Setting Rain on Fire 16.2/20
Chapter Sixteen [Part Two]: Secret Languages
The Art of Winning
There’s a language Brittany taught me to speak, in all these years we’re shared together.
It was a language that I honestly didn’t think I’d ever end up discovering, a language that I was hesitant to learn, because wasn’t part of my grand life plan. As a child, my priorities were success and wealth, nothing more, nothing less. Growing up in a household where I was exposed daily to two people bonded in matrimony who secretly hated each other so furiously disenchanted me from the fairytale concept of love and happy endings.
Then Brittany happened, and everything I thought I knew about myself, everything I thought I knew I wanted, changed.
The language was there from day one, from the moment I met her. To anyone else on the playground, I was the girl to avoid, the girl whose harsh, sarcastic words were sharper than a guillotine. Everyone knew that. Everyone except her.
I can’t really remember all the details clearly, but I can distinctly remember how it all felt. There I was, sitting on the swings, minding my own business, and here she came, barreling into my private world carelessly and irresistibly. She said one of those things that are just so Brittany-esque, and everyone in the playground had snickered, expecting me to lash out at her angrily.
But for some reason that I don’t think I’ll ever really manage to understand, my five-year old self just stared up at her in shocked amazement. Maybe I was just stunned because the sun illuminating her made her look like some misplaced angel, or maybe I was just caught off guard that she actually dared to speak directly to me. Or maybe it was just fate.
I remember thinking then that I could pull the situation back into my control. I could blow her off, I could still say something so hurtful that she would never even want to see my face again.
But I didn’t, and that was the first time I actually spoke the language. For the first time in my life, I’d given up my sense of control of a situation, I’d let my guard down, I’d voluntarily given up my bad girl image to get to know this intriguing creature. It was all worth it, when a few days later she began linking her pinky finger in mine.
The language just seemed to steadily grow from that point on, until I’d become so fluent it was difficult not to speak it. And as it grew steadily, neither of us really noticing how it progressed over time, how it didn’t just change with us, but change us, too.
But when puberty kicked in, it became a language that began to mean something else, a language that began to frighten me. I began to realize how speaking the language was becoming a testament to how our emotions for each other had long passed the boundaries of “Just Friends” and entered the realm beyond.
So, sometimes I’d balked. It makes me feel slightly ashamed to remember it now, but there were times when I desperately wanted to unlearn the language, when I did my best to stop speaking it. I knew deep inside that at some point, speaking the language was as natural as breathing to me - and that knowledge frightened the shit out of me, especially in high school.
And so came the statements like, “I’m like a lizard, I just need something warm beneath me,” “I honestly don’t know what I was thinking,” and “Vote Santofsky.” For the first time in our relationship, I was directing words that were cold, and cruel, and hurtful to us. I can still remember the heartbroken look she’d cast my way whenever harsh words like those left my tongue.
But no matter how hard I tried to fight it, the language just seemed permanently etched into the core of who I was. Now that I knew the language, it seemed impossible to stop speaking it - as though the language was something I was just meant to learn, and now that I did, there was no going back. Both Brittany and I seemed to know that.
It was sometime towards the end of high school when I finally came to terms with the fact there was only one way I could really be the person I was meant to be. Only one way I was ever going to give myself completely to Brittany. Only one way for her to give herself completely to me. I needed to lose myself in the language, to have faith and take the plunge, trusting that she would be there to catch me when I did. I needed to let the language run freely through me, as it was always meant to.
I’d never thought to give the language a name, but now, as I watch Brittany sleeping peacefully after two days of staying lazily in bed - leaving only to use the bathroom or to feed the duck or to pick up room service from the main door - I realize that I always knew what it was called.
The language of sacrifice.
Sacrifice is honestly such an interesting word, because people have all sorts of ideas whenever they hear it. Most of the time, people connect sacrifice to losing, to giving in, to giving up. But sacrifice is different from compromise, just like love is different from lust.
Being with Brittany made me realize that true sacrifice isn’t even something that’s asked for. All the things I’d ever sacrificed for Brittany, or for the sake of our relationship, was all voluntary - she never once asked me to sacrifice for her.
I’ve come to realize that during the moments of pure sacrifice, it was only her well-being I had in mind. It was her happiness that I took into account. After all, I could only truly be happy through her; her joy was the true source of my own personal happiness and contentment. Although I was delighted and touched whenever she did things for me, it was only when I did something for her that I learned what it meant to feel truly, exceptionally happy. Being able to receive from the love of my life was nice and sweet, but being able to give…that was bliss beyond anything I’d ever experienced.
Because the language of sacrifice is really just the art of winning.
