The Book Shop

Two Hundred and Forty Pounds

Love is a concept Harry had never been able to understand. He strived to understand the way it motivated not only him, but everyone around him. Even those who seemed inherently evil all had something or someone they loved; be it money, fame, or even another human being. No matter who the person everyone had experienced love. 

But, the thing about love is that it's much more than just an emotion. Love pushes humans to do things that other emotions couldn't do. Love affects other emotions and can be the reason for some. Love can make people become happy or sad. Depressed or mad. Love just has an effect on everything everyone does, and Harry found that absolutely incredible. Love is more than an emotion. It's a force that binds everything and everyone together. There was only one problem that Harry really had with love; it never seemed to be on his side. 

Harry had always been the type of person to live with his heart on his sleeve. He put other's first, and strived to make everyone he cared about happy. And, he had to admit at times that became exhausting. There were some days where he'd just come home and flop down on his bed feeling nothing. He was lonely, and had no more love left to give to himself. And, it happened way too often.

After a long talk with his mum he agreed to see a therapist understanding that nobody in his life really cared to talk through his problems with him like he did for them. But, the therapy didn't last long. It didn't suit Harry. He didn't like the idea of sharing his problems with a stranger who didn't even know the whole situation. He only knew Harry's point of view, and that didn't make for very good mediation. 

So, Harry instead decided to just write out all of his problems. When life got too stressful he sat down with his laptop and just wrote. He somehow found comfort in it, even if he wasn't even writing about himself or his own life. It became his own personal kind of therapy. Eventually Harry did start to feel better and more secure in himself. He stopped hoping others would be there for him because he understood that everybody was inherently selfish. 

Harry had to admit that his self reflecting and in depth thinking did make him a little bit more cynical about the world. He no longer saw it through the fresh eyes of a babe like he had for such a long time. He started to see the darkness in others instead of the light. And, as much as Harry tried to fight that, it was like a new awakening. Once he started to see it he couldn't go back. The world was no longer the beautiful loving place he once knew it to be. It was dark and hateful. 

He still saw others who were affected by love. He still saw their happiness, but he was beginning to think that it was all just an illusion. The love would fade and they'd start to feel numb with each other like he felt with himself. His mum said that it was just the depression talking, but he had watched it happen between his mum and dad. Had watched them fall out of love. He had watched his sister get shattered heartbreak after heartbreak. And, he had his own heartbreaks in his past as well. Maybe love wasn't something that bound everyone together. It was an illusion that the whole world was trapped inside. 

Only some opened their eyes to see past the lies, but again maybe that was just too cynical. Maybe Harry was trying to cope with the fact that he had yet to find his own love. His heart was still on the mend and he knew of no one who wanted to help him fix it. So, it was much easier to blame love as a whole instead of his own problems and the lack of it in his life. He still tried to be there for others, still tried to be that welcoming heartwarming person he had always been, but the amount of people who came back started to dwindle. Once secondary was finished and done with many of his friends moved away. And the ones who stayed were too busy with their new lives to even need Harry's help anymore. He still wanted to be somebodies bundle of joy even if he didn't quite believe in the idea of it anymore.