Matters of the Heart

Tale of a Secret Admirer

Author's Note: I would like to give credit to @sparklingjin and @NocturnalArmys for the inspiration of this piece back when I'd read their great works. All of that is still very close to my heart. And I hope this one brings a similar comfort to the reading minds as my favorite works had brought to me once.

Leo walked in the puddles of water collected on the streets. His shoes were completely soaked and his feet made squelching sounds with every step he took. Wet shoes never gave him a good feeling yet in that particular moment, he was far too lost in his thoughts to care about how soaked his whole body had become in the pelting rain.

He walked on the deserted streets where not an entity or a stray animal lingered. The rain came in violent splashes and the sound was so loud one could hardly hear their own voice over the roars of angry clouds. Leo had been walking in the rain for 2 hours and by the first 30 minutes, his sense of touch had given up on him and his body had gone numb from the cold to protect itself against the ruthless pouring. He was shivering but in absentmindedness, seldom took notice of his currently concerning state.

His feet sauntered on their own accord into a very familiar street that he knew by heart. The map of the street had become pretty much ingrained in his DNA ever since he remembered being conscious. How he had made those memories with the help of which he found the strength to survive. How his little self had laughed to his heart's content unknown to the bleak future that awaited his arrival. On the street a sole lamppost fought against the oppression of the tsunamic rain. It struggled but shed its light nonetheless on the streets for lost onlookers like himself.

Leo had his hood on and being lover of black, he could hardly be detected against the darkness of night. It was almost as if he was a lost ghost who had died with an unfulfilled purpose and who now lingered the streets of his city, stuck in the in-between of life's vitality and death's oblivion.

Leo however was very much alive. He was a walking, working and breathing human, but as he stood concealed and almost swallowed in the murky night, he felt himself no less than a ghost. He halted in front of the building that stood tall among the dull and shabby houses located on the street. Despite all those years, it had remained as new as ever. As if so much time hadn't passed. As if Leo hadn't grown at all. As if he hadn't lost the love of his life in the very same house to another.

A familiar silhouette appeared in the brightly lit window and Leo's entire body seized its function. Even the cells that were supposed to work non-stop to make his survival a surety took a moment of silence to observe their human's reaction, to see how he felt and how he looked after seeing his lost love after such a long time.

There she stood, beaming like a fairy, happiness twinkled in the gleam of her eyes and she darted from place to place in her room to dodge her lover's playful advances at her. Unlike Leo, she had become lucky enough to find a love so strong that she could hold onto it forever and never fear to let it go.

Leo recalled an old excerpt he had read somewheere in a book about the depths of love.

There are multiple depths of lioe. The first level scrapes the surface, as it's only just beginning. The second level allows you to keep the person close to your heart. Together, you breathe as one. The lucky ones stay in the second stage forever. But, they will never compare to the residents of the third, because they love so much that they are willing to let go.

When Leo had read it in the book, it hadn't crossed his mind that he too would someday become a resident one of those stages. And yet there he stood in the screaming suffocating rain, drenched to the very bone and feeling the dull ache in his heart solidify -- proving him to be the resident of the third and the most consuming depth of love.

Only if he had been selfish enough to keep her to himself. Only if he had tried hard to persuade her to return his feelings. Only if he had been stubborn enough to make her his.

But he hadn't.

Because he wasn't.

It wasn't that he was a coward, or that he found it hard to put any efforts into his love. If anything, Leo was the most selfless, loving and caring humans one could come across. Sadly that blessing of had often proven to be a cursed disguise. Because when Leo had gotten to know about her harboring feelings for her lover, he had at once decided to help her pursue her greatest happiness rather than choosing to be selfish and sabotaging her one chance at true love.

He still held the moment of their last encounter and his last goodbye into the most conscious part of his memory's archive.

"Doubt thou that the stars are fire. Doubt thou that the sun doth move. Doubt truth to be a liar..."
Leo stood wide eyed and unspeaking at the sudden recitation coming from Isabella. The fact that it was a recitation he loved coming from the girl he loved made his heart beat ten times abnormal.

"But never doubt...?" She waited for him to finish with a small smile etched on her delicate face.

"...that I love." He had finished his last words to her and they had so happened to be a recitation of lost love.

She had then turned around and vanished out the doorway unknown tha this was to be her final goodbye with her favorite boy for he loved her too much to stay and watch her be promsied to another. She hadn't realized the impact of her last words. She hadn't known the intensity of his love and she hadn't known the weight her recitation exerted upon his already aching heart.

It was good because heavens if she did, she would have drowned in the violence of the intense flow.

Bringing himself back to the present, Leo focused on the beating of his heart and the laboring of his breath. It was just like the first time he had laid eyes on her innocence and he had given away his heart without a second thought.

The rain slapped him and the wind hurled his frame but Leo stood firm and brave, unmoving in the adversity of nature. To him, that was nothing compared to what he had endured when he had let go of her. The storm that brewed inside of him could make the storm outside shy away into its heavenly caverns.

As if tired out by Leo's determination, the rain came to an abrupt stop. He let out a bitter chuckle at the irony of it all. Even nature was forced to drop its weapons. How much more pathetic could all of it be?

The rain had clouds to accompany, the moon had stars to be companions for the night, the sun had its rays to flaunt with the rainbow and the thunders had skies to show off their shine against; but what did he have?

Nothing.

He, a mere human, stood in the middle of streets, deserted and drenched and comforting himself in the lost memories and pompous desires that could never be recreated or completed.

Leo retreated his footsteps catching some of her smiles so they could last him a lifetime of memories, so they could help him breathe a little better. The excerpt about the depths of love came to the forefront of his mind again and he begged his brain to stop the pain. He begged his unconscious mind to stop bringing him again to the shores of his heartbreak and he begged it to accept the losstthat had befallen him.

Everything cleared out, day approached and life came back to the once deserted streets. It seemed a new beginning to everyone-- the strays and humans alike. But his body stood numb from both standing in the rain and the ache of his pain. With the way the sun peeked from beyond the horizon, he speculated people might get to see a rainbow. And in the day, children would come out with their mothers holding hands. They would jump into the after rain puddles, and the youth would enjoy making funny shapes out of the clouds, and the old would watch the hustle of life and reflect and relish in the tranquility that they had indeed lived to see. But amidst all the activity Leo would still remain confined to the shackles of his mind and to the mist of his memories.

He would forever remain standing; lost to the suffocating fog of his heartbreak and isolation.