Whenever I sacrificed something for Brittany or for our relationship, I always gained something back in return. It was for her that I sacrificed my carefully constructed reputation, my flawless glittering image, and it was only when I did that that I managed to reveal the real person inside of me. I sacrificed my cynical view of life and love, and that allowed me to see how beautiful the world could truly be. I sacrificed my anger at society and its limitations and discriminations, and I learned how easy it could be to find peace. I sacrificed my fear of loving fully, and I discovered the exhilaration of being loved back.
Everything I’ve ever sacrificed for Brittany - everything I’d internally given up for our relationship - helped me overcome myself. Learning the language of sacrifice helped me win against the darkness inside of me, allowing the light to shine steadily through. All that I only managed to do through her.
But I know that right now the light and darkness in me are battling chaotically. Because no matter how well I hide it, no matter how well I manage to distract myself with rebuilding my relationship with Brittany, I know that all the negative emotions I’ve been trying so hard to bottle up inside are still there. And they’ve only gotten worse, with Linwich wanting to meet us and all that crap.
I know that I don’t want to. I know that every cell in my body would rather commit suicide than interact with him. But I also know that if I do agree to this, no matter how hot it will make my blood boil, it would be the biggest sacrifice I would have ever done for her.
I also know she has a right to this opportunity. Maybe I wouldn’t forgive him. But Brittany deserves the chance to find that forgiveness herself; she deserves to heal completely, to find that bit of closure I know I can never give her. I cannot be selfish now and hold her back - that would go against everything that we’ve been building together practically our whole lives.
All of a sudden, she stirs slightly in her sleep and mumbles incoherently. Then her eyes open to incredibly thin slits and she looks up at me blearily. A sleepy smile lights up her whole face and she burrows into my arms, yawning, “I love you, San,” into my shoulder. She’s back asleep before I can even whisper “adorable.”
I don’t tell say it out loud, but I already know. I can actually feel the fight in me drain away, and the light bursts inside me like a fire devouring an oil spill. If she wanted us to meet Linwich, there wasn’t anything I was going to do to stop her.
I would be willing to make that sacrifice.
A/N:
I’m sorry it took me a while.
In my mind, this installment was a whole lot of feeling; it was difficult to put into words. I’m not sure if I managed to express the emotions properly.
For a few days now I’ve been kind of freaking out because so many of you are urging me to never lose my idea of love. Now I’m worried that I’ve put love in such a high pedestal that the real thing will be superbly disappointing.
See, this concept of love is something that’s really only in my head. It’s not patterned after anything I see in real life, simply because…there’s nothing to pattern it after.
Anyway, I hope you’ll tell me what you think.
The Art of Winning
There’s a language Brittany taught me to speak, in all these years we’re shared together.
It was a language that I honestly didn’t think I’d ever end up discovering, a language that I was hesitant to learn, because wasn’t part of my grand life plan. As a child, my priorities were success and wealth, nothing more, nothing less. Growing up in a household where I was exposed daily to two people bonded in matrimony who secretly hated each other so furiously disenchanted me from the fairytale concept of love and happy endings.
Then Brittany happened, and everything I thought I knew about myself, everything I thought I knew I wanted, changed.
The language was there from day one, from the moment I met her. To anyone else on the playground, I was the girl to avoid, the girl whose harsh, sarcastic words were sharper than a guillotine. Everyone knew that. Everyone except her.
I can’t really remember all the details clearly, but I can distinctly remember how it all felt. There I was, sitting on the swings, minding my own business, and here she came, barreling into my private world carelessly and irresistibly. She said one of those things that are just so Brittany-esque, and everyone in the playground had snickered, expecting me to lash out at her angrily.
But for some reason that I don’t think I’ll ever really manage to understand, my five-year old self just stared up at her in shocked amazement. Maybe I was just stunned because the sun illuminating her made her look like some misplaced angel, or maybe I was just caught off guard that she actually dared to speak directly to me. Or maybe it was just fate.
I remember thinking then that I could pull the situation back into my control. I could blow her off, I could still say something so hurtful that she would never even want to see my face again.
But I didn’t, and that was the first time I actually spoke the language. For the first time in my life, I’d given up my sense of control of a situation, I’d let my guard down, I’d voluntarily given up my bad girl image to get to know this intriguing creature. It was all worth it, when a few days later she began linking her pinky finger in mine.
The language just seemed to steadily grow from that point on, until I’d become so fluent it was difficult not to speak it. And as it grew steadily, neither of us really noticing how it progressed over time, how it didn’t just change with us, but change us, too.
But when puberty kicked in, it became a language that began to mean something else, a language that began to frighten me. I began to realize how speaking the language was becoming a testament to how our emotions for each other had long passed the boundaries of “Just Friends” and entered the realm beyond.
So, sometimes I’d balked. It makes me feel slightly ashamed to remember it now, but there were times when I desperately wanted to unlearn the language, when I did my best to stop speaking it. I knew deep inside that at some point, speaking the language was as natural as breathing to me - and that knowledge frightened the shit out of me, especially in high school.
