Crazy love

Everyone said Elena and Marco were crazy.

Not the hand-in-hand, puppy-love kind of crazy. No — theirs was the sort of madness you read about in stories that leave your chest aching. The kind of love that burned too hot, too wild, and too fierce to fit into the neat little boxes the world likes to build around people.

They met during a thunderstorm. Elena had just walked out of a relationship that had drained her soul slowly, like a leaky faucet. Her ex had thought love meant occasional texts, birthday gifts bought at the last minute, and passionless dinner dates scheduled between meetings. Elena wanted more. She wanted madness. She wanted someone who looked at her like she was the last star flickering in a collapsing universe.

She found Marco sitting beneath a half-dead tree, his motorcycle gleaming wet under the flashes of lightning. He wasn’t hiding from the storm — he seemed to belong to it. She caught his eye, and instead of pity or concern, he offered her a wild, almost reckless grin.

“Need a ride?” he asked, his voice low and rough with laughter.

Without thinking, without caring, Elena climbed onto the back of his bike. That night, they raced through the storm, howling with laughter, water soaking them to the bone. They didn’t speak much — they didn’t need to. Something electric stitched them together right then and there, something louder than the thunder and more dangerous than the rain-slicked roads.

Over the next few months, their love bloomed like a fire in dry brush. They fought fiercely and loved harder. Friends warned them it was too much, that it would burn them alive. But Elena and Marco only smiled at each other, like two people who already knew they’d choose the flames every time.

There was one problem, though — a problem no amount of passion could solve easily. Elena lived across the river. Not a gentle little stream but a roaring, temperamental monster that often swelled with rain and snowmelt. There was only one bridge, miles downstream, and when storms flooded it, days or even weeks would pass without them seeing each other.

At first, they endured it — endless phone calls, messages written at midnight, longing heavy enough to crush them. But one night, after yet another brutal storm turned the river into a raging sea, Marco disappeared. No calls. No messages. Nothing.

Elena sat on her porch every day, staring at the water, trying to convince herself he hadn’t abandoned her like everyone else. Maybe love wasn’t enough. Maybe the world was right: crazy love never lasted.

Three weeks later, Elena was awakened by a strange sound — not the roar of water, but the steady thunk-thunk of hammers. Curious and half-hoping she was dreaming, she ran down to the riverbank.

And there he was.

Marco, shirtless and sunburnt, covered in sweat and sawdust, building a bridge. Not some flimsy raft or a pile of rocks. A real bridge — sturdy and raw and stubborn, stretching out over the furious river. Alone, with nothing but his own hands and heart driving him, he had been working day and night to build a way back to her.

When he finally crossed it, his hands blistered and bleeding, his hair a mess of dirt and rain, he grinned at her the way he had the night they met.

Elena didn’t say a word. She didn’t need to. She sprinted across the mud, barefoot and breathless, and threw herself into his arms. They crashed together like two storms colliding, laughing and crying and kissing with all the ferocity the river could never wash away.

The bridge was rough. It shook when the wind blew. It creaked under heavy footsteps.

But it held.

Just like them.

Everyone said Elena and Marco were crazy.