EVER HEARD OF something called a Heartbreak Café? Let me tell you a story that will help you understand it better…
Chris and Sarah’s Story
The first time Chris saw Sarah, she was an angel singing in the choir. Her voice was pretty… every bit of her was gorgeous.
The morning service seemed to be taking too long and at countless times their eyes would meet in glances across the chairs…
Every glance made Sarah giggle inside, so much that she couldn’t even maintain attention on the pastor’s preaching… Chris’ glances filled her heart with butterflies.
Well, he was a great guy really!
After Church… unfortunately they could not find time to talk. Sarah had too many obligations so she was nowhere to be seen.
Am sure you understand how in the following weeks Chris turned and turned all night in bed. And how Sarah couldn’t stop thinking about him without getting carried away…
Not long after wards, they scheduled other days besides church Sunday. They had tried taking it for granted but their hearts seemed to know far further than their reasoning had ever been…
Fantasy was to think they could get each other off their minds. And that feeling was the greatest of all feelings they ever had.
The feeling made them anticipate church service…
It made them escape today, build palaces and plant flower gardens in a front-yard called tomorrow.
It was strange what Chris was feeling within, but he didn’t mind for he was loving her. Sarah had never come this far before, and the thrill of thinking she could still go beyond kept her falling over and over in love with him every day.
Love!
Or was it love?
Let’s Talk About Sex
When Chris said they should try sex the first time, Sarah was afraid. Isn’t it a sin? What if she falls pregnant? What would people say?
People…?
In the thrill of love, she soon drove all that people might say to the back of her mind. She simply stopped to care.
Sin…? What sin? God must understand; she thought…
Even if she was to fall pregnant, she had this assurance that Chris loved her, and she loved him even more. With all the love in the world she loved him.
In those two weeks, for the first time in her lifetime she felt inseparable from somebody. It had never happened this way before, not with anyone else. This love was not meant to die.
For that reason she didn’t mind compromising her faith, didn’t mind what people said, or even any other fear that would have tried to intercept her love…
Hmmm, when the wrong one loves you right…
Or was it love?
Let’s Talk About the Night…
It happened on a Valentine night. Chris was an expert panther, a James Bond. Sarah was a lamb, a Virgin Mary. It was a night of mixed feelings and inner conflict.
In her flesh she felt as if she was walking on liquid gold; yet in her mind, heart and soul she could not help but hate herself for partaking of this “forbidden fruit” of pleasure. Not long was the thrill gone that her soul went sinking in the quick sands of condemnation, “Did you have to do it?”
That inner interrogation seemed to last for as long as eternity. But she loved him. She meant it, and this was how they had both agreed she would show it.
To be honest though, Chris thought what he felt inside was love too. He was a bad guy… I mean he had been bad…in the past that is.
(The ‘past’ that became so the day he met Sarah).
Chris grew up in our generation, when love is a strong fiery passion that comes to force people to move-in and settle down. He was sure it was not a simple sex drive, and on this Valentine’s night he was putting it to the test. It was a risk indeed, because all the apparatus were human: something that lives once and if broken cannot be mended.
However, the Valentine’s night produced unexpected results. It was like a chemistry experiment accidentally gone wrong.
When they had been dancing together in the afternoon, the liquids in their bodies seemed to blend into a sweet glucose. The glucose energized them into avid motion. It made them run past the lounge and kitchen into the bedroom too quickly. But the night was like a drop of bitter wormwood into a wineglass. It simply made him feel like she was any other woman and he was his past self. The night made him realize the liquids of love were flowing in his own body not across them. He felt bad.
“How could I do this to her?” he kept asking himself.
How it all Ended…
The next day, Sarah visited Chris. But things where no longer the same. He was no longer as happy as he used to be. I mean…it used to be sweet. I am sure you understand… (Hmmm, actually I am not sure you understand, all I know is I have seen it happen too many times. And it can be avoided).
… Is it because he had found what he wanted? She also discovered they were always quarrelling all the time. She was afraid to admit though, that they had always had many disagreements between them, but in those few times they were too in love to notice. Or was it love?
When she told him she was pregnant, Sarah thought that was a way to bring him closer. (“But sex doesn’t make him love you; and a baby doesn’t make him stay.”)
Chris understood at first. He promised that they would get married. And live happily ever after. With those palaces in the air, Sarah saw herself as a fairy queen; she even extended her flower garden. If it’s a girl, they said they would call her Anita, if it’s a boy she insisted he be called Chris. She prayed he would have just as good looks as his dad. However, one day Chris brought the worst gift of all.
He said he had done some deep thinking and some soul searching. Because the baby was his, he would keep it. He just did not want the two of them married.
“But why Chris?” Sarah begged, “What did I do wrong?” now she was gasping for breath as if witnessing another September Eleven attack.
She saw the whole palace that had taken so much joy to construct, tumbling down to earth and dirt.
Her begging persisted, and by a vigorous shaking, holding onto his collar, she managed to spill the truth out of Chris.
“I don’t love you Sarah!” Chris exclaimed. Then he went dead quiet.
O my God, what have I done?
He was sorry for how she felt, but to be honest he was not sorry for what he had said. He did not love her!
“You don’t love me?
… So you tell me all that what we shared was “a nothing?”
It was all a “nothing” that just had a “strong feeling.”
He had never wanted it to end this way. He too had thought it was love. But he had to look in the mirror and be honest with himself…she was not the woman that his soul truly wanted. Nope dearest, it was not love. It was a Heartbreak Café!
