Dating : Just Hurting Yourself.

Her friend died, and she stopped coming to meetings.

Her friend did not die of a drug overdose. She died of a fast-moving cancer that created bumps under her skin. Bumps you could feel…bumps like that stuff you package fragile items with. A kind of popcorn texture. It spread under her skin throughout her body. Chemo caused her to lose her hair. There was no surgery that could fix it.

She was sad about it. She grieved. She came to a few more meetings after that, just for the closure.

Maybe she can save me, he thought. Maybe she would be so heartbroken over her friend that she would need a new project. What else could fill such a deep hole?

They spoke. She seemed sad but otherwise the same. He became angry. Didn’t she care about her friend?

“Yes,” she said, a little tired. “But I did everything I could, and so did she. So I don’t regret anything. Everyone must die sometime.”

He was floored. What a crazy, demon woman. There was no saving her. She had not one ounce of romance, of humanity.

And this, he thought, this is what they want me to become.

No, he would refuse. He knew what love was, and he would recapture it again.

Love was holding someone’s hand as your nerves were on fire.

Love was the gentle smile of someone refusing to take you to the hospital, because they knew you could do it on your own.