Love Is Symphony |✓

| 15 |

When I was younger, I always wondered what made people stay.

Most people in my life left. My mom, the boys I loved, even the friends whom I thought would be there to at least hand me a box of Kleenex as tears stream down my face. They all left me even when they promised they wouldn't. So, why would someone want to stay?

What made them stay?

Why did the girl in my college stay with her boyfriend despite him cheating on her? Why did Uncle Pete stay with his wife, Aunt Mel despite her horrible attitude? Why did Ice stay in love with Mia when she had a boyfriend? Why do kids stay with their messed up parents? Why do parents stay with their messed up kids?

Why did Dad stay in love with Mom despite her infidelity?

The endless why's and how's kept collecting in my mind as the years passed, all piled up without the slightest chance of being answered.

I often wondered how people could bear the pain of staying, when they could leave and forget everything. Runaway and start all over again - patch their hearts and hope that everything would get better and that time would do it's job and heal the wounds.

Ever since I was a kid, this had always been a mystery to me. A mystery thick with a curled question mark that punctuated every experience with a cloud of wonder.

Somehow though, as I hid behind the same wall where I once hid on the first day I met you, hiding from your impatient eyes, I finally - finally got the gist of it.

No, I couldn't accept it - I was far from doing so. But I got why. I now knew what made them stay. I realized that those people can't leave for the same reason they want to.

Love.

The warm affection that bound millions of families, couples and friends. The feeling that brought smiles to faces, yet the same one to bring tears in the eyes. Piercing hearts until it could no longer how it felt to feel happy again. It was a traitorous feeling that tugged at the cloth that covered our vulnerability - exposing us, shredding it away to let us feel.

And to feel, people surely did.

They stayed because it was better to feel pain with the person they love than leave and feel nothing at all. Because in staying despite the pain, it gave them another opportunity, giving hearts the hope that maybe, just maybe, things could go back to the way it were.

But do things really go back to how it used to be? When everything else is filled with promises and endless dreams of how our future was perceived to be?

Nobody knew, yet everybody hoped so.

And I was slowly becoming one of them. One of those who acted on impulse, moved to the sway of their hearts despite the warning signs that lit brightly - telling me to run away from you while I still could.

I was caught by this attraction that felt like a string, pulling me to you, attaching me until I didn't want to let go.

And I let it.

-

"Um, thanks, you know - for letting me take you out," you said, glancing at me from the corner of your eye.

We were walking side by side, arms lightly brushing against each other, igniting a small spark in my chest. A feeling I was familiar with, yet I quickly shuffled away into a safe distance, afraid that it might consume me. "Yeah."

A moment of silence soon followed, and I risked a glance in your direction. With brows furrowed together in thought, lower lip rolled into your mouth as you gnawed into it, I couldn't deny that you were a beautiful sight.