"Though love may have begun with emotions, it is only truly ignited by a choice."

Virgil shakily passed the book to the shot-eyed side clinging onto him. It wasn't that he wanted to stop reading, but his voice had given out. Shocked from the reality of the situation, he had no choice but to hand it off. Perhaps Roman would have been a better choice, but Patton had already grasped the book in his hands, stroking the loose pages with long ungiven affection. Hiccupping and sobbing between paragraphs, the moral side began to read.

Wednesday. Six days before Thomas's Surgery:

It is approximately six o'clock in the afternoon. I had been meaning to write this morning about my thoughts, but quite honestly what I have experienced up until now would be more beneficial to the reader than what I had intended to write earlier. Today was a blur, so to speak. Meaning it went by too fast for me to get an accurate grasp on all that happened. So, I will continue to use this journal to sort my thoughts at the end of each day and hopefully bring a better understanding to how Thomas should process this whole ordeal, if there even is a right way to process an end to something.

It was an idea that jolted me awake two hours before my usual alarm clock. I had been trying to comprehend ways to cope with preordained passing the night before, but somehow the thought must have stuck with me. Realizing that perhaps the thought might be troubling Virgil as well for reasons he might not understand, I decided to research the matter instead of falling back asleep. That way if he had questions, I could give them a reasonable response instead of the truth.

What I found were many ways to ignore or distract oneself from the idea that time was quickly passing, but most of these did not involve my intervention or help. They involved Roman and Patton galavanting on all their own hopes and dreams without any developed reasoning. I had decided this was not what Thomas needed, but as the day continued on I began to have second thoughts.

I'd say I started second-guessing my thoughts right about when Joan and Talyn drove Thomas to get ice cream so they could talk and plan out what to do for each day of the week until next tuesday. They made sure not to mention the reason why they were planning a week full of 'fun' activities, but I can explicitly recall Patton and Roman not really caring as to why we were doing this. At the beginning I began to protest each idea with varying facts about Thomas's well-being and schedule when some very real facts began to hit me.

I do not remember when I went silent, or when I lowered my head. Or for how long Virgil had been raising his voice at me to get my attention. The weight of the realization had all dumped on my shoulders at once. Thomas did not have a schedule anymore nor could he post anymore videos until his farewell announcement. His well-being was already drastically changing and it seemed I had already become obsolete in my known function. The confusion I felt and am still feeling looms over me even as I write...

As I had mentioned earlier, Virgil was the only one to notice my horrified state. I barely remember his words, but I do remember his panicked face in front of mine. It was at that moment that I realized there was no real logical solution to what was going to transpire in six days. I felt unable to open my mouth to comfort him, because the only thing on my tongue was the truth. The facts of the real situation, having been sealed away from further revealment by the promise I had made to Thomas, hiding behind my lips and my memory. I began to realize Thomas had begun to lie to himself, and in turn to the rest of the sides. It was his logic that had created this faulty reasoning that everything was going to be fine. The cognitive distortions being forever in my favor as I was unable to correctly reason why I shouldn't tell Virgil the truth. And I began to question if Thomas's facts, or more directly, if I would ever be right again.

I retreated back to my room after the group had settled on a water park for the day's adventure. The door to Virgil's room slamming shut shortly after I arrived, told me he was just as frustrated as I was confused. I looked to all the scheduling and planning paperwork I had filled out the day of the information reveal, laid strewn about my desk in an unorderly fashion. Resentment built up in my chest as I gathered it all up and dropped it in the garbage. I remember talking to myself and reasoning that there was no need for thorough planning and that, for once, I could relax. Hah! Relax. I still don't understand the meaning of the word.

I remembering researching a plethora of topics with the free time that I had for the rest of the day while Thomas and his friends were at the Water Park. I figured, if I couldn't be useful then at least I would try to learn as much as I could before I was unable to function as a side any longer. It started with random topics, sporadically jumping from subject to subject, soaking up all of the facts that I knew would probably never be of use to me in the near future. As I look back on my decision now, I believe it was a coping mechanism I used as I continued processing the information I had learned about just a day before. But, I can say matter of factly that I am not unhappy with my choice.

Ironically, sometime during my nonsensical research pattern, I came across the word love. I had almost bypassed it, but in my current state as disheveled as it was, I began to look into it using the same faulty reasoning as Thomas was using to lie to the other sides. At first, it was everything that Patton basically was. The mushy, feels, icky complicated human emotions, but something snapped as I continued to read deeper into the meanings of love. What I found that immediatly brought me out of my disarrangement and straight to epiphany, was just a simple sentence. "Love is a feeling, but it is also a choice."

My discernment began to return as I pondered this thought. These two definitions of love can work independently of each other. One can have a feeling without taking action and one can act out of love without a feeling of love behind it! The latter being one of the main reasons long term relationships and friendships last as long as they do. Love isn't always an emotion. Now granted, emotions can act as a catalyst to help spur acts of love on to become a reality, but the thought that someone could actually love without having an emotion tied with it shocked me. Perhaps I am more capable of love than everyone, including myself, thought I was.

Quickly grabbing scrap paper, I excitedly began to research the different acts of love and their meaning. Compassion. Time spent. Empathy. Sympathy. ...sacrifice. As I look back on my time as a logical side, I wish I had not been so arrogant and researched this sooner. Perhaps some of the fights I have had with Patton, Roman, and Virgil might have been avoided. At the very end of my research I closed with a statement that I am still quite confused about. "All of these acts must be performed with the expectation that you will get nothing in return. Love was never meant to be a bargain, but of an unconditional accord." I came to this conclusion that had awestruck me. It was really only my ignorance that kept me from the brotherly and family type of love I could have shared with my fellow sides.

I immediately related all this information back to my present situation as I jumped out of my chair and began to write down my thoughts. I could let Patton know I love him by letting him have more of his way this week. I could show Virgil I love him by trying to get to know him better. I could let Roman know I love him by acknowledging that he might be correct on something, and not being mean about it. I do not have to deliberately state I love them for me to know I meant it. And even if they don't love me back perse, I will know that I have been able to overcome a boundary that no one including myself had thought possible. Understanding that this experiment would take the total of my being, did not phase me one bit, because I knew that I had nothing left to lose, but six days time.

This satisfying realization encompassed me as I planned how to put the entirety of my research to practice. And for once, as I continue to do now, I smiled...

—End of Part 3—