drabble: a different kind of love

He had read of love in novels, prying its meaning from aging paper—something from another time, like the green forests he could only imagine. He looked for it on faces he encountered, and while he felt for every one, it was not love.

He didn’t like the boy when they met, and after he’d sent him down the trail, never expected to think about him again. He would not kiss him until they were twenty-six.

That kiss would overturn his world, but it would not stop the exquisite ache in his heart, one that echoed novels.