She wanted to die.
He wanted to live.
•••
A hand grabbed onto my wrist, yanking me back just as the train rushed past, before I'd even had time to comprehend whether or not I'd carry out the action. I stumbled back into the person's chest, my hear...
Ups! Ten obraz nie jest zgodny z naszymi wytycznymi. Aby kontynuować, spróbuj go usunąć lub użyć innego.
Romeo and Juliet were stupid – so, so stupid – but I suppose you could say I had acquired a form of admiration for them.
Before tonight, I thought the concept of falling in love with someone in a mere matter of minutes was absolutely ridiculous – and part of me still did – but I don't think I had quite understood what it felt like to find someone who made you feel like you belonged. Someone who saw all your flaws and witnessed you at rock bottom, yet still chose to stay.
My Romeo had done that. He'd seen me breakdown and sob and scream and thrash about in his arms as I pleaded with him to let me take my own life; he'd seen me still and silent as myriads of memories flashed through my brain and forced me to relive the past; yet he'd also seen me hopeful, and relaxed and the most carefree I think I had ever been – and throughout all of that, he had still stayed.
Even I found it difficult to stay with people; that's why I loved running from my problems at every opportunity, because staying required giving away too much of myself to people I wasn't even sure would do the same for me.
To me, staying with someone was such a pure form of sacrifice. I was no stranger to people leaving my life, so much so to the extent where I stopped letting people get truly close to me, because I already knew they were bound to leave. Even with Theo, in every conversation we had, I always had a lingering thought that it could be the last that we would speak; that he might discover something he disliked about me and decide he didn't want to stay any longer.
My own mum decided to leave me, so why wouldn't anyone else? I had thought a maternal bond between a mother and a daughter was meant to be one of the strongest, if not the strongest possible connection you could have with someone. Yet, she left so easily, so carelessly time and time again leaving me to wonder if I had imagined the moments when we were close and life used to be enjoyable.
Second-guessing myself was a horrible part of the process of being left: the moments in which I doubted if it had even been real and reciprocated, or whether I might have imagined all those good times and moments I knew were too good to be true. Paranoia loved toying with my emotions, making me feel as though they had left due to there being no reason worth staying, even though that might not have necessarily been the case.
However much I wished it did, my mum's loyalties and love didn't lie with me; in her perspective, she was loving my dad by staying with him regardless of what he did to her, or me. She saw love as staying with someone despite all their problems, as do I, but she taught me the negative side of loving someone's flaws. She taught me that there was a certain extent in which unconditional love crossed over into becoming a victim to your devotion.
The sacrifice she made time and time again for my dad is one he didn't deserve, and a woman as pure-hearted as my mum but blinded by her loyalty shouldn't have had to put up with a man that would never treat her right. As much as I disagreed with my mum, and used to absolutely hate Romeo and Juliet, despite their loyalty leading to their inevitable downfall, I respected them for it.
