Connected

Chapter 5: I Loved

"What if it's only a moment,

Is that a reason to hate?

Why not be grateful,

Short it may be, yet you had it."

Her head weighed as heavy as her heart was as she trotted along the sidewalk of Redmond. She went as fast as she could, wanting to create enough distance between her and the one place Hana is connected to in this city.

Seeing her before was surreal and now seeing her again makes everything all the more real. Leah had heard of rumors before, of Hana being back in town.

To her shame the first emotion that came to her was fear. The immediate thought that crossed her mind was Adam. How is she going to explain what happened without it seeming like a betrayal of some sort of their friendship.

Adam had tried explaining to her before that it's nothing like that. He was no longer involved with Hana when they developed feelings for one another. And she practically turned her back from them anyway.

For so long this was what she tried to put in her mind and heart but to her dismay it was never enough. There had always been a guilt of some sort at the edges of her heart trying to disturb her peace at times.

Leah waited in agitation for their reunion. Days and then weeks had passed, and yet Hana didn't show up. Maybe the rumors were false. She hadn't come home after all.

And then something happened to Adam. He unexpectedly got a painful rejection of his proposal that was supposed to be his first major project in his firm as a senior architect. He was really devastated about it and Leah tried her best to console him. However, he wasn't letting her in. Instead, he was allowing himself to drown in self-pity.

Leah then offered to go on a vacation and breathe a different set of air. She was excited about it, planning everything in detail when Adam came home, and he seemed resurrected. There was a new glow on his face that unsettled her.

When Leah asked him, he just shrugged it off saying that it's fine now, he had pulled himself back-up. Leah didn't want to push the subject even though she was deeply bothered. What's important was that he was happy.

A month passed, and Adam started becoming anxious around her.

Leah halted. Tipping her head up she saw the high skyscrapers of the city illuminating the night sky where huge dark clouds are now looming over.

As a soul she found her emotions peculiar. She experienced it magnified to a whole new level that she was caught in this storm of intense and overpowering river of feelings she was clueless she was capable of until now.

She isn't a crybaby. No. Living her life over the years made her a master of hiding behind her facade of control. So how come that on this night alone she had already cried twice, and the worst was she let someone watch her.

Lowering her head, she was made keenly aware of the normal routine of the city being carried. Like jobs to be done and parties to attend. Her heart unexpectedly contracted in sadness when it instantly hit her how no one cares that just a few blocks from here a life stopped. At least she wanted someone to cry for her. But didn't she have that already, the tears of Adam and Hana?

No! She quickly pulverized the idea in her head.

Then a memory slipped into her mind, it was of a scene from her favorite movie the Notebook that oddly and in a weird kind of way haunted her. It was when Noah lied down on the street and Allie calling him crazy joined him anyways. Then they just lied there looking at the traffic signal while conversing.