And so came the statements like, “I’m like a lizard, I just need something warm beneath me,” “I honestly don’t know what I was thinking,” and “Vote Santofsky.” For the first time in our relationship, I was directing words that were cold, and cruel, and hurtful to us. I can still remember the heartbroken look she’d cast my way whenever harsh words like those left my tongue.
But no matter how hard I tried to fight it, the language just seemed permanently etched into the core of who I was. Now that I knew the language, it seemed impossible to stop speaking it - as though the language was something I was just meant to learn, and now that I did, there was no going back. Both Brittany and I seemed to know that.
It was sometime towards the end of high school when I finally came to terms with the fact there was only one way I could really be the person I was meant to be. Only one way I was ever going to give myself completely to Brittany. Only one way for her to give herself completely to me. I needed to lose myself in the language, to have faith and take the plunge, trusting that she would be there to catch me when I did. I needed to let the language run freely through me, as it was always meant to.
I’d never thought to give the language a name, but now, as I watch Brittany sleeping peacefully after two days of staying lazily in bed - leaving only to use the bathroom or to feed the duck or to pick up room service from the main door - I realize that I always knew what it was called.
The language of sacrifice.
Sacrifice is honestly such an interesting word, because people have all sorts of ideas whenever they hear it. Most of the time, people connect sacrifice to losing, to giving in, to giving up. But sacrifice is different from compromise, just like love is different from lust.
Being with Brittany made me realize that true sacrifice isn’t even something that’s asked for. All the things I’d ever sacrificed for Brittany, or for the sake of our relationship, was all voluntary - she never once asked me to sacrifice for her.
I’ve come to realize that during the moments of pure sacrifice, it was only her well-being I had in mind. It was her happiness that I took into account. After all, I could only truly be happy through her; her joy was the true source of my own personal happiness and contentment. Although I was delighted and touched whenever she did things for me, it was only when I did something for her that I learned what it meant to feel truly, exceptionally happy. Being able to receive from the love of my life was nice and sweet, but being able to give…that was bliss beyond anything I’d ever experienced.
Because the language of sacrifice is really just the art of winning.
Whenever I sacrificed something for Brittany or for our relationship, I always gained something back in return. It was for her that I sacrificed my carefully constructed reputation, my flawless glittering image, and it was only when I did that that I managed to reveal the real person inside of me. I sacrificed my cynical view of life and love, and that allowed me to see how beautiful the world could truly be. I sacrificed my anger at society and its limitations and discriminations, and I learned how easy it could be to find peace. I sacrificed my fear of loving fully, and I discovered the exhilaration of being loved back.
Everything I’ve ever sacrificed for Brittany - everything I’d internally given up for our relationship - helped me overcome myself. Learning the language of sacrifice helped me win against the darkness inside of me, allowing the light to shine steadily through. All that I only managed to do through her.
But I know that right now the light and darkness in me are battling chaotically. Because no matter how well I hide it, no matter how well I manage to distract myself with rebuilding my relationship with Brittany, I know that all the negative emotions I’ve been trying so hard to bottle up inside are still there. And they’ve only gotten worse, with Linwich wanting to meet us and all that crap.
I know that I don’t want to. I know that every cell in my body would rather commit suicide than interact with him. But I also know that if I do agree to this, no matter how hot it will make my blood boil, it would be the biggest sacrifice I would have ever done for her.
I also know she has a right to this opportunity. Maybe I wouldn’t forgive him. But Brittany deserves the chance to find that forgiveness herself; she deserves to heal completely, to find that bit of closure I know I can never give her. I cannot be selfish now and hold her back - that would go against everything that we’ve been building together practically our whole lives.
All of a sudden, she stirs slightly in her sleep and mumbles incoherently. Then her eyes open to incredibly thin slits and she looks up at me blearily. A sleepy smile lights up her whole face and she burrows into my arms, yawning, “I love you, San,” into my shoulder. She’s back asleep before I can even whisper “adorable.”
I don’t tell say it out loud, but I already know. I can actually feel the fight in me drain away, and the light bursts inside me like a fire devouring an oil spill. If she wanted us to meet Linwich, there wasn’t anything I was going to do to stop her.
I would be willing to make that sacrifice.
A/N:
I’m sorry it took me a while.
In my mind, this installment was a whole lot of feeling; it was difficult to put into words. I’m not sure if I managed to express the emotions properly.
For a few days now I’ve been kind of freaking out because so many of you are urging me to never lose my idea of love. Now I’m worried that I’ve put love in such a high pedestal that the real thing will be superbly disappointing.
See, this concept of love is something that’s really only in my head. It’s not patterned after anything I see in real life, simply because…there’s nothing to pattern it after.
Anyway, I hope you’ll tell me what you think.