The Girl Unnoticed

38. Brain or Heart?

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Brain or Heart?

Do you follow your brain or heart?

People always say to follow your heart when making a decision about your feelings. But if my heart is scattered in pieces everywhere, which piece do I follow?

How am I so sure which is the right choice? Do we ever make the right choices in life?

The memory of my late grandmother flashed across my mind. She was a happy woman—her eyes were always smiling with wrinkles at its ends, her cheeks tinted pink with health, her grey hair tied in a low bun with strands of white hair messily sticking out. She seldom laughed; she just smiled all the time, as if the universe and her had a little secret shared only between them. She was only 76 when fate decided that her time was up on Earth. She had told me something I will never forget. I remember I was only 6 then when she told me.

"Oh darling...shhh, don't cry. My darling Leighton," she told me, in her kind voice.

She was stroking my hair gently while I sat on her lap. I was silently sobbing at that time because Mum and Dad had broke into a fight and I got scared so I went searching for her. She used to live with us when I was younger after my grandfather died.

My sobbing was going on continuously and I used to hiccup occasionally when I cried. She patted my head softly and asked me what was on my mind. I told her in between my sobs that I hated it when my parents fought. I was afraid that they would end up hating each other and leave Lyra and I after that. I was so afraid that they would think it was a wrong decision to have this family after all.

I could feel my grandmother shaking her head gently as my head rested on her chest.

"My dear Leighton..." she spoke softly.

The wrinkles formed beside her lips. Her smile always looked so wise and sad at the same time.

"Life isn't about making the right decisions but rather making the decisions we make feel right, don't you think so? I can assure you that your parents love you and Lyra so much. They would never leave you. No matter what they are going through, they will solve it together and everything will be fine, my dear."

She continued to stroke my hair lovingly and accompanied me as I sobbed. The words she told me forever lived in my mind till this day.

Life isn't about making the right decisions but rather making the decisions we make feel right.

The memory of her in the back of my mind reminded me of how much I loved her and it hurt. I squeezed my hand on the side of the bench that I was sitting on to will myself back into the present. The reality.

I raised my eyes slowly from the ground to the stalk of a wilting rose in the garden to the chipped edge of the wooden bench and finally, to the green eyes in front of me–patiently waiting for an answer. The question was hanging in the air, thick with tension. My thoughts whirled around in my brain as I tried to process for the right words to say. Nothing came out from my lips.

"Hey...Leighton," I heard Austin speak.

His voice was soft and gentle, as if he was talking to a sleeping baby. He looked at me with the green eyes never leaving mine since we came into the garden.