One day they just did it. They just packed their bags and left without a single thought of the sadness they were leaving in their wake. The exhausted parents wondering where they went wrong. The little siblings that would never be the same again. The older ones that grew resentful. And every other insignificant thing that wanted to be important to them but wasn't.
"My legs are cramped," she said, looking at his bare back as he poured himself a tall glass of orange juice from the fold-up table of room service by the window. "Can we stay for another day?"
"I don't see why not," he said, smiling wide.
That was what she loved about him. His expressions and moods and habits that all seemed to mirror hers. Greek mythology says that people were created with four arms and four legs and two heads, but were split in two and now forced to roam the earth in search of their other half. She didn't know if she believed that, but that's what it felt like when they met. It was as if they were the same person with different genitals and he quite literally had to travel across the world to find her. To comfort her. To save her.
And suddenly this girl who never wanted to care too much and who never wanted to be given any responsibility, opened her heart and started looking after a soul other than her own. He marked the end of her sadness and stripped her of all pretension. And somehow, holding her hand gave him the motivation to start living too.
You see, before they met, he wouldn't have cared if the sun exploded and destroyed the whole solar system and the entirety of the human race. Death was inevitable, rendering life pointless. But then she showed him her own unique philosophy: "It doesn't matter what we do here, so we might as well do whatever we want."
And what they wanted was travel, and poetry, and art and freedom. Above all, they wanted love. They wanted the full moon shining through their window and glistening against the thread of hotel bedsheets tangled around them. They wanted passionate kisses on the beach and everyday to be their honeymoon. They wanted to wake up next to each other because her skin was always cold and his was always warm and somehow the contrast was comforting. He wanted to see her in his t-shirt, laughing and playful, hair unkempt as she spread butter on a piece of toast. She wanted to shower with him and scrub his back and watch every movie ever made in his arms.
One day they'll settle down somewhere. They'll have a few pets and an oven so she can bake. They'll go to work and take the bus and find something subtly beautiful on the street everyday. They'll find a favorite café to stay in every Sunday afternoon where she'll write poetry and he'll draw the faces of strangers who catch his eye. And they'll fight and disagree sometimes but nothing will ever be enough to tear them apart.
"What should we do today?" she asked.
"Hmm...didn't you want to browse through the bookshop downtown?" he replied.
She nodded with a child-like smile.
He laughed. "Then we'll do that."
One day they'll settle down. But today, they were young, and youth wasn't meant to be tied down.
