He had just broken up with me.

I was sobbing on a park bench when my best friend finally sprinted up.
She sat down next to me.

"Why do I even bother?" I cried. "I should just give up now. 
Love never, ever lasts."

My best friend didn't say anything.
She just hugged me and pulled out some tissues.
We stayed like that for a long time.

And then she finally said,

"You keep bothering for the same reason everybody else does."

"What reason?" I asked.

She pointed at two people, a few hundred yards away.
They were a tiny, withered old man and an equally ancient old woman.

The man looked at the woman like she was the most precious gem in the world.
The woman looked at the man like he was an oasis in the middle of the desert.

"Love may end a thousand times," my best friend said, "but the reason we all keep going is because of that. The kind of love where you grow old together, you know each other better than anyone else, and you would both sacrifice anything for the other.

The kind of love that never, ever ends."

After that, I stopped crying.
I didn't give up on love, just because a few boys broke up with me.
I kept searching, all my life, for that kind of love.

And you know what?

I found it.

Don't give up hope.