So much happened in the next year. Friends became best friends, then soulmates, then each other's support and understanding. She being the more mature and introspective, realised her feelings first, but hid them. Because he wanted no more than her friendship. So she gave him that, always, unflinchingly, constantly, until that friendship became the rock of his life. And when he in turn realised that, they could give their friendship a new name.
Love.
Best friends turned lovers - life was idyllic. Life was complete. They needed nothing more. In spite of their widely different backgrounds, in spite of their differing views in life and what they wanted out of it, one thing they both knew. Their lives were complete only with each other, and empty without each other. Love, trust, belonging in equal measure on both sides. That was all they wanted, all they needed.
Or was it? For her, love meant committment, living by the rules of society and her own family believed in, living within the lines drawn for society since man became a social animal. She didn't question those rules, they would apply in her own life when the time came and would set the seal on her love and committment. And for a giddy three days, she thought that time was coming soon, that the seal would be set on the day for lovers, Valentines day. And like a bird, her heart soared, she dreamed dreams and waited for them to be realised on Valentine's day.
For him, love was everything. Love was his committment. He loved her, she loved him and that was enough. The world and its rules didn't matter - those rules weren't set in stone and were fragile and imperfect. He didn't need them. Those rules hadn't been enough to keep his world intact, they had shattered it into pieces when he was very small and he simply didn't believe in them any more. What he believed in was a soulmate to whom he could bare his soul, to whom he could show himself with all his flaws and receive her unconditional love ... she was his only belief, his only need, and her love and his, their only committment.
Valentine's day. Her dreams crashed against his beliefs ... and broke. On a night when lovers come together, his words of love put miles between them. Long before that bullet broke her body, her heart had broken in grieving for her dreams.