Wanting to be Wanted

“Do you ever think love is selfish?”

Oliver's inquiry hung in the quiet of the park, where the leaves of autumn covered the ground. Claire sat next to him on the bench, knees up.

She tilted her head to one side. "Selfish? How?"

He took out a dry leaf and crumbled it in his fingers as he talked.

"Because we never just LOVE. We want it back. We want to be chosen again, the way we've chosen them. And when they can't" he dropped the leaf from his hand, "—it hurts like we've been stolen from for something we were never guaranteed."

Claire's eyes softened. "That's human though, isn't it? Wanting to be wanted?"

"Yeah but isn't it strange? We use love, but there's this hidden expectation stitched into it. Like, I'll give you everything, and secretly hope, expect—you'll give back the SAME."

She folded her hands together, quiet.

He went on, softer now.

"Maybe that's why unrequited love HURTS so bad. Because it makes you see that the most selfless thing you thought you had wasn't as selfless as you thought. You were seeking return on investment. And now you're left with all this love and nowhere to put it."

Claire blinked away the sting in her eyes. "So what do we do then? Give up loving?"

Oliver let it out, watching it vanish into the cold air.

"No, I believe we simply learn to tolerate the PAIN. Because the thing is, loving someone with no guarantee they'll love you back isn't weakness—it's the most vulnerable thing we'll ever do."

Claire squeezed his hand hard, both of them holding onto the unspoken truth:

Sometimes love doesn't come back to you.

And yet, they loved anyway.