The first time a boy broke Martha's heart, she had run crying to her mother. Her mother had wiped away her tears, kissed her on the cheek and told her that no man was worth her tears and the one who was would never make her cry.
Taking her mother's words as gospel, the very next day she snubbed Robbie Mikhail when he tried to borrow her crayons and fell in puppy love with Vijay Mohandas, the new boy.
After that first introduction, Love became a carousel of heart warming ardor and violent but short-lived heartache. As she moved through her teens into adulthood, it never left a mark on her though she did on others.
Then she met him and began the ride of her life, literally and metaphorically. For all her intelligence, she stepped into his world without any real hesitation or thought and was completely swept away.
He was a whirlwind of experience and sensation. He challenged her intellect, opened up a whole new world to her hungry mind and intrigued her with the enigma that he was. He amused her with his utter childlike enthusiasm and his badly hidden need to please. He was everything and yet nothing she had seen before.
She had no chance against it really. She fell quickly and willingly.
Yes, it hurt sometimes knowing that she was not the one he wanted there though she was exactly what he needed. But she had always been stubborn and quitting had never been a part of her psyche. She worked to win his heart, cheering inwardly every time she made him smile, laugh or just plain be amazed by her. Little by little she carved her place for herself in one of his two hearts.
Sometimes she believed she succeeded. She had a permanent invite into his life and a key to the one home he had left. How could he not love her?
But yet if he did why did he break her heart and pull her tears again and again? And why did she let him?
Before she met him, she had never been able to understand how a person in love could make a fool of themselves over someone but now, away from the world as she knew it, she finally understood. The heart was the mightiest and no amount of reason and sense could overrule it. And like so many others before her and after her, she would fall and break her heart again and again and never learn her lesson. She would always get back on the ride and always hope that maybe, just maybe, this time it would be different. But that did not make her stupid or weak. That just made her…human.