To him, she represented raw unpredictable passion, the formidable risk of losing control, the potential collapse of rational thought and slow demise of inner stability. He felt compelled to stay away.

In her mind, he had become a vessel for all things unreachable, the forlorn ideal of fulfilment, the encrypted answer to a question she'd never find the courage to ask, the "what if..." that could never be completed. She had vowed to die trying.

She wasn't what he wanted and he wasn't what she needed, yet they kept orbiting around each other like helpless planets caught in an irresistible magnetic field. They were forced to keep their distance at all times, for the slightest move might prove disastrous: too close, and gravity would suck them in a black hole of explosive emotions, from which no one could escape unscathed; too far, and they'd end up free falling in the cold outer layers of the universe, with nothing but a fading memory of sunshine to hold them back.