I kissed my brother

Prologue

I am taking a deep breath and close my eyes to not see what is happening in front of me. The people dressed in all black disappear from my sight and the voice in my head muted their mutter.
For so many years I had asked myself: What is love?
There are all sorts of love - love between family and friends. Yet hearing the term love most people would think about two lovers, relationships, marriage and a happy ever after.
Growing up I thought I knew what this type of love is, or more likely, what it is supposed to be. Seeing people loving each other mainly on TV and occasionally in real life too. People are smiling, hugging and kissing. They enjoy each others company. Sometimes I still wonder how the most odd couple would end up together - seemingly having nothing in common yet being awfully drawn to each other that it hurts watching them. Love is something you can't explain though there are many ways trying to explain it. Love is something that doesn't make sense when you think about it. You can't put it into words and simply, you can't define it. You can't teach someone how to love or even force yourself to love someone as much as you can't force yourself to be happy. Love comes and goes. We can't control it, even if we tried. And sometimes I wish there would be a possibility to be in control of that, to force yourself to love. I wouldn't have been so lonely growing up if my Dad had only found a way to force himself to love my Mum. I knew he wasn't able to. And I don't blame him for it. Still I can't find the answers I am looking for. As to why would you have a feeling so strong that you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, when suddenly that feeling disappears - you don't want it to disappear, but it does. Suddenly you find yourself unhappy with the person you once loved, simply because that love has vanished.
I learned that love can be your weakness. Love makes you vulnurable. Being in love can be one of the most painful experiences one could ever witness. Loving someone who doesn't love you back, who doesn't love you the same way you love them, who stops loving you, or who has stopped loving you a long time ago without you realizing it. There are so many possibilities of how love will hurt you. So why are people putting themselves through all of that again and again? Why is it that we are seeking for „the one"? And how do we know we found the right person?
My Mum told me I will just know. I am still waiting until this day to know what that actually feels like, uncertain if I ever will. I'm hearing about the ups and downs of my friend's relationships and here I find myself not struggling with any of that. Couples find the smallest thing to argue about. And it makes sense because two people colliding can only create disagreement. I'm seeing my friends being annoyed and sad, upset and angry. Still they don't break up. They claim to be in a happy relationship or something close to that. So I learned that love has to hurt. It seems inevitble. I suppose that love must feel so great, it's worth the pain. And that is why after we've been hurt, we try again with someone else. We will try until we won't be hurt anymore or we will try until we die.
Not me though. I have never felt the urge to be with someone. I had chosen not to be hurt. If love is something I had no control over, I didn't want it. I kept everyone away from me. Instead I had chosen to fall in love with those who couldn't hurt me. That way I was able to experience my own type of love. The love I had control over. You probably wonder what I am talking about - I fell in love with the characters I created, it is as simple as that. Whenever I started a new project, wrote a new storyline and the main characters were born, I fell for them. They were perfect. And whilst they hurt the protagonist, a foolish girl falling in love with them, I was safe and sound, far away in reality, not able to be hurt by any of them. I'm way past thinking this is ridiculous. And I don't care about your opinion. It had worked for me. It had made me happy for such a long time. At night I could think about their imaginary touch, all the sweet words they would say to me. I picked all the happy moments and lived them in my head. I could feel their love and I genuinely loved them, as much as you could love someone who doesn't really exist.
But that was until I met him...