• The first time I saw him, we were both at the beach. I remember vividly the image that he imposed. Tall, lean muscled and attractive. The wind was playfully tousling his hair, which was covering his eyes. When his eyes were exposed at that brief moment, what I saw made me gasp for air. Hurt. A look of hurt so profound that it would make another person suicidal. But I myself was far from suicidal. I was overjoyed. Now, people might think that I'm a cruel person because I was happy at someone else's broken self. No. I was happy because I recognized that broken self. I was that broken self. It was too good to be true, at the time. Finally, I had found someone who could actually understand what I went through. But I was too scared to approach him. What if he was like the last one? What if we connected, somehow, and he decided to suddenly leave me? However, deep down, I knew this couldn't be true. He was hurt like I was hurt. We had that same thing in common. And I knew, if I braved my fears and went up to him, we would be bonded by our pains. And so I did what I hadn't done in a very long time. I approached a man.
    ******

    The first time I saw her, she was looking at me intently. Like I was a lab rat and she was the scientist performing the experiments. She looked like she was having an internal battle with herself, fidgeting on her feet, wringing her hands. I looked away and thought about what I had just seen. The woman was obviously trying to approach me, and I thought to myself Well, you're not getting a chance with me. She didn't know what I had went through. She didn't know how it ate me up inside, this problem of mine. She knew nothing. But I was soon to be proved wrong. The woman hesitantly approached me and I got a really good look at her. She seemed like a fragile creature, a person that had been through something terrible, something that was a lot more than she could handle. And I suddenly recognized her frailness. She's like me I thought faintly. While those thoughts were racing through my head, the sub-conscious part of my mind registered how beautiful the lady was. Long, raven colored hair. Curved body. Full lips and a tanned body. But I pushed those kind of thoughts away. What was most important to me was the thought that this woman, whoever she was, could understand my pain. That we could share what we have been through. That I could finally, FINALLY, could get some form of release.
    ******

    The man rose up from the position he was sitting and started waling towards me. And suddenly, I knew that he knew that he had recognized his hurt inside of me. I knew that he knew that we could be friends. Maybe even more than just friends. And I knew that he knew, just as I knew, that everything might just turn out OK.

    Epilogue

    They stood there, those two people, in the glowing sunset. They stood close together, but even closer still in their heart. They were slowly mending, even though they could not yet see for themselves, because they had each other to lean on.