This is something short that I wrote two days ago in what was a nostalgic day and just needed to get out of my chest, so I primarly wrote this for myself, but then got the push I needed to publish (yes, I'm looking at you). It's all a metaphor and I know I have troubles at making people understand what I mean, so the explanations, if needed, will be in the author's note below. While I read and learned some cool stuff about space and all that, my knowledge remains basic - just in case I wrote something wrong. What is written both in italics and bold is direct dialogue. One last thing, imagine the point of view you prefer - even if I had one in mind while writing and gave you a hint about it.
Solar system
Once upon a time you considered yourself to be Mercury, eternally condemned to orbit the Sun and love it from afar, and that was a knowledge that you could handle because, even if you were distant and could never love her and be loved in the way you desired to, you still were the closest planet and no one could never be warmed up and loved by the Sun in the way you always would be.
You don't remember the first time you've seen the Sun, but you also don't remember something coming first either. You know something has had, it must have, but your life has started the moment the Sun smiled at you. You were young, and so was she, and every moment before that one didn't matter anymore. You grew up and did everything together and sometimes other planets joined the two of you, but still you and the Sun were always the priority for the other. You never abandoned each other, even though you've been through rough times you still stood as close as possible. It's not easy to shine all the time and sometimes it's not easy to live up to some expectations – neither of you let that stop you. She shined more than before each time and with time you learned that it was your own expectations you had to live up to. You couldn't imagine a life without the Sun, every memory of yours were full of her and that was something you wished for the eternity. You couldn't have asked for more than an eternity together, nothing would have ever compared to that.
It never occurred to you that maybe one day another planet, even if more distant than you, could ever steal that warmth from you. After all, the Sun always said you were her favorite planet and that she would have loved you until the day she simply hadn't the strength to shine anymore, she promised you that. But that day came and you still were part of her system, but you weren't Mercury anymore, you weren't a planet either – her words of assurance that she loved you still didn't matter.
You didn't notice it, at first. You thought that the Sun was simply sharing her light, her more powerful light, with another planet and that wasn't a source of worry to you. She loved other planets, but you were still the closest, she still warmed you up and loved you more than anyone. It was a slow and painful process and you still can't believe how oblivious you had been. She would forget about the rare appointments you would arrange together and once you arrived to the place you agreed to meet she wouldn't be there or, when she was, it seemed like she was waiting for some other planet and you were fully aware of which one, but you forgave her every time. You knew how the Sun loved, completely and irrevocably, brutally but gently, and you couldn't blame her for that – the way she loved was one of the reasons you were in love with her. And she didn't love you, not in the way you wanted her to, not in the way she loved Venus, but she loved you nonetheless. It was a different kind of love, a kind that would have never satisfied you, but that you had to accept because you didn't want to lose her, because you couldn't lose her.
You always knew that it was never her intention to hurt you and you kept repeating that to yourself, hoping it would have hurt less but to no avail. You constantly accepted her apologies, you even made excuses for her when she offered none in the desperate attempt of not being hurt, but it didn't work, it never worked. You also knew you weren't the only one she progressively, but inexorably neglected when she began directing most of her energy to Venus, but you were the closest planet, something that you had always been happy and proud of up until the moment it became the source of additional pain, and that meant you were the one who missed the intensity of her light the most, the one who suffered the most among all planets. They were happy for the Sun, and you were, too. You had never seen the Sun shining so bright up to that moment and, even though you weren't the reason of her happiness, you were happy for her, she deserved to shine that bright. Yet, it hurt and it hurt a lot, but she still shared her light with you and you couldn't ask for more, this time because it was all you could have.
And she noticed, of course she did, she had always been attentive towards the ones she cared about, and she cared for all of her planets, and she assured you that loving Venus didn't diminish the love she had for you. And you smiled at that, because you knew she meant every word, but it was a bittersweet smile – her words didn't match her actions, she may have loved you the same way she always did, but she simply didn't showed it the way she used to. She missed you just as you missed her, she still loved you in the same way you loved her – again, you didn't contradict that. Nothing would have changed between the two of you, you knew that, but the rejection would have just hurt more. You often deluded yourself into thinking that maybe, before the Sun fell for Venus, she had felt the same way for you as you still felt for her on that moment, and the thought was a relief somehow. You could have never been sure she had felt something more than friendship, but that was better than certainly knowing she never had.
Yet, sometimes you just wish you had had the courage to say you were in love with her and maybe she would have felt the same and you would be together right now, you would have helped her spread her light and she would have helped you find your own. But you hadn't and now you'll never know, now it's too late. Now the Sun and Venus are living the eternity together, that same eternity you always wished so fervently for you and the Sun. You couldn't have a part in their happiness, even if the Sun wanted you to be part of it, to be the witness of their union, and that was the day you left, the day you stopped being Mercury – that had stopped being of any relevance the day Venus stepped in the picture, but it was something you would realize later.
