Jan 7
Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love.
Charles M. Schulz (1922 - 2000), Charlie Brown in "Peanuts"
Jennifer Shepard was in love. Had been for a long time. Doubted she would ever really stop loving him.
While love was not all rainbows and butterflies, it was still amazing. Waking up thinking of him, going to sleep with him on her mind – she could never quite get him out of her head and she wasn't sure she wanted to. A brush of his hand against hers made her shiver and tingle, and it was hard to resist his pout when he wanted something.
And he knew she was powerless against his puppy dog eyes.
His smile was so beautiful; all his worries seemed to fade away and her stomach filled with butterflies. He was kind, caring, chivalrous – few men were nowadays and most were simply afraid of her position and her determination. Not him.
But she knew he did not love her back, not after she had broken his heart. A city of romance the other side of the world had simultaneously bound them together inseparably and torn them asunder. Out of the ashes of their love had grown a tentative friendship and permanent heartache.
He would never trust her again, not fully. She had to live with that knowledge, with his loss of trust, every day for the rest of her life. She loved him from the bottom of her heart and always would, but he would never take her back. Instead he punished her by parading his latest redheaded bimbo in front of her.
She was irreparably damaged, unable to move on. Every new man in his life was compared against an ideal in her head that was impossible for them to live up to. Perhaps if they separated for good, she would stand a chance of finding someone. But she settled for seeing him every day, stuck in limbo, unable to stop loving him.