Live, Laugh, Love [COMPLETE/PUBLISHED]

Chapter 2

He hands me my phone and I rush out of the building. What the hell was that feeling?

I shake my head and I walk to my car and I drive home. I have had enough emotions for one day. I toss my key onto the counter and I go to my bedroom and slip on my pajamas.

Much more comfortable.

I plop onto the couch and I open up my laptop. Today is my day off of work, so I don't have anything I need to do. I open up a word document and I start typing. Writing is something that I dabbled in during college, but I have rarely written anything since.

Cages are meant to lock people in. Whether they committed a crime or people have some weird kink. Bubbles are meant to be fun. Just a little thing of soap that floats through the air and it pops.

Imagine that as how someone lives their life. Trapped inside a cage with millions of locks on it. Inside a bubble that doesn't pop. That is what it is like to live with philophobia.

For those who don't fully understand what I'm talking about, philophobia is the fear of falling in love or becoming emotionally attached to someone. While everyone's experience with this phobia will be different, they all have a common ground, this fear.

For me, I avoid people. Well, kinda. I do see and I am around people, but I don't make a connection with them. I didn't use to be like this. For a couple of years, I did date people, but I was scared of them leaving and so I left. It makes sense in my head. I have no one, literally. I always wondered if this was normal. I know now, as an adult, that it isn't. I can't live my life in fear of love. As a little girl, I always wanted to get married, have kids, and all that jazz, but my fears took hold of my future and ripped it to shreds.

That is where I stand in my life now. I don't see myself having that future anymore. That was until I got a very important text one day. When I meet this person, I want to be able to be there for them and not be the mental mess that I am.

I thought it was going to be an easy process until I walked into the therapist's office, that is when everything became so real. I'm getting help for the problem that I have. I made it through a session and I went to leave and I bumped into someone.

I'm not kidding when I say this, but he was the most handsome man that I have ever seen. When we locked eyes, it felt like my soul had been found and the moment I ran, I felt lost again. It was like I was living for that moment and then when I left, I left that part of me with him. We don't even know each other's names. We met for barely a minute. I should not feel this way. I don't need a complication in my recovery.

But the voice inside my head tells me that he would only help if I met him again. That he would teach me so much more about myself than ever before.

Maybe, just maybe, I need to take that chance.

But I have never been more scared in my entire life, and that is saying something.

I close the lid on my laptop and I lean back on the couch. Why did I just start putting my life into words? I have never done that before. Why does everything seem so different now after that one appointment? I quickly email Rose Harper and I book another appointment for tomorrow.

I don't understand why things are all of a sudden different.

Who knows? Maybe it will be a good thing.