Au

Chapter 6

The rain beat down on him with no mercy but Barry didn't seem to care. He walked the five block distance to the apartment, completely drenched and with a blissfully oblivious smile on his face. He'd stood in that rain for an hour simply looking into the horizon with hopes that the melanin coated beauty would return and run into his arms. He had no such luck. As his standing in the down pour alone pushed forth questions regarding his sanity, he began to walk in the general direction of his apartment building. The streets were deserted and the sun had just begun to set. The weather was dipping towards cold but Bartholomew was warm from the inside out so he barely shivered.

Who is she?

Where does she come from?

Will I ever see her again?

Do I ever want to see her again?

He kept asking himself and his mind was a whirlwind of doubts and hopes that refused to be silenced. Yet deep down, he was scared. He was down right petrified. Never in his short and uneventful dating life had he felt a fire burn inside him so intensely. He'd never craved any woman as much as he did her and that terrified him because in that moment he lost all notion of himself. He forgot who he was, who he wanted to be and who he was meant to be. An animal escaped from the hole it had been buried in, drawn out by something about her, with in her, that called to it. Barry recked his brain for an explanation. For a reason why he felt the way he did. Why that demon existed within him without him having any knowledge of it yet no explanation surfaced. Subconsciously however a memory played out.

Him as a young boy chasing after a helpless pup one stary night many summers ago. The frightened creature backed itself into a bush and Barry reached out for it. He was angry, he was hurt, he'd just been moved into a home where no one talked to him or stayed around him for long periods of time and all he could do not to cry was lash out at the world in any way possible, including terrorising poor defenceless creatures. At his last attempt at a grab the pup fought back, sinking its tiny yet sharp teeth into the meat of Barry's hand and he howled in pain. Tears sprung into his eyes and he retreated, holding his bleeding hand as he ran back to the house he was meant to call a home. That night he was tended to, spoken to, held and shown sympathy and something inside him shifted. From that day on he refused to be consumed by anger or hatred. Instead he smiled, he helped where he could and he was always ready to offer a comforting hug.
So why now, that he had finally found a girl he was inexplicably attracted to, had all his aggressive tendencies resurfaced? How was it possible that he could feel two conflicting emotions simultaneously, both hope and fear? Happiness and emptiness? Love and anger? He turned the keys in the door and opened up the apartment while in a state of total confusion. He stepped inside with a saddened smile on his face and shut the door behind him.

Leaning against the recently slammed door, Iris was wide eyed and breathless. She'd driven like a race car driver, under dreadful conditions and with her heart nearly escaping through her throat. The floor beneath her bare feet was cold and quickly becoming a watery portrait painted by the rain droplets that still fell from her soaking wet body. She shivered though it was still unclear whether from cold or fear and as she closed her eyes her mind took her back to the events that occurred in the cemetery. A warmth filled her heart and she sank to the ground. Tears streamed down her face and mingled with the rain drops already on her cheeks. She was confused and emotional and craving the strangers touch. Seeing him panicked, on the mausoleum floor had stirred up a side of her long forgotten. A whisp of an emotion fleetingly coursed through her, an emotion she'd oppressed for so long that it's sudden rise had left her too weak to fight off her tears. An emotion known as affection. The simple act of caring for another.

That kiss had shattered through all her walls, broken each and every layer and left her emotionally naked and exposed. That's why she ran, because she'd lost control. Because the feeling of his hand on her cheek had made her soft inside with a longing to press her head against his shoulder and let him protect her. That's when memory kicked in and the pain of each and every instance of abandonment she'd ever gone through drenched her in a  piercing shower of ice, extinguishing the fire he had ignited. She ran towards safety, towards the isolation that for so long had kept her free of heartbreak. Yet as she cried on her bedroom floor, in her chest she felt a longing to be with him. A longing to know his name and hear hers pronounced in his voice.

You're pathetic came the voice from within her mind and she screamed, picking her self up and stomping towards the nightstand from where she picked up a lamp and hurled it towards the wall. Her defence mechanisms kicked back in and once again the heartless shell of a human took over. She striped herself of her soppy clothes and stepped into the shower, washing away any residual form of weakness that still lingered.

Both parties were confused. Both fighting an inner battle with themselves. Both trying to stablize emotions that, much like hyper active chemicals, had been activated to form a dangerously reactive solution. A perfect example of the theory of infinite love.

Imagine that who you are, resides in your heart and who you let the world see resides in your mind. In your soul, both heart and mind are connected and reside in a state of harmony. This creates a balance between the ultimate truth and a lived truth in order to form a personality that is both true to who you are but adaptable, circumstantial and influenced by experience. Your personality then becomes a tool for surviving in a world where rules are made, broken and changed with varying consequences and little time to dwell over them. Trough it all the minds main aim is to protect the heart by whatever means necessary, whether it be by becoming completely socially acceptable to avoid rejection or by putting up a wall against society and completely ignoring all its rules and regulations.

Barry chose the former and Iris the latter. Barry became a humble, sweet and basically good person to garner affection and prevent rejection. Iris shunned the world that seemed to shun her and created an outward persona that had left her prone to isolation but gave her control.
In essence her mind called to his heart and his mind called to her heart. Thus, with the balance within them connecting both mind and heart and each aspect of one's personality calling to the other, they form a sign of infinity. The junction in the middle, what's drawn them together and made this possible, is love. They are not yet aware of it but in that brief moment in which their lips touched their souls exchanged a message that they had found there other half. Now they are linked, indefinitely by a force neither can understand nor fight. The theory of infinite love.