THE LOVE THAT NEVER MADE IT

Love often whispers sweetly, promising warmth and connection, but its true weight is revealed only in the quiet shadows. What begins as a beautiful melody quickly becomes a haunting echo of unfulfilled desires, where the dreams of closeness clash with the stark reality of vulnerability and fear. In this delicate dance between hope and despair, the struggle to love—and to be loved—unfolds.

I’ve loved, and I’ve been loved, but sometimes, I feel like I fail myself. Every time I’ve messed up, I’ve pointed to my demons, blaming them for my mistakes. I’ve sought comfort by sacrificing my own peace just to hold on to a sliver of sanity. “Could it be me rather than my demons? What if I’m the problem? What if I was never meant for love? Is that even possible?” I have always asked myself. My friends tell me that there’s someone out there meant just for me, but what if they’re wrong? What if she’s already passed on, or maybe her curse still lingers, haunting me? I don’t know... maybe.

Have you ever been loved by someone you thought you loved too? Someone whose heart beat solely for you, who offered every part of themselves without hesitation, laying their soul bare at your feet? They would have moved mountains to smooth your path, crossed oceans just to catch a glimpse of your smile. Their love seemed boundless, pure, unwavering—perfect in every way, and yet, despite their devotion, you found yourself unable to match it. You tried to convince yourself that you felt the same, that you could give back what they so freely offered. But deep down, a quiet voice whispered that something was missing. You didn’t mean to hurt them; in fact, you wanted to believe that if you tried harder, if you pushed past the doubts, maybe you could love them as they deserved. But love, real love, isn’t something you can force. It either consumes you wholly, or it slips through your fingers like water. And so you stood there, watching their heart break in slow motion, knowing that no matter how hard they tried to reach you, you couldn’t reciprocate. It wasn’t that you didn’t care—it was that you couldn’t love them the way they loved you.

There was once a boy—plain in appearance, far from the type to turn heads or charm with ease. He carried his imperfections and insecurities like a badge of honor, having made peace with them over time. After enduring countless bullies, he emerged from each battle stronger, believing that nothing could hurt him anymore. Yet, deep inside, he felt the weight of constant pain, hurt, disappointment, and heartbreak pressing down on him. Each experience chipped away at his spirit, leaving him weary and drained. In his quest to escape this relentless cycle, he sought immortality—a life free from sorrow, pain, and the spectre of lost love. In his search for solace, he longed for that freedom—a life free from the sting of heartache, unburdened by the pain of love. He set forth on a quest to seek this immortality, traversing wild landscapes and arid deserts with only thirst and hunger.

He sought not just survival but the promise of a life where love wouldn’t come with the burden of heartache. The day he chose this path, he left everything behind—friends, lovers, even the echoes of laughter. They all felt like burdens he could no longer bear.

At last, he reached his promised land, a place he had envisioned flowing with milk and honey, where the sun shone perpetually, drying every tear that had ever fallen. He had been told that in this paradise, no one cried because there was simply no reason to. He believed he had finally attained true happiness, but was he truly happy? In this place, an oasis beckoned like a sanctuary, a vibrant jewel of emerald green nestled in the merciless grip of the desert. Its crystalline waters sparkled under the sun, offering a cool refuge, while the scent of blooming jasmine filled the air, intertwining with the gentle swish of palm fronds swaying in the warm breeze. But beyond its protective embrace, the desert stretched endlessly—a stark, sun-scorched expanse of rippling golden dunes, where the air shimmered with heat and the silence was punctuated only by the occasional whisper of wind.

Here, the oppressive heat stifled hope, reminding one of the desolation that lay just beyond the haven of dreams. It may not have had milk and honey but this? this was soothing enough. He felt a sense of contentment wash over him—the peace he longed for, the quiet that had eluded him for so long. From the stories he had heard, he was eager to meet the original inhabitants, those who thrived in this tranquil realm. Yet, all he stumbled upon were graves and mummies, their silent forms holding no stories to tell.

“What might have happened here?” he thought to himself.  He couldn't quite wrap his head around it, and to preserve his sanity, he convinced himself that they had all aged gracefully, living happily ever after before passing on. But was that really the truth? Or was there a dark secret lurking just beneath the surface, something he had not been warned about? This thought lingered in his mind for weeks, casting a shadow over his newfound refuge until it gradually drifted away, leaving only the echo of uncertainty behind.

The first few weeks were peaceful. He would tell himself nostalgic stories, replaying memories like lullabies until he fell asleep to the soft whisper of the desert winds. For a brief moment, he was convinced that he had finally stumbled upon the peace he had been chasing for so long. He believed he had achieved immortality. The weight of pain, disappointment, and heartache felt like distant shadows, unable to reach him here.

