Chapter from novel: Our Lost Stars, The Curse of Cognizance

They walked toward the burial site, their feet sinking into the muddy grass after the long rainfall. There was no rain today, but there was no sun either. Just gray clouds, hovering over them like death. Once they reached the place where their ashes had been buried, a pile of fresh dirt still visible, she fell to her knees and sobbed. 

When she clutched her chest, then curled into her stomach as if someone had split her open, he collapsed right beside her and wrapped his arms over her shoulders. He reached for her hands, which were clenched into fists, and unfolded every finger so she could let go of some of the pain. 

The mud stuck to her clothes, but she did not care because being this close to the ground was the closest she would ever get to her family until she reached the end of her life. She trembled in his arms, wheezing her last breaths as she drowned herself in a grieving river of tears. 

All he wanted to do was beg, beg to whatever higher being existed to give this pain to him instead. He would rather his family die than hers if it meant that she did not have to feel this. Please, God, just make it stop. Make it stop. She doesn’t deserve this. And as these thoughts streamed across his mind, it became clear what he felt for her: 

He loved her. 

All this time, that was it! He loved her. So simple, and he could have saved himself so much trouble trying to figure out why it was that he did things and felt things for her that he had never felt with anyone. He had never loved anyone, but he knew that he did love her. Sure, it had started rather slow, and he had not noticed it at first, but it was so certain now that he felt idiotic for ever wondering. If she asked him to go back into that hellish war and fight for her, he would. Hell, he’d cut off his own arm if it meant that she could be saved from this wretched grief. 

And on that day he also learned, as he witnessed this woman mourn the dead parts of her heart, if this was love, it was not only beautiful when you found it, but excruciatingly painful if you lost it.