"It's always been that way, it seems

One love begins, one comes undone"

✦

Bear had an inclination to come snug in between Harry and I.

We were in the thrift store, resting on our backs with the backside of our legs flush against the wall and feet in the air. The sliver of space between us was where Bear decided to squeeze himself and plop down.

How we had ended up in such a position was unknown as conversation took ahold of my concentration.

"Sunset or sunrise?" He asked, knocking his sock clad toes against each other.

"Sunset."

"Why?"

I exhaled a breath and held my arms up in a poor demonstration. "The sun fades into a sheath of black. But it does so beautifully, taking with it an array of colors. Blues, pinks, purples, oranges, reds. It decides differently each night, but never fails to make an arresting assemblage of them."

Harry simply hummed.

"I think if people left like the sun, life would be much different," I said.

In my peripheral vision I saw him crane his neck to look at me. "How so?"

"If people faded but left a path of cotton candy blues and cherry blossom pinks before completely muting to a shade of black, being left wouldn't be so scary. But really, people leave and it's like a light switch. Once they were bursting with light, showering you with the vibrant iridescence of the rainbow. Then out of nowhere it's just dark and all you have left of them is their shadow. It's cold there."

"You speak with experience?" He inquired softly.

"I would be lying if I said no," I murmured. I didn't want to lie to him.

Harry emitted an aroma of closure and comfort and care. There was something about him that made me not mind spilling the ins and outs of my mind, despite the fact that I had known him for less than a week. I wanted to know him