As the days slipped by in the oasis, the vibrant colors that once danced before his eyes began to fade into muted hues, casting a dark cloud over his heart. The imaginary laughter that had once echoed in this paradise grew faint, replaced by an unsettling silence that seemed to seep into his very soul. It was in this stillness that the creeping emptiness revealed itself—an insidious void lurking beneath the glimmering surface of the waters, whispering the truth he had tried to ignore. The oasis, once a sanctuary, morphed into a haunting reminder of what he desperately longed for yet could never hold onto, and with each passing moment, despair tightened its grip around his chest.

One morning as he drifted out of his tent, ready to embrace another serene day, he stood outside in disbelief. The oasis that had once stood as a symbol of life and tranquility was unrecognizable. The water had vanished, leaving behind only cracked, dirty mud as a silent testament to what once was. The lush palm trees, vibrant and full of life, had withered away overnight. What could have caused this sudden decay? He spent the entire day staring at the desolation before him, searching for answers, but all that greeted him was the deafening silence of the barren desert.

Later that night, he sat outside his tent, a small fire crackling before him, its warmth doing little to comfort the cold realization settling in his heart. He stared into the flames, lost in thought. "Is this temporary, or... is this what immortality really is?" The question lingered in the air. "What’s the point of living forever if it means spending eternity alone, in a faraway land with no one to keep you company?" For the first time since beginning this journey, his eyes were truly open. Had he made the wrong choice? Regret began to claw at his mind, but he tried to shake it off, even slapping his cheek as if to snap himself back to reality. He stood up, poured sand over the fire, and retreated into his dimly lit tent.

That night marked the first of many restless ones. He lay awake, unable to find peace, haunted by the screams of people he couldn’t see—men fighting, women and children wailing. At first, he convinced himself that the desert was playing tricks on him, but the torment persisted for weeks. This wasn’t just haunting; it was emotional torture, a burden he feared he might carry for the rest of his immortal life.

The screams weren’t from the outside world—they came from within. Only he could hear them. They weren’t demons or some supernatural force. It was loneliness. All those graves and skeletons he had passed... They weren’t the remains of travelers; they were the victims of their own solitude. This land, once so peaceful, had turned into a graveyard for souls that could no longer bear the weight of their own emptiness. In the end, they didn’t die of age or illness—they succumbed to the crushing despair that immortality had promised to erase.

When he finally reached his breaking point, he made up his mind to leave it all behind—the peace, the immortality, the solitude. He was ready to abandon it all for something, anything, that felt real again. So, he set off toward the West, retracing his steps along the same path he had once eagerly followed. Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years. He moved with a desperation that consumed him, as if the farther he walked, the closer he would get to the home he thought he had lost.

Mid-June, 2017, after walking endlessly for an entire day under the scorching sun, he stumbled upon an abandoned well. Exhausted, he decided to camp there for the night. Setting up his tent, he moved towards the well to draw some water. As he bent over to pull up the bucket, a voice startled him from behind, “Hello.” He froze, heart racing. Quickly, he turned around, throwing himself face down on the ground, murmuring in panic, "Please don’t kill me. Please, I mean no harm."

“I’m only a girl,” she said softly.

He slowly lifted his head, and there she was—the most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes on. He had traveled far and wide, dined with queens and priestesses, but this woman… She wasn’t just beautiful, she was ethereal, like an angel sent to save him from his endless wandering. In that moment, his desire to return home wavered. What if she was the home he had been seeking all along?

Slowly, they got to know each other, and before long, they fell deeply in love. She was from a distant village, her family having moved to the area in search of better land for their livestock. Time passed, and for a while, he thought he had finally found true happiness—the kind that not even immortality could offer. Months turned into a year. Though they weren’t living together, she would visit him at his tent every morning, and stay late into the night. She was everything he had been searching for, yet he could never bring himself to meet her parents. Every time she asked, he would say he wasn’t ready.

The more time they spent together, the more he found himself captivated by her spirit, her laughter weaving a melody through the stillness of his heart. Yet, beneath the surface of their blossoming connection, those screams still lingered, echoing the walls he had meticulously constructed around his heart. One evening, as the sun dipped below the horizon, casting a golden glow around them, she turned to him, her eyes shimmering with a mixture of hope and fear. "Do you really love me?" she asked, vulnerability spilling from her voice. The weight of her question hung in the air, raw and piercing. In that moment, he could see the uncertainty etched across her face, and it mirrored the turmoil within him. His heart raced as he grappled with the truth of his feelings, the shadows of his past whispering doubts into his mind. The thought of exposing his heart to her, of acknowledging the love that had begun to bloom, was both exhilarating and terrifying. Yet, as the weight of her gaze held him captive, he felt the suffocating pull of his unresolved hurt, the realization that he might have to leave this fleeting connection behind to protect her from deeper wounds.

