Elle s’appelait Gravité
She was the wind and she swept me off my feet. But there was this other girl, who people often forget about, she was the gravity that willed me to stay firmly, two feet planted on the ground.
This girl I call ‘Gravity,’ she was the first of seven who made me feel like my heart would burst into a thousand pieces if I loved her any more than I already could. The first three were merely unreciprocated infatuations that started way back in elementary school, and well the rest; they were flimsy dates and short lived relationships that didn’t work.
We were together, it was good and it was stable; we were safe. The chances of the world stopping it’s rotational spin so that we were catapulted into some kind of free floating space continuum were slim and it was exactly something I needed.
But we forgot how strong a gust can be and maybe that’s where we failed.
People always make out the ‘other woman’ as the jilted crazy evil bitch whose vengeance means they’re going to screw with everyone’s lives. Jessica wasn’t anyone like that; at least, I don’t think so.
So the 8th and final girl entered my life, taking my world by storm and stolen kisses ended up as nights of bare flesh upon bare flesh under questionably clean linen sheets in crummy motel rooms. At the time, I thought it could have been nothing more than having that thrill to float and fly behind Gravity’s back. Jessica was so elusive; her air of mystery so alluring, like a drug, but I thought my taste for it would run out. Ironically, I’m not the most trusting of people and I didn’t believe that it was because I truly thought she was everything that I’d been waiting for, that she was someone that I wanted to be with for the rest of my life. It didn’t matter though, apparently Gravity knew all along.
She saw that I loved Jessica a bit more than I loved her, just as she knew that Jessica wanted me more than she ever would. It’s not to say Gravity didn’t love me with all her heart, she figured it wasn’t enough which was why she gave out in the end and offered me to the wind like it was her sacrifice. Selfishly speaking, I wasn’t so sure whether just drifting away like that would be the best thing for me to do, because the wind comes and goes but the weight of the world will always win out and before you know it, you might come crashing down just as the wind subsides- that’s if you believe in science, which most people do.
Anyway, it just so happened that I took the low road and if I were to free fall into my destruction, it wasn’t like I didn’t have it coming.
There was something about the way she looked at me when I told her that I was leaving her for Jessica. I didn’t love her, well, just not as much as I should have. Not enough so that I strayed away and not even feel enough guilt to own up when I had a chance to. And even though it was my selfish desire to pursue that eternal joy I was searching for, having no regard for anyone but myself, a part of me ached and shamed that she knew of my deceptive behaviour. Expected defeat washed over her face, and yet there was a hint of something else that was screaming so loud and clear saying that maybe I made the wrong choice and put temporary euphoric happiness before a secure lasting love.
Sometimes I wish I did, just because deceitful people don’t deserve to be rewarded but life isn’t always fair and love defies physics. Shameless to say, I don’t think I made the wrong choice because everything fell into place like it was meant to have happened all along.
I moved in with Jessica. We started our lives over again, afresh from all the wrongs we’d committed.
Our relationship was different. I felt like something had been lifted off my chest and it wasn’t so much as guilt as it was something else entirely. A bliss had been bestowed upon me; a light that had been shed that I’d never seen with my naked eyes before. There’s not a lot to justify why you’re in love, we just know that we were right for each other. There are little things like how her hand fits better in my palm or the way she looks at me when she tells me she loves me, or when I could just about die knowing it.
Jessica stole my all and branded me with her everything.
And despite it, there’s this thing where we both know our relationship was based off lies and deception. There’ll always be this distrust that lies at the wake of our potential fates, which could tear us down.
Still, it’s better than being alone.
Somewhere out there, there’s this one lone soul whose heart was never mine for the taking, and yet I callously did and threw it back to her battered and bruised.
I look up at Jessica, my head cushioned by her lap, with slender fingers methodically run through my hair as she watches some guy host a reality TV show on home improvement.
I murmur, “We’re bad people for hurting her,” reminiscing on the shitty thing we did.
Her eyes tear away from the screen and she casts her brown eyes down, her lips pursing into thin lines at the mention of her.
There’s a pregnant pause and a pocket of air escapes from her mouth, brushing over my face.
“Yes, we are,” she replies emphatically.
“But,” she continues, “We’re also real.”
Jessica has a blunt way of putting things and she’d never make excuses for things she knew weren’t right. She didn’t do it then, and she wouldn’t start now. I figure that she means that real people are selfish bastards and we’re all out for ourselves or that we just have to take our relationship for what it is, simply because we exist.
Whatever it is, I nod my head in silent agreement and trust that the wind will always whisper truths, just as one day gravity will become what nature intended it to be; a reliable unchanging force that’ll be strong enough to hold down a willing other.
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Requested by a friend xella08x of ssf/livejournal.
references: Commes des enfants- Coeur de Pirate