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Depressing, isn’t it? The idea that we spend the rest of our lives trying to close the wound of our first love with the stitches we take from those that come after.
I’d argue that your second love is just as important, because it’s the love that reminds you that the world didn’t end with the first. That what was broken can be made new and that our capacity for love is endless. In some ways, the second can shine even brighter than the first, because it brings that part of you back to life. One shapes you and breaks you and one remakes you. I fell in love with them thirty-five million heartbeats apart and an ocean away.
Here’s the thing about life though; it has a funny way of shoving the judgments you make of others right back in your face, of forcing growth upon you. The universe really is brilliant that way, pushing us to our limits just to see what cracks open from our depths.
“The one that makes you scream?” he asks with equal gravity, leaning back in his seat. “Or the one that makes you love?” “Well if you manage that second one, I’d consider it a miracle and tell you to call the pope. Then I might just run away with you.” A low, dark kind of laugh leaves him at my comment and he holds out his hand. “Coop.”
“True. But a number doesn’t always equal what someone’s learned in life. Age doesn’t always bring wisdom.”
“To answer your earlier question…” He drops a light kiss to the mark on my neck, smug satisfaction dripping from his voice. “Yes, I’ll make you scream.”
I sigh happily and raise the mug to take another sip, pausing when I see the stunned expression on Jace’s face. “What?” “Can I make you coffee every morning?” “What?” “Will you make that sound every morning if I make you coffee?”
“I’ll use a far more… physical method to get you to make the noises I want. And I’ll still make you coffee anyway. Always been a giver like that.”
“All I told her was that I was pretty sure I had just met the girl who was going to turn my world upside down.”
“It’s a good thing I have bigger ovaries than yours then. Otherwise I never would have met this guy at the bar last night.”
Don’t think you can out queen bitch me, little girl.
“Ella es mía.”
I want to feel painfully alive for every moment of my time here on earth, because you never know when your time is up. Doesn’t mean I’m in a rush to meet my end though.
“Come to Cahuita with me.” He rises up and presses another soft kiss to my stomach, eyes never leaving mine. “Because I’m not done with you… and I don’t think you’re done with me either.” And just like that, he had me.
That’s the funny thing about memory though. Some of the things you’d give anything to remember fade so quickly while other seemingly random events refuse to budge. You can tell yourself to remember something, try as hard as you can to burn it into your mind and it still fades. Lost among the neurons in your brain, buried in the gray matter.
I feel him grin against me before he lifts his head, lips glistening from my wetness. “Told you I was a giver.”
“It’s those 11:11 sighs, stolen feelings hard to describe. Where I sink into this dream of mine.”
“Plus, around me you should always expect to get wet.”
Fuck him for making me love him too. And fuck me for not fighting it harder.
“I love you, now get in the fucking car!”
“You can’t.” My voice cracks as I fight for breath. “Too. Bad.” Something inside of me snaps and I push at his chest. “You can’t!” He pulls me right back against him, voice coming out low. “Too fucking bad. I love you.” Dropping his head, he brings our faces a hairbreadth apart. “And there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“You turned my whole damn life on its head. You fucking terrify me. My days, my decisions, my whole damn world begins and ends with you now and it’s so far out of my fucking control that I couldn’t change it even if I wanted to. So you don’t get to run because you’re scared and damaged.”
“And I know that your broken parts fit mine, which is so fucking rare. Most people go their entire lives without finding it. So ignore it all you want. Bury your head in the sand for however long you need to be okay with it. But you don’t get to run. I won’t let you.” He brings his lips right up to mine, kissing me softly. “I fucking love you and I don’t give a shit what your rules say about that.”
I can practically feel it, taste it. The way our hearts and souls yield to one another, twisting round and round until we’re inextricably entangled, no beginning or ending to be found between us. Simply one being. A never-ending infinity of us.
“That’s just a part of being alive. Pain is going to find you in life whether you seek it or not. Better to experience the high and be a little bit broken from the story than spend your whole life fucking starving.”
“We don’t have to accept what they create. We don’t have to be the sum of their mistakes. We can choose what to keep, what to learn from, and what pain to discard for something greater.” I tilt my head back, looking into his eyes. “For someone greater.”
“These stars of ours were written in darkness and bound with light. Ensuring my soul would seek yours for eternity. Forever lost to this captivating insanity of we.”
