Gravity

Felicity

It was my doctor. He was handsome I suppose, he was kind also. He had a soft hand, that’s all I remember. I suppose all doctors have to have soft hands. Well if that’s the case my mother loved soft hands, she had an affair with him. It was about 6 months long, and I was only five. I remember when she decided to break it off. I was listening through a little crack on the door.

”But I love you” he said. He sounded earnest, greedy. Maybe he did love her I thought. She smiled, that kind of smile she used on me when I never understood anything. It was a condescending smile but also heartfelt.

“You don’t love me...you love my company” She replied. I guess she was right because the doctor lowered his eyes, and his head hung. “I do too, I love your company..but you can’t see it can you…me and you together” the doctor didn’t say anything “It’s okay it was fun” she finished. A kiss on the cheek and she left. I sat on the bench outside of the room. Me and my mother were close. We did pretty much everything together. Sometimes she would let me skip school so we could go on a trip. Paris, Rome, London anywhere. It was just me and her. I wanted to be just like her, I even wore my hair the same. Wore my makeup the same, even once in a while I barrowed her clothes. But that stopped, the first time I saw my father. I was fourteen. And I never trusted my mother after that.

“Cecile I want to see my daughter” I remembered the man saying. I didn’t know he was my father then. I looked nothing like him, at all.

“Well it’s too late for that John…your too late. She’s not your daughter anymore” my mother replied.

The man let out a big sigh he went to the door, and as I came out of my finding place. He saw me, and I saw him. We had only one thing in common our cold, icy blue eyes. Yet he claimed that he wanted to see me he still slammed the door when I was right in front of him.

***
Edison

“I’m sorry I said what I said” I told my mother. She was sitting alone at the grand dinner table. A simple ash tray was placed next to her. The cigarette left her lips.

“I’m leaving Eddie…out of this country” she said. I leaned against the door of the dining room.”Come with me..i can’t protect you here and-“ I cut her off.

“I’ve got to stay…I can’t just leave. New York is my home no matter who lives here or moves, it has to stay my home” I told her. She put out her cigarette her eyes teary. I walked towards her. “I’ll be fine” I said.

“I know…that’s what worries me. You being fine without me” She said. Her voice was cracking. I smiled.

“The bird has to let her chick fly...even if it fly’s away” I told her. It was what she said to me every night, ever since I was a kid. She nodded, I gave her a short hug, she was going to leave and I would be here all alone.

***
Charlie

I sat on one of those small starbucks tables in agony. It seemed that Eddie met Thompson yes that was his real name, his first name. At a bus stop, she didn’t know where she wanted to go neither did she know the language which was Italian, since when she left me she went to travel the world. And so Thompson Deckson then fell in love with the beautiful red haired Eddie. Eddie who told me that she would never fall in love, and doesn’t plan too. Left me and got engaged.

“He’s in the army” She told me when he left for the restroom. I looked at her through my red ray bans.

“What are you doing Eddie” I asked. She looked down, slowly entrapping her slim fingers around the warm starbucks coffee. “I mean with him…what are doing with him” I rephrased my question. She smiled.

“I’m getting married Charlie…I’m in love with him” She said. Her tone was low, almost a whisper. I knew that when she did this, she wasn’t telling the whole truth.

“So what happened to the girl who said she would never fall in love” I asked. You could say that only book characters had this attitude but no. Eddie Codwell was nothing like a book character. She was intelligent, sarcastic, cynical, but honest. She was real, better then the girl of your dreams she was more then any girl I’ve seen. She didn’t stand for anyone’s judgment and somehow when she entered the room everybody’s eyes would glance her way.

“I guess I finally fell in love then” she replied. Her voice was tight.

“And I thought I was the lucky man” I said. Her eyes soften. Her hands were reaching towards mine, but I couldn’t do this. She ruined my life and she would do it again. Two years of my life on her, and I never could recovered. We were together for one year, but it took me another year to get over her. I took my hand back, she was hurt. And so was i. I left, picked up my feet, took my coffee and walked into Barnes and noble which was the closest shelter to starbucks especially since the rain started.

***
Chloe

I rode the taxi with this handsome stranger we talked, about the book I held. He joked I
laughed and when the taxi dropped me off. All this handsome stranger did was slowly moving his hand at my face, he softly took a strand of my loose blonde curl and secured it behind my ear. He was older then me, I guessed in his early thirties. He had a wedding band around his finger. And I didn’t care.

“Andrew” he told me, his name.

“Chloe” I replied. And he walked backwards toward the taxi.