FALLING AROUND YOU ➵ DANIEL SEAVEY ➵ SEQUEL

10 ➵ Did You Stop Believing In Love?

"God," I muttered dropping my phone on the couch before putting my hands over my eyes trying to unseen their relationship.

"What?" Charlie grabbed my phone sitting closer to me before looking at the photo.

"Oh, Sienna." he had no words, "I'm so sorry. I know how much he meant to you." he kept looking at the photo before putting a hand over mine.

I sighed, "I'm just not ready to see that, you know? I just don't understand how I could've been so incredibly in love with him and I could just see his happiness with someone else so soon."

I told him to move on, yes, but I honestly don't know if my heart truly meant it. My brain could easily tell him to go away and never come back, but I know my heart would ache if I said that.

It's funny how those feelings never truly go away. It's always easy to bottle them up and pretend like they aren't there. Maybe there will be enough time that goes by where I could think that he's actually gone, but I know if I ever saw him again— even just a photo, suddenly everything will spill out. It would be like you we never ended, nothing ever changed, and I still loved him. And, that's what's happening.

"Did you ever stop believing in love?" Charlie's fragile voice broke my thoughts. He saw it too. I could tell by his eyes that he was worried, but he didn't know how to help. Truthfully, I didn't know the answer.

Love was never something difficult to believe in.

I feel like I was always starved of true insidious love all my life, and with Daniel, it was right there in all its glory. I wanted the love stories in the fantasies and fairytales; my first love story took place in my mind the majority of the time. From overthinking and fatal decisions, my mind and my made-up story was the downfall to my happily ever after with the poetic tragedy of our end.

I didn't think I lost hope— I didn't think I ever could lose hope in love. It wasn't until my body was drained from the same person making me feels such intense emotions over and over again. I could've survived if it was multiple people, but because it was the one boy with the sapphire eyes, it just make our feelings more personal.

I looked down for a moment, "I don't know. I think after trying and trying so hard just to have see the finish line, but never walk through broke me. Maybe I stopped believed when I realize I couldn't put the pieces back together when they've already been shattered for too long."

The honest truth about these type of heartbreaks is that they don't bring the real and raw form of pain that's everyone is always use to. I remembered heartbreak to be this fiery,passionate emotion that's so excruciatingly painful that it numbs your mind to the point where you don't know if you could feel again. Then, that's when I felt a more subtle, but much worst feeling down the line.

It's the revelation that maybe love isn't what I thought it was in the first place.

"I fought so hard Charlie," I continued, "If I fought this hard for so long and still have things shattered in my arms, then maybe there isn't that much out there to hope for anymore." I shrugged my shoulders.

Charlie had a contorted, saddened expression before pulling his hand into my own, "Sienna, please don't say that," he muttered sitting closer to me. I didn't oblige.

I didn't know at the time, but a part of me left when Daniel did; it was the quiet part that had believed in this fantasy of love for all those years. I kept on seeing the ending from the starting line and the race no longer seemed to be worth the work.

"I just felt really lost for while," I spoke feeling a raw portion unravel in front of this no longer stranger, "maybe that's why my book was such a success— I had too much to feel." I gave a dry chuckle.

I knew a long time ago that I had reached a point where my heart got too tired to keep going, and that's why I knew leaving Daniel would've been so much less painful than staying with him every time. It's just leaving him to prevent heartbreak all that time ago just created more chaos in my thoughts.

"It's not love you stopped believing in, Sienna." his thumb traced small patterns along my the top of my hand as I scrunched my eyebrows.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean you've just stopped believing in the specific vein of love that's too easy to identify; it was the kind people would have anyways read in books and seen in movies. You've stopped believing in this idealistic and lofty perspective of love that was simply born from the thoughts in your mind. And now, you're left with the raw version of love." neither of us realized how close our presence were to each other, but we didn't dare to move.

"You've shaved alway those ideas of love that are purely made out of fantasy and speculation. Now, you'll be able to open up to a quieter, more real version of love— one that takes things how you see them, not how you imagine them," his eyes shifted from my lips quickly peeking at my eyes once more.

Maybe I was blinded from the ideas of pure infatuation to really see the virtues of real love. Maybe it took ripping myself apart and becoming a bit jaded to really see this complex feeling.

Before, I was living in a constant cycle of how I craved and wanted love to be a certain way, but now I'll be able to accept love in its true existence with its flawed and imperfect attributes.

"Don't think that's there's one definition of love. The most beautiful part of love is that it doesn't require the lofty, fantasy idealism to keep on existing— it does it on its own. The quiet, subtle kind of love is born out of reality and truth. It's the kind of love that doesn't require us to believe in a thing because it's already in front of us to see."

"How did you get so wise?" I giggled softly suddenly intrigued by his eyes. I've never really been a fan of brown eyes, not until I looked at Charlie's.

"I guess I just read a lot," he chuckled staring back into my orbs as well trying to find the answers hidden behind the curtains of my eyes.

"You're such a softie," a smile lifted onto my lips.

He didn't need words to reply because the touch of his lips were enough to savor the moment.

—

hey! i hope you guys enjoyed this chapter & im sorry it's up so late! this chapter was actually really hard to write because of the different fundamentals of how other people think of love, but i really like how it turned out even though it's a little short! anyways, summer is right around the corner, so i'll be able to update much sooner! thanks for the constant support and please leave a like and comment!