#atozchallenge: Story

What's your story?
I fell in love at fourteen and have never forgotten him. I cling on to a past that I cannot remember because I cannot live a future that I cannot see.

What's your story?
I fell in love at eighteen and dashed my heart against the stony rock of indifference. She never loved me and I pushed too hard, too fast, and even now we cannot talk without the awkwardness of the past intruding into our present.

What's your story?
I am twenty-two and I cannot fall in love. When I look into the eyes of the men around me, all I remember are the dashed hopes and the broken hearts and I've never been able to fall in love again.

What's your story?
It was there in the depths of her dark brown eyes. A sadness I couldn't fathom, a shadow that grew as the night dragged on. I wanted to ask her about it even as we ate, but I couldn't find a way to bring up the question. It seemed too strange for me to ask her, a friend who was almost a stranger, on a dinner that was not a date, a relationship in limbo, not for my lack of trying. There was a story behind that I couldn't define, couldn't discover.
We fell silent as the band played and I watched her as she closed her eyes and swayed to the music, wondering if that little bit of moisture at the edges of her eyes were really tears. I reached a hand out across the table, touching hers, slowly gripping it, waiting for her to pull away, but she didn't.
"I lost him, you know," she said. "Once he could have been mine, but I let him slip away."
There was a lingering pause as I scrambled for words.
"And now it's too late."
Still, no words came to me, the wordsmith, the story teller. I could not break the flow of her story. I didn't know how to.
"Maybe I should have been kinder to him when he told me he loved me, but I wasn't ready then and I was afraid."
"What were you afraid of?"
"I don't know. Love, the future, us, everything. But now I miss him."
"We could leave if you want."
"No, that would just be awkward. He's seen us."
"Does he still love you?"
"I don't know."
"Do you love him?"
She was silent for so long that I thought I had offended her. But her answer came in a silent sigh and a squeeze of my fingers that I'd almost forgotten were now twined with hers.

What's your story?