What compels a person to love isn't simply his capacity to protect the object of that love. Sometimes, it's his ability to move on from what memorably and irreversibly hurt him in the past. Most likely, that which hurt him is no less another product of love.
Choosing Adrian as his lover nearly offended what little memory Ted had left of her. Trying to get over, after all, is still a protruding work in progress. One can readily say that the frustration behind the choice was spurred by none other than the constant need to forget. For wasn't Adrian the most-admired and prettiest of the freshmen? And more than that, by looking at her, wouldn't it be quite enough to forget what seemed to be unforgettable just yesterday? The first time Ted laid an eye on her, he didn't just feel the kind of complete sensation he used to when he held her on one of those longest nights in the campus; he felt something that predated both Adrian and, quite mysteriously, her.
He maintained his gaze at her as she was lining up to the cafeteria line. The air inside was soft and ungenerous; mostly it wasn't moving. And he remembered: even the whole place didn't move. She was the only one who did and she was the first thing he believed his eyes desired to see that day. She was easier to notice than the rest or else, she was the hardest to ignore. Either way, once he got it going, he couldn't take his eyes off her.
The manner in which they met was more propitious than Ted was willing to admit. As fate would have it, they turned out to be in the same organization, a club which was solely dedicated to charity works. He didn't so much as join the org for virtuous reasons as out of mere boredom. He went off, signed his name on the list without ever looking twice what it was for and, out of boredom once again, decided to attend the first group meeting. He could only vaguely remember what the whole thing made them do; what he remembered in the main was, she smiled at him the first time he went right through that door as though it was the hundredth time she'd done that. He, however, stared back in secret amusement, an expression too incomplete for awe. And, as he'd learn in time, he would never be fast enough to avert his gaze each time she'd return it in whatever form.
It didn't take him more than a second to pluck up the nerve to come to her. And if she ever gave attention to the profuse glances he threw her way, she apparently didn't look it.
She was half a loner in her own right, he learned at length. She loved what he didn't love and at that time he would've given everything to learn to love those things she restlessly found cool. She was an intellectual to a perfect degree, having staked both her fascination and future on arts. She was not a humble but a cruel critic of everything under the sun; and she was a defender of vast potentials. She was nobody's fool. Once in a very short while, he caught himself at a loss for words.
He brought her to the museum one day, thinking that his imagined interest for such things it contains would give him the upper hand. And even as he forewarned himself about how out of place he could have been on the occasion, he undeniably enjoyed how well-rounded she was on culture, foreign or not. He listened, barely opened his mouth and flexibly grinned at her each time she'd comment on an artifact. He strongly believed that everything she had to say might've been exactly what professional historians would, if what she said didn't overrule their contrary opinions. They left the museum, she being as knowledgeable as before and he a little more than he was prior to his entry to the building.
At this point, he was farther away from his past than he'd ever venture to find out. All along, he thought he loved her, failing to recognize that they were winding up pretty much in the same path as he and the other one had.
Why he never really figured out that her efforts for affection was unalterably scarce was something that either constrained him to long thoughts and sleepless nights or something he blinded himself from. And so when there came a period of time when he didn't hear anything from her, a thought of a less regular communication flitted to his head. He then consequently tested her. He would SMS her once in three days, the essence of which messages ranging from banal greetings whose invariable answers didn't get far from "I'm okay". He couldn't help but to notice that she never quite asked why it was taking him that long to make his existence known; in fact, she never initiated the exchange. It was like nothing happened. And indeed, to Ted, it had become to seem that nothing was happening between them anymore.
She was surely more stone cold than she was letting on. And much as she still fascinated--and unbeknownst to him, denigrated--him, it would be unwise to go on with the relationship. It had to break off, which at that stage would've been as good a solution as any.
He didn't anticpate though that breaking up would be as easy as not saying anything at all. The drifting apart part came too abrupt and peaceful that even if it brought pain to both parties, the pain appeared rather absent, without any hint of being suppressed. Up to this day, its unanimity never fails to take his breath away. And as he looks back to his history, he always agrees to what his true friends impart to him, that love's rarely as magical as the first time. What she had with Adrian is the case in point. And what they had, in looser terms, was a premature connection borne out of the lack of adventure and some inappropriate needs that they believed needed extreme attention.
It wasn't fair to both of them.
Nowadays, Ted can be seen with a younger girl whose name could be Denise or Lilian or Jane or Karen. She's pretty in her own little ways, has this sweet streak for darned cute things and when she smiles at him, an ensemble of accompanying wind makes her smile all the more refreshing to him. She would never be as pretty or as smart or even as interesting as Adrian, nor would she be within Adrian's intellectual reach. Ted looks at her with a look that's basic to people in love. Now he knows that reaching for the stars is for those who are left with no choice or too many choices in life.
Someday, she would be enough, because in his own little world, there is nothing like a decision made in large consideration of the past.
