Sweet CEO’s First Love - Chapter 74

“When my mother had first gotten sick Min and I would spend lots of our time at the hospital. I would always come and read her stories.”

“So many times I remember walking the halls of the hospital and watching the other people who needed help. I wanted to help them all. I wished that no one would suffer, that the loneliness we all feel could disappear. So I would run off to help the people in the other rooms. To get them what they needed to share with them what I had. And one of the times she told me something.”

“You have a bigger heart than anyone I know, and your eyes see what others can never see even if they are shown. You are meant to make a difference, to change people’s lives. To make the world a better place. Maybe not for thousands, maybe not for hundreds, maybe not even five. But you are meant to make a difference, because with such a big heart how can you do anything else.

“I always thought she had given me too much pressure.”

“My mom told me it took a lot of Heart to care about other people’s needs, and to face something I was scared of, to show no fear.”

“She told me I was braver than most, and had enough Heart for a hundred men.”

“And she told me she wanted me to be called Heart from then on. But it was the wrong name.”

“Because she didn’t know that I would go home and cry myself to sleep every night. I was so scared of losing the little good I had. I was so scared of losing a piece of my heart.”

“I have always been angry with myself for letting her down, for not living up to the purpose she had given me.”

“Because she had seen me as some person who was able to enact a difference upon others’ lives, but I am really just like this. Uncertain, temperamental, and scared.”

“Scared of losing something or someone I love.”

“The only way I have a big heart is if you measure by cowardice.”

“That puts me here in this place, clinging tightly for someone to save me. To save my heart from the broken pile it has ended up as.”

“A pile I can’t break myself apart from.”

“Heart your mom wasn’t wrong, she saw in you the same thing we do. You might not see it right now, you might not be able to see the blessing and joy you bring to people’s lives. Or how much you have changed them in such a short time.” Ten rubbed Heart’s back gently while talking to him. He made sure to make smaller then larger circulating patterns on his back, alternating it up, the way his mother had to comfort him when he was young.

“But you have.”

“Right now is the hardest time in someone’s life. Right after a loss, and you have experienced it twice now. The people who love and care for you would do anything they could to take this pain away from you so you wouldn’t have to feel it, but we can’t.” Ten said soothingly while rubbing Heart’s back.

“This is a path you must walk alone. A path that is slow and will need your care and attention to get yourself back to your best version of yourself. But you are strong and you can grieve, you can remember she is in a happier place now and you will someday move on.”

“Maybe not now, maybe not five months from now, but one day you will wake up and you will see that at some point somehow life returned to normal. As normal as it can be when a small piece of your heart has returned to heaven. Kit replied, interjecting on Ten’s speech.

“Normal life…”

‘How can I even return to a normal life? How can I even think of that… even ten months down the road.’ Heart thought.

“You won’t ever forget, I am not saying you will not feel sad or disheartened when you think back at your losses. Just that someday over time without having meant to you will notice the wounds are just a little less deep than before.” Kit said gently.

“It feels– feels like I’m being broken in two,” Heart confessed, even as fresh tears welled in his eyes before he could blink the other crying fit’s evidence from his face.

‘Does it matter if your grief shows? Don’t hide your evidence. You can be strong. You can keep going.’ He reminded himself.

“Everyone handles loss differently, some get angry, some cry, some stare blankly, and some can’t accept it at all. Like the event is so horrible it can only be a fever dream. But everyone handles loss differently.” Ten said.

He couldn’t stop thinking of Num being all alone, waiting for Heart to come to find her and not understanding why he hadn’t.

Then a new thought occurred to him as Heart turned to Kit.

“Will…will being broken, even if for a short time mean that the people around you might change how they feel about you?” Might change and move on from you?” He couldn’t bear the thought of grief shaping him and staining him beyond repair. He couldn’t imagine a scenario where he was so shattered that all those who loved him now would be unable to deal with the broken pieces and would want him gone. The idea that grief could leave him or anyone else he cared about as a hollow shell of themselves so that those close to them could not recognize them anymore. The thought of being left behind and abandoned as the world continued to move forward in time as he stood still in the past. Too scared to love, too scared to move forward. Too scared to do anything but exist.

But Saint had said something like this to him before. Saint had been this exact way. Heart realized. That exact feeling was what Saint had endured for five years, nay all his life. That idea made Heart want to wail in grief all over again.

To his surprise, Kit nodded in honesty instead of shaking his head and reassuring Heart with meaningless platitudes. “Sometimes?”

“Yes, honestly, it does happen.”

“People grieve too long, grieve too deeply. They focus on their loss too much. Unfortunately, the loss can rip families that have been married apart, rip grandparents from their kids, rip friends from each other.”

“Because loss is harrowing, it hits you where you are most vulnerable and exposes the core inside you. What comes out over time, what kind of changes turn up are sometimes a big game-changer for people. Some people never return to their old selves, some people return but a part of them is still missing. And, for the people on the other side who spent so much time loving and supporting this hurt individual, sometimes the aching pain that causes the hurt person to lash out or pull away can wound their loved ones who supported them. Just as badly as the loss hurt you.”

“And when that happens, people really do move on and change, turning away from each other and letting go.”

Heart’s hands started shaking. He couldn’t imagine losing Saint or anyone else too. “They do?” He whispered, shaking at the very thought that everything he had just obtained. That this very happiness could too be completely fleeting.

“Yes…”

He heard Ten clearing his throat, giving Kit a meaningful look they both assumed he couldn’t see but that he actually saw very clearly. A look that was heartwarmingly endearing, but also made him sigh because it sucked that they were wasting their precious time placating him at all.

Kit rolled his eyes at Ten as if to imply he knew what he was doing. Kit turned to focus his attention back on Heart and Heart saw Ten raise his hand in the air as if to play hit Kit but then pulled his hand back and smoothed down his hair.

“Dang know it all,” Heart watched Ten mouth to him. Kit turned and looked at him cockily.

With a smirk that clearly read, ‘I know’, Ten squinted at Kit sassily before smacking his lips together, shoving his legs under his butt in a new position on the couch and waiting patiently for the masterful Kit to continue.

“They do. But some other people grow stronger together, instead, coming out of the experience resilient to everything and grounded in each other.”

Heart smiled.

‘Grounded in each other. That sounded so wonderful. An ideal to reach towards. An infinite non-predetermined amount of time where someone supported and loved you no matter what.’

“Bonded together as friends, family, or lovers for life. The bond is so strong it can’t be broken.” Kit said, interrupting his thoughts.

“It’s like that Japanese art of repairing broken objects with gold, you know?” Ten interrupted eagerly, ignoring Kit’s raised eyebrows. “I think it’s called kinsummee or something…”

“Kintsugi”, Kit corrected him with a smile, obviously trying not to look too amused.

Ten waved him away dismissively. “Yeah, kintsugi. It’s the art of repairing broken objects with gold paint, you know? Then they end up looking far more beautiful and valuable than before. Of course, I don’t mean to say that losing Num is a good thing. Not at all. I know it was painful.”

Heart only nodded, plucking more tissues from the box to wipe his eyes. At least he didn’t feel like he was being swallowed up in grief anymore as he listened to Kit’s story.

Kit nodded towards the glass of water, and Heart sighed before drinking as much as he could. The water tasted flat and cool, pooling in his oddly empty stomach.

“Come on,” Kit said with a sigh, patting his back. “I think you need some sleep, Heart. I know you feel really devastated right now.. But I promise the world will look a little better in the morning.”