He actually loved her – deeply. No matter how much he did, the voices still lingered in his head, sharp and piercing, growing louder with each passing night. The screams he had once heard in the desert had followed him, tormenting him still. He very well knew that she was not the home he had thought at first. But for the sake of love, he tried to silence them even though they only grew more deafening. As if they were a warning he couldn’t ignore, no matter how hard he tried.

On one fateful morning, he made a decision—he had to leave. Maybe returning home was the only way to silence the screams in his head. He woke up before dawn, packed up his belongings, and tore a piece of cloth from his tunic. With trembling hands, he scrawled the words "I'm sorry" on it and left it by the well where they had shared so many moments. Without saying goodbye, without giving her the closure she deserved, he walked away. He carried his burden, resuming the journey he had once abandoned, heading west once more.

He left her with no answers, no explanations—only questions that haunted her long after he was gone. To this day, she has never forgiven herself, nor him. She spiraled into a pit of self-doubt, believing she was insufficient, unworthy of love. But she was wrong. She was perfect.

D, you were perfect. Please stop beating yourself up. It was never your fault. You weren’t the reason he left. Learn to love yourself again, because you deserve it.

As he journeyed on, the weight of the pain he inflicted on her pressed heavily on his chest. But it was too late to turn back. He had made his choice, and now, he had to keep moving forward if he ever wanted to make it home. With every step, he promised himself one thing: he would never fall in love again. He would never allow himself to hurt anyone else, not until he had rid himself of the voices—the relentless screams that echoed inside him. He wouldn’t give his heart to anyone until he returned home, until he no longer felt utterly alone.

And he stuck to it.

And over the years, as he journeyed back, he encountered many beautiful women, each one unique in their own way. They came from different lands, spoke different tongues, and carried different stories. He enjoyed their company, laughed with them, and sometimes even let them into his life for a while. But never for long. He never gave any of them a green light because he knew—those screams, the ones only he could hear, were still there. They haunted him even in the quietest moments, even on the nights when he lay in someone’s arms. The voices never stopped. The loneliness never faded.

Sometime in 2024, beneath a night sky painted with glistening stars, he dreamt of her—a woman he had never met, yet she felt so real. She appeared like a fleeting shadow against a backdrop of vibrant colors, her smile illuminating the darkness. He reached out to touch her, but like grains of sand, she slipped through his fingers. The air flickered with warmth, and her laughter echoed like a soft lullaby, coaxing him into a world where love still existed. Her skin was a warm shade of brown, her forehead bold and distinct, and her eyes wild, full of untamed brightness that seemed to hold a story. The dream lingered long after he woke, leaving him with an inexplicable feeling. Could this be a sign that home was near? As he rose that morning, the memory of her stayed vivid in his mind. He carefully noted down every detail—her gaze, her presence, her spirit. Was she real? Was he finally nearing the end of his journey?

The next day, he decided to take an unfamiliar route, a shortcut through a barren grassland. Something pulled him towards it, as if fate had other plans. And there, in the midst of the wilderness, he saw her—the very woman from his dream. She was alone, setting wild traps with precision, completely unaware of his presence. His heart raced, caught between amazement and fear. Could she truly be the one? Or was she merely a phantom from his restless mind?

Gathering his courage, he approached and introduced himself. Her voice, her name—everything about her was real, even more vivid than he had imagined. As they talked, he learned of her troubled past, of how she too had run away, wandering without a home, lost in her own world. For the first time, he met someone who was just like him—someone who wasn’t asking him to abandon his path or surrender his journey. Every woman before her had wanted him to settle, to build a life with them, to stay. But she was different. She had no destination, no demands. She was ready to follow him, wherever he went. For the first time, he felt he wasn’t walking alone. She might just be the one to walk with him all the way home.

After days of journeying together, one night, he lay beside her under the open sky, the stars watching over them as he closed his eyes. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, sleep came to him with ease, pulling him into its depths. When he opened his eyes the next morning, the sun was already smiling down on them, casting a warm glow over the land. Could it be that he had finally reached home? No, he was still years away from that place, but something was different.

That night, for the first time in years, there had been no screams. The fighting men, the wailing women, the cries of children—everything that had haunted him for so long was gone. He woke in silence, a peaceful silence that felt like a warm blanket enveloping him. Turning over to his left shoulder, he noticed her stealing a glance and smiling.

“Do you ever wonder what it would be like to be at peace with your mind?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

She opened her pretty eyes, shyly looking at him, her gaze sparkling with mischief and the soft glow of the sunlight. "All the time. It's like searching for an oasis in the desert—so close yet so far away. What about you?"

He sighed, the weight of uncertainty lingering in the air like the shadows of their past. "I think about it constantly. It feels like I'm wandering through a vast emptiness, longing for that peace. Sometimes, I wonder if it’s even possible. But today? today I felt something, a bit of it I believe."