That was the day you were Mercury no more, you were still part of her system, but you were so far away that you couldn't be considered a planet anymore. You didn't tell her you were going to leave and become something entirely different – you would have never left otherwise. You just wrote her a letter in which you finally revealed your feelings, how much you had loved her, from the first smile, and how you always would, to the end of times. You told her how much sorry you were to leave so suddenly and, most of all, to do that in what, after all, is supposed to be one of the most special days in somebody's life and you just want your best friend by your side, and you asked her to forgive you, but said you would have understood if she didn't: you simply couldn't handle seeing her happy and in love with someone who wasn't you. Before Venus came, you were all she could see, but after, after her you just weren't enough anymore. Being the closest planet meant you were the one who most needed her light and her warmth and, when they went away, you were just left alone to freeze. All that was left was a flame, but a flame wouldn't ever been enough to warm a whole planet up. Memories would never have been able to warm you up. That was the day you became Pluto.
Years passed and the Sun never reached out for you, never tried to contact you, but she still thought of you – even if you were so far away, she still shined and you knew that part of her shined for you. After all, she had promised she would have shone for you, loved you until her dying day. You sometimes talked with Uranus and Neptune and they told you, in those rare occasions you allowed them to talk about the Sun, how happy she was with Venus and how terribly she missed you. Several times you reached the point to come back and you were actually travelling across the galaxy just to return to her when words came that the problem she was facing at the time was fixed and you turned back each time, returning to the place in the system you belonged to. You didn't know if the reason she shined brighter was also because she knew you would always come back to her if she needed, but it was a comforting thought, one that you kept close to your heart. You didn't want to entertain yourself with those kind of thoughts and your memories of her, and you had many of both, but during dark times they were the only place you found solace in.
Years passed and that feeling didn't fade, and you were tired. You weren't a planet and you were tired that you were still revolving around her, and not with her. So you stopped, you just stopped. You couldn't live that way anymore, so you stopped and you found your inner light, you became a Sun yourself and you shined on your own, and you could swore that, from that moment on, she, the other Sun, in the system shined as she never did, she always saw that light in you and she was happy that you finally found it and recognized you always had it in you. So you came back, not to her, not when she still was with Venus, but to those planets that once were your friends – you still didn't realize that every planet considered itself a Sun orbiting another Sun, but you soon would have. And slowly they became your friends again, you cared for each and one of them, but never you started to feel for one of them what she managed to feel for Venus and that infuriated you to no end. You simply wanted to be happy and you couldn't be, and you couldn't understand why – soon you would have realized that, too.
And you did. It didn't take you much time to understand that it didn't matter what you were, you would always be in love with her, you would always be condemned to orbit her. Once you had been Mercury and you loved her, then you had become Pluto and you still loved her and finally you had become the Sun, finally you had become a star, a star that would always have loved another. That wasn't the forever, the eternity, you always had wished for. In your dreams, you were supposed to be happy and to love each other until everything just wasn't anymore, but dreams never came true for you. It was when you finally accepted that it couldn't ever be, not even with Venus gone, when you finally surrendered to that truth that everything changed.
Up until that moment, all you ever knew about what you and her were was what you couldn't ever be, but she showed you that you, the both of you, always got it wrong, she showed you exactly what you were always supposed to be. She always loved you the way you always loved her, but she was scared just as you were and she crossed the whole system just to tell you she loved you, just to ask you to please, don't go when you were about to leave and never come back. And you didn't, you didn't go, you stayed. You stayed and you slowly learned how to orbit each other, how to orbit together, how to love each other without burning the other with the intensity of your light, how, sometimes, dreams did come true. You lived the forever, the eternity, the dream together, you shined for the other and loved each other until the day neither of you had the strength to shine anymore. And, as you now smile at each other for the last time, you realize that you did, you loved each other until your dying day, and you are now dying together - but oh, how bright you shined.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything of it but my strange way of thinking.
Author's note: okay, this was supposed to be a story about best friends who grow up together, are in love with each other but never get the courage to say it in fear of losing the other, so one of them tries to move on and slowly forgets - pretends to - about the best friend. Things get serious between the Sun and Venus, to the point they get married and the best friend can't simply handle it anymore, she can't be the Maid of Honor, so she leaves. The rest should be pretty clear, so read it in that key. The metaphor was supposed to be something quite short, but somehow became the whole point of the story.
Also, happy ending! The first I ever wrote, so sign this day on your calendar, it is one of those ecplises that rarely happen - after this bad joke, I'll go.
Meek.