop any day now and everything will all be better, and that is the right thing to do. Have hope because one way or another, that day will come. They say sometimes that there's a brighter day tomorrow, but sometimes the journey to that brighter tomorrow is full of trials, and those trials, the ones made of love and heartbreak, mold you and shape you into the person you are meant to be. Never give up when the trial gets hard because this journey you are on, the one they are all on, is an important one, because each and every little thing happens for a reason and all roads, no matter how easy or hard to travel, no matter how big or small, always lead you exactly where you are supposed to be.

For Cassidy and Abigail, for their friends with problems of their own, the journey had just truly begun and that was made all the more clear as the group had left and Cassidy had found himself sat drinking alone at the bar.