she loved him, them really, head over heart, like my first bicycle accident, before the mouthful of blood and gravel, she swore was flying.
x
it's anything but precocious.
he hands her a pencil and a heartbreaking grin and her soul swells like it has been pumped full of birds about to take flight. they lift their wings and her heart overflows. so she smiles back and feels her heartstrings tug deeply in the empty chasm of her chest.
oh, so this is what this feels like.
x
it's reckless and wrong and guilt inducing.
but he looks at her like she is a force of nature to be reckoned with. not the sun which runs and hides at the sheath of night nor the wind that changes course and direction each time it is pulled away. like she is the sea: ruthless and unforgiving and still so damn beautifully undone.
the rush of changing tides surprise the baby flutter in her chest.
x
scott is sweet and lovely and all the soft parts of first love.
he is stolen kisses in her childhood bedroom with the lace curtains and the rows of summery floral dresses that wave from her closet. he is clotted crème and strawberry jam crepes on Sunday mornings with the desire so tempting and hard to resist just one more please. he is spring flowers erupting from the dank depths of earth cloying to her like the roots to the ground, hugs in the daylight, secure sun wrapping her with the wiry tendons in his olive skinned arms.
she feels it every moment of every day to the tip of her toes and the crown of her head.
x
isaac is intimidating and curious and all the tumble of second love.
he is the combustion of chemicals in the chem lab, fingers laced secretly locked under the table clandestine and whispered. he is the running of the bulls that she saw the one time in spain, furious and quickly falling like dying on impact with ferocity in his eyes as he raises his voice, golden tongue getting caught on the curve of the letter with which she responds. he is the changing of seasons from summer to autumn, breathtakingly beautiful with the hesitancy of lips leaning forward to meet her own, sea glass orbs darting face to mouth to the way his long fingers comb urgently over her porcelain collarbone.
she shudders with pleasure, writhes with pain, and curses his name as he laughs into the hollows of her throat for the entirety of those fateful fall evenings.
x
she and scott are a sonnet with neat lines all tied up in silk ribbons. flowing poetry that leaves the tongue like sweet honey. lines and words and syllables twisting together to make a song that is even too lovely for Solomon to sing about. all the things wished for in a life that she puts in her jewelry box, where she to have one.
x
she and isaac are a tragedy that slices through leaves of pages. almost she will not deign to be brave to feel that way again, but he has that glint in his sea glass eyes that makes her want to wrap her hands around his and lay still until the screaming and the yelling and the tears are all dried up. all the things that bring clarity in a moment of absolute terror.
x
scott is air. everything that she takes in and out, in and out, in and out. loving him is as easy as breathing.
that's the reason she knows it would never last.
x
isaac is fire. everything that she touches lights her up inside and then burns her to ashes. loving him is as easy as fanning a flame.
that's the reason she knows it would never last.
x
her father sees scott as that one boy that will always be there for as long as you finish the end of the story. the constant, steady and true like a heartbeat. the one that fights for a girl, lives for a girl, dies for a girl.
she knows how much it scares him because she will always be daddy's little girl.
x
her father sees isaac as the one boy that tumultuously buoys up and down and up and down, treading water as long as you finish the end of the story. the spark that growls in the chest, sets the burn that will either burn the city or raise it up again. the one that lets the girl fight, the one that lets the girl live, the one that cries when the girl dies.
she knows how much it scares because she will always be daddy's little girl.
x
he's the best thing for her, her best friend whispers into the ocean of books and pieces of copy paper, strawberry blonde whorls tracing over each cursive letter she scripts on the page. next to Lydia, the book of fairytales from her childhood lies open on the inseam where the prince saves the princess.
x
he's the best thing for her, her best friend whispers into the alcove of lockers near coach's empty classroom, the words trembling out of her cherry red lips and dusting the hallway floor. next to Lydia, the walls quake as she hears the pair giggle walking down the staircase, looking like they dropped out of a Parisian painting.
x
he holds her like glass to the touch, fragile and delicate and easy to break. he kisses her like a thousand years of storybook happy endings. he loves her like she is the one thing he has spent his entire life waiting for.
so she loves him like he is.
x
he holds her like sand, too tight or too loose, afraid to let go. he kisses her like a thousand years of star crossed pairings waiting for the end to come. he loves her like she is the one thing he never expected would love him back.
so she loves him like he is.
x
if you dusted her heart for fingerprints, you'd find two distinct sets, but both with the same purpose.
x
she dies in the arms of her first love, with his name on her lips. she loves him like a dam breaking: all at once and with absolutely no resistance whatsoever.
x
she dies with the face of her second love reflected in her eyes. she loves him like a leaky faucet: a little more each day, pooled quietly and full in the bottom of a sink.
x
it's okay to love them both, she lectures herself as the stars begin to flicker in her eyes and the sound of her best friend screams howl in the dead November air around her. the last thing she tastes is copper in her lips and she thinks that she'd give anything to die like this, to die loved.
and so she does.