Loveless (Peterick)

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A picture. A snapshot of a moment in time stood still and contained inside a single image. This moment, apart from the millions of others, in a relationship that had lasted for two years, was caught through joyous smiles and sparkling eyes, and though he had liked to remember it, he knew that it only revealed the surface and not what had lied underneath. Relationships were not meant to be easy. He knew from the very beginning that it would be far more difficult than being single, and it would take effort from both individuals to solidify the bond through the disagreements and comprises, so when it was asked of him if he wanted to make it official he had nodded and joined their lips together in the deal that was sealing their futures. Patrick looked at it now- the picture- and didn't regret ever having met the blue-eyed boy with the curly, brown mane standing next to him in it.

He'd appreciated the fact that they had grown from the experience and had learned from each other what it took to truly love another being, but it was long past now- a whole decade to be exact, a whole decade of times when Patrick felt like nothing could ever compare to when he was twenty-years-old and in love with his high school sweetheart, Joe. It hadn't all been kisses and hugs and absolute bliss, but he could say it with pride that he had known the feeling of being in love. He had also known what it felt like to fall out of it- hard. There was a specific moment, he could recall, when he was sat in his college dorm and Joe was lying in his lap in the aftermath of the biggest fight of their relationship, and Joe was apologizing for freaking out on Patrick, apologizing for being absent from his life recently, apologizing for everything wrong he'd ever done, and Patrick was just tired of the apologies. They were simply holding on to the shreds of good things left in their relationship, things fading and barely there anymore.

Maybe it was because they were both afraid of losing each other that they continued to pretend like they could fix it when there wasn't anything there that they hadn't already tried to fix. Patrick and Joe were both suffering forcing themselves to go on like that. He'd told Joe suddenly, bluntly, all at once, when they were both at their lowest in that college dorm, and he didn't regret it because he was positive it had been on both their minds for quite some time.

"This isn't working anymore, Joe."

Because it wasn't and it hadn't been.

Patrick could remember that at the tail end of their relationship he had cried more times than he had smiled, and Patrick always smiled. Though he'd been the one to suggest it, it had still pained Patrick when Joe agreed they should go their separate ways because there had been something there between them at one point in time that had once made Patrick truly believe they'd get married one day, move in together, raise children of their own. In the period of those two years, he'd been the closest to someone than he had ever received the chance to be, shared his most personal secrets with them, exposed his deepest flaws that had been accepted despite the vulnerability that came attached.

Each and every waking moment that Patrick had called Joe his own were the most worthy moments he thought he had ever lived. Now that he was thirty and cleaning out his attic he considered something as he was bent over the old box that had collected cobwebs and dust. He considered keeping it for no other reason but to wonder what could have been if things hadn't gone sour, but he quickly corrected his thoughts, backtracked on the plan he'd briefly proposed to himself. The memory was dead with the picture itself just a solid reminder of a time that was no more. He hadn't thought about Joe since before he'd started his business, and coming across an old picture he'd forgotten he'd saved during his stages of grieving was purely accidental.

Yet, it made him think about where he currently was and what he had accomplished since they'd stopped talking to each other. Patrick had used their relationship as a foundation for his business. It was proof that love had its imperfections, but with the correct amount of attention and care Patrick believed that a proper relationship, despite its hardships, could flourish into something rather spectacular and gorgeous. He spent the years subsequent to the break up perfecting his knowledge of what two people could truly offer each other and how they could come about it. His end goal in mind wasn't to start up a business that, to date, would result in a successful range of healthy relationships that, out of 80% of them, would last far past a year.