Note: The title is from the really awesome Harry Chapin song, "I Wonder What Happened to Him".
You wonder what happened to them.
The ones who loved her, and in some moment of insanity, let her go. Who left their scars on her heart and disappeared. What happened to them?
You've seen the way she loves, you've felt that complete and blinding focus. You doubt it was her that broke it off. Not when she gives herself completely, mind, body, soul. They must have been the ones to call it quits.
Why, though? Did they look and find her unworthy? What more could they have wanted? What more could they have asked for? How foolish they must have been to leave her in the hopeless search of someone better.
Or, you wonder, as you watch her sleep, is that backwards? Did they measure themselves and find that they were unworthy? Did they find themselves wanting, pale in comparison to her? Did they leave to escape the uncrossable gap between who they were and who she deserved?
You feel the pull of that gap. You feel the itch to run, to set her free to find someone who is worthy of her. Because you sure as hell aren't.
Here's the difference between you and them, though. Here's what separates you from everyone who loved her and left her in the past: you thrive on challenges. You live for questions that are hard to answer and problems that take years to solve. You build your days on microscopes and minuscule discoveries. You are champion of improbable triumphs.
So you'll stay. Let them wonder what happened to her, because you're done wondering what happened to them. She's beautiful, and intense, and terrifying, and you don't deserve her. Not yet. But you've only just begun.