Love hurts. It really does. When it ends, it has the ability to take you to levels of emotional pain that leave you curled in a ball on the floor, gasping for breath, convinced your heart is about to take its last beat from the sheer agony and sorrow of it. You convince yourself that you will never be the same person ever again, that it has scarred you and altered you through to the very core of your soul. You drink too much, weep, and beg futilely for just one…more…chance.

But, over time, the pain lessens. It never completely goes away because you were right: it does leave a scar. A song, a smell, a familiar face in the street; all have the power to bring those crushing feelings back. But you keep putting one foot in front of the other, you keep taking that next breath, and eventually you realize you got through a day without crying, then a week. A month. You begin to smile again. Notice the good things in life. In time, you tentatively open yourself up to new people, to the possibility of new love.

You will never forget a lost love. This inexplicable thing that is love is too powerful for that. But you must never let it make you bitter. Never let it mark you so badly that you close off that part of you. Self-protection might keep your heart safe, but will you truly be alive?

Love has no past, and no future. Love just is.

I promise you, when you are on your deathbed, those painful times will no longer have the power to hurt you. You will only remember the good, the beautiful, the spectacular. You will only remember how it felt to be loved, and to love another.

Yes, love hurts.

But love also heals.

Xxx

Chapter Thirty-Four

I sleep all night and most of the next day after my weekend away with James, getting up only when my bladder insists upon it. As I have lost my appetite even for water, this isn’t too often. This is a level of fatigue that is new to me. It’s as if I expended all my energy with James, and now I am depleted, drained. The batteries are well and truly dead.

Occasionally, I rise close enough to the surface to hear muffled, worried voices outside my door.

“Do you think she’s OK? Should we call her doctor?”

“I don’t have his number, do you?”

“No.”

“Oh. Wait, I know what we should do.”

“What?”

“Call her mum.”

“Good idea. Then it’s out of our hands.”

“Where do you think James took her that made her so bloody tired?”

“I’d say it’s more a case of what James did to her, judging by the way she kissed him when he left. She looked like she was stuck permanently to his face, like an octopus. I thought we’d have to get the salt out to try and prise her off. Or does that only work on leeches?”