Story piece

A heart wants what it wants and a logical mind has no say in how a person feels about another person. Sometimes the person her heart wants is unavailable. Maybe someday he'll be ready to settle down, maybe he'll find someone who wants to travel long roads with him, or maybe his happiness doesn't depend on any person other than himself. The reason for leaving had to do only with him, a part of him that he wasn't going to change for anyone but himself. He had chosen not to change.





A heart wants what it wants and a logical mind has no say in how a person feels about another person. Celeste Green never meant to hurt anyone, least of all herself, but sometimes the person her heart wants is unavailable. Celeste's blue-green eyes hurt but she refused to cry. She was done crying, she told herself.

Once she fell for that guy who would never stick around, she remembered as she glanced in her rear view mirror. Her sister knew, maybe Celeste even knew, Cavan Hale was not the type of man to settle in one place for long.

"Maybe someday he'll be ready to settle down," Celeste said to herself, "Maybe he'll find someone who wants to travel long roads with him, or maybe his happiness doesn't depend on any person other than himself." She figured he was probably one of those people who didn't consider marriage or a relationship a goal. Love was something she sought so she hadn't actually believed people like that really existed. There certainly weren't any of them in the books she liked to read.

Cavan had worked all manner of odd jobs in his life and had stopped briefly in all manner of places. His most prized possession, his only possession as far as Celeste was concerned, was a 1997 Harley-Davidson Sportster. Technically, she knew he also owned a cabin and a small patch of forest near the Appalachian Mountains that his grandfather had left him. It doesn't matter, Celeste told herself, travel is a part of him and he wasn't going to change for anyone but himself. He had chosen not to change. Celeste couldn't fault him for leaving; he'd never promised to stay. Only she'd had this romantic notion that he would take her with him when he left. He hadn't chosen to take her with him, either.

Celeste refused to continue her depressing trudge down a less-than romantic memory lane. Instead she turned the radio back on and tried again to find a station playing a song about something other than love or a broken heart.

As she drove toward her new job outside of New York she felt as if she'd love him and feel the pain of it forever. Her logical mind told her it wasn't true but foolish heart wasn't convinced. She could not control how she felt or the person her heart had chosen. She could control her actions. Celeste would start her life over again.