Her expression softened, and she reached out, her fingers brushing against his, sending warmth coursing through him. "Maybe it's not just about finding peace, but learning to embrace the chaos, too. Sometimes the journey is where the magic lies."

At first, he thought it was just a fluke, that maybe his mind had somehow managed to quiet itself for a brief moment. The second night came, and the peace prevailed like a sweet fragrance in the air. And again on the third night. And then, he couldn’t deny it—something had shifted within him. The voices that had once tormented him, the agony that clung to him like a shadow, had quieted. It was as if her presence had somehow silenced the chaos inside him. He couldn’t explain it, but he didn’t need to. He knew. She was the one. The one who brought him peace without even trying, the one who stilled the storm within his soul.

Over time, their bond grew deeper, as if their souls had known each other for lifetimes. They shared their fears, opened up their scars, and in those moments of vulnerability, he believed that perhaps, on some nights, she too heard the same screams he did—though he could never be sure. In her, he found a solace, a safe haven where loneliness no longer held him captive. For the first time, he felt truly free. Together, they embraced every step of their journey, and she saw him not for the troubled man he was, but for who he was striving to become.

She urged him not to let the “what ifs” of tomorrow consume him, teaching him to treasure the present and live in the moment. Slowly, he learned to release the weight of past regrets and future anxieties. She was perfect in a way only he could see—strong yet tender, serious but with a playful spark, her mind sharp and her humor quick. She became his sense of home; a calmness he hadn’t known. Everything felt right—until he began to overthink. “How is she this perfect? This has to be too good to be true. What does she even see in me? Does she truly love me?” For days, these doubts ravaged his mind, growing louder until that one fateful night.

The stars stared down harder than usual, with a large orange moon sinking low on the horizon. The crickets filled the night air with a spooky warning, as if they were bracing for something dark. They lay together under their weary tent, her peaceful snores filling the silence. But suddenly, a piercing scream shot through his ear, waking him abruptly. He sat up, trembling, looked over, but there she was, still sleeping soundly.

“What was that sound? Was it her?” he asked himself, confused and unsettled. “Is she pretending to be asleep?”

He tried to brush it off and go back to sleep, but the night betrayed him. The voices came roaring back—the men fighting, the women and children wailing louder than ever before. Panic washed over him as he realized the torment had returned, stronger than ever. He thought he had escaped it. He thought love had freed him from his past, but now it seemed like everything had been a fleeting illusion.

As the nights passed, the screams grew unbearable, and he began to distance himself. During the day, he walked ahead of her, leaving her behind in his shadow. At night, the comfort of her arms no longer brought him peace, and he slept with his back turned to her. His world had unraveled once again. He tried to fight it—for days, for weeks, for months—but in the end, he knew what he had to do. So, one day, he turned to her and told her that he had to continue his journey alone. He had led her into unfamiliar territory, into the wilderness of his mind, and now he was leaving her there—without warning, without explanation. Why? She was the one who had brought him peace, the one who made him feel whole. But now, she was no one.

He had broken his own vow. The promise he made to never hurt anyone again, to never fall in love until he was free from the torment of his mind, had been shattered. But why? Why did something that once felt like home suddenly unravel, revealing itself to be false? He never truly figured it out.

G, you didn’t deserve this; you were never the reason he left. You were the light in his darkness, and yet, he turned away, lost in his own demons. He regrets every moment of leaving you behind, and perhaps now, you understand why our love never made it.

As he carried on with his journey, his mind drifted back to the day he’d hurt her the most. He could still hear her voice, trembling with pain as she confronted him about his neglect. “You only led me on because you were bored” she had asked, and he could feel her heart shatter in the silence that followed. He had been too wrapped up in his own fears, the voices to recognize the depth of her love and the weight of his indifference. Now, as he faced the emptiness of his choices, he understood—every moment he had turned away was a moment stolen from both of them. This realization settled heavy in his chest, igniting a flicker of determination. He couldn't change the past, but he could choose differently now.”

And now, amidst the ache of his loneliness, he has realized that the journey he embarked on was not just about seeking a physical home, but about finding a sanctuary within himself. The screams that haunt him are merely echoes of his fears, and as he continues to walk, he has begun confronting them, piece by piece.

With each dawn, he is learning that true immortality lay not in evading pain or running from love, but in embracing every moment—both the joyful and the sorrowful. He understood now that it was in vulnerability that he could find strength. Perhaps one day, when the stars align just right, he will come across his sanctuary and allow himself to be loved again, this time - forever.

Until that day comes, he carries the memory of everyone whose love he abandoned in his heart, a constant reminder that he is growing, and that home is not merely a place, but a feeling that starts within.

The Imperfect Writer says he is sorry.