The Gravity of Us (Elements, #4)

by Brittainy C. Cherry

“Maktub,” I whispered, holding her close. The word was tattooed on both of our wrists, meaning ‘it is written.’ Everything in life happened for a reason, happened exactly how it was meant to, no matter how painful it seemed. Some love stories were meant to be forever, and others just for a season. What Mari had forgotten was that the love story between a mother and daughter was always there, even when the seasons changed.

Love. The emotion that made people both soar and crash. The feeling that lit humans up and burned their hearts. The beginning and ending of every journey.

She was so beautiful, even in sickness. Her true glow couldn’t be stolen away by such changes to her body, because her beauty stemmed from her soul, where only goodness and light resided.

“Remember when we were kids and I had that awful dream about Mama dying? I spent the whole day crying, and then she gave us all a talk about death? About how it isn’t the end of the journey?” I nodded. “Yes, she told us we’d see her in everything—the sunbeams, the shadows, the flowers, the rain. She said death doesn’t kill us, it only awakens us to more.”

“Air above me, earth below me, fire within me, water surround me…”

There was something so heartbreaking about watching your best friend fall apart. Even though I knew death was simply the next chapter in her beautiful memoir, it didn’t make it any easier for me to grasp.

I tried my best to think of what type of eulogy I’d deliver for the man who was a hero to many but a devil to myself. I tried to dig up memories of love, moments of care, seconds of pride he’d delivered me, but I came up blank. Nothing. No real feelings could be found. The heart inside my chest—the one he’d helped harden—remained completely numb.

It was odd how feelings worked, how a person could be sad one second and happy another. What amazed me the most was how a person could be both things all within the same second.

“I hated my father, and a few nights ago, he passed away. He was my biggest demon, my greatest monster, and my living nightmare. Still, with him gone, everything around me has somehow slowed, and I miss the memories that never existed.”

She was the girl who felt everything, and I was the man who felt nothing at all.

Her eyes narrowed and she tilted her head, studying me. I hated the way she stared at me. I hated how when our eyes locked, she stared as if she saw a part of my soul that I hadn’t even discovered. “Who hurt you?” she whispered.

Who hurt me so bad and made me so cold? The ‘who’ part was easy. It was the reason that was blurred.

Heartbreak took love and mutilated it, humiliated it, scarred it. Heartbreak slowly began to freeze heartbeats that had once been so welcoming to love.

I don’t know how to read you, Graham Russell. I pride myself on being able to read people, but you are different.” “Perhaps I’m one of those novels where you have to keep turning the page until the very end to understand the meaning.”

“A part of me wants to skip to the last page to see how it ends, but I hate spoilers, and I love a good suspense.”

“Just because you smile and act free doesn’t mean the cage doesn’t exist. It merely means you lowered your standards for how far you’ll allow yourself to fly.”

“Which word did he give you? To describe me?” “Pure, my dear.” He tipped his hat one last time and opened the door. “He called you pure.”

“I felt anger. I felt so much anger at him. He looked at you as if you were unworthy of his attention. He insulted your clothing all night long as he introduced you to people. He discussed you as if you’re not good enough, and for the love of God, he gawked at other women whenever you turned your back to him. He was insensitive, rude, and a complete idiot.”

“He was a complete idiot for thinking you weren’t the most beautiful woman in that room. Yeah, I get it, Lucille—you’re a hippie weirdo and everything about you is loud and outlandish, but who is he to demand that you change? You’re a prize of a woman, rose petals in your hair and all, and he treated you as if you were nothing more than an unworthy slave.”

It was all right that she and I handled things in a different fashion. She wore her heart on her sleeve, and I kept my heart wrapped in steel chains deep within my soul.

“The thing is, the heart never listens to the brain’s logic, Mr. Russell.” He nudged me in the side with an all-knowing hitch in his voice. “It just feels.”

I wanted to be just like her. I wanted to be an odd character, a freak of nature. I wanted to stumble and laugh out loud. I wanted to find her beautiful disaster and mix it together with my own mess. I wanted the freedom she swam in, and her fearlessness of living in the moment.

I wanted to know what it meant to be a part of her world. To be a man who felt everything. I wanted to hold her, but still have her move freely in my arms. I wanted to taste her lips and breathe in a part of her soul as I gave her a glimpse of mine.

This life is short, and you never know how many chapters you have left in your novel, Graham. Live each day as if it’s the final page. Breathe each moment as if it’s the final word. Be brave, my son. Be brave.”

“I tried to list the things I find pleasant, outside of Talon of course. It’s a short list, really, only two things so far, and oddly enough, it begins and ends with you.”

“Being around you does something strange to me, something that hasn’t happened in such a long time.” “What happens?” He took my hand in his then led it to his chest, and his next words came out as a whisper. “My heart begins to beat again.”

The hardest part of life was watching a loved one walk straight into fire when all you could do was sit and watch them as they burned.

“Loneliness is a liar,” Graham told me, sitting down on the edge of his bed as he spoke. “It’s toxic and deadly most of the time. It forces people to believe they are better off with the devil himself than being alone, because somehow being alone means a person failed. Somehow being alone means a person isn’t good enough. So, more often than not, the poison of loneliness seeps in and makes a person believe that any kind of attention must stand for love. Fake love that is built on a bed of loneliness will fail—I should know. I’ve been alone all my life.”

A great story always had structure. But life wasn’t a great story. Real life was a mess of words that sometimes worked, and other times didn’t. Real life was an array of emotions that hardly made sense. Real life was a first draft novel with scribbles and crossed out sentences, all written in crayon. It wasn’t beautiful. It came without warning. It came without ease.

‘The world’s a little darker tonight, Graham.’ Then he wiped away his tears and said, ‘But still, I must believe that the sun will rise tomorrow.’”

We weren’t supposed to feel this way. We weren’t supposed to fall for one another, she and I. Yet it seemed gravity had a way of pulling us closer.

There might be a million reasons why you think it couldn’t work, but all you need is one reason why it could. That reason is love.”

“It’s you,” I whispered, our lips still slightly touching. “My greatest hope is, and always will be, you.”

Right after we soared to our highest heights, we descended and crashed to our lowest lows—but not before his air became my breaths, not before his earth became my ground. His flames were my fire, his thirst was my water, and his spirit? His spirit became my soul.

I promise it all to you—my broken past, my scarred present, and my complete future. I am yours before I am my own. You are my light, my love, my destiny. Air above me, earth below me, fire within me, water surround me. I give you all of my soul. I give you all of me.”

“So this is our happily ever after?” I asked softly against his lips. “No, my love, this is merely our chapter one.”