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Two hearts.
Sitting together on a bench.
One broken hearted.
One lonely.
Happy Londoners pass them by.
Whizzing to and fro.
Enjoying the last days of fall.
How they found the same bench.
She didn’t know.
She sat there everyday.
He never did.
She smiled at him, and took his hand.
He didn’t know how to respond.
His heart ached with the thought
Of another one having his man.
It would never be the same.
She was lonely.
Her fiancé informed her that he no longer wanted this.
No longer wanted to be second best.
That she never loved him.
That she was fooling herself.
She was miserable knowing that he was right.
That she let it go that far.
She looked over at the man next to her.
She saw a hallow pair eyes looking back at her.
“Does it ever stop hurting?” he asked, “It doesn’t even seem logical, that it would physically hurt.”
“Logic and love, never add up,” she told him.
“It feels like my insides are burning, I have to remind myself to breathe, to eat, to sleep, to keep on living.”
“Did you ever tell him?” she asked him.
“Why?”
“Why not?”
“Because it would kill me to hear him say no. That I was crazy to even think it was like that.”
“Do you think he would?”
He looked at her with a sharp eye, “You were there. You were at the wedding”
“I know.” She said her eyes cast down, “but you never know. He does love you”
He rolled his eyes. “Not in that way”
They continued to sit on the bench in silence.
Her hand still in his.
“Eventually it will stop,” she finally said.
“What?” he asked.
“Eventually it was stop hurting. It may never go away but it will stop hurting so much. You begin to find your days not consumed in pain, and eventually you will wake up to find it is no longer the first thing on your mind.”
He glanced at her finally understood every sad look she had on her face,
every lonely smile, every self-deprecating joke.
“Is that what I did to you?” finally understanding the irreparable harm he caused her.
“I did it to myself” she responded shrugging, “Maybe I’m just destined to be alone”
He looked at her, really looked at her.
He hadn’t seen this side of her.
Not a sad lonely woman, but an ally.
Someone he could relate to.
“You aren’t alone” he told her before standing and pulling her with him.
“Come along. A case to be solved. A criminal to catch”
“Sherlock” she said warningly, “I can’t take the place of John”
He took her hand and placed it on his heart,
“No you can’t; you will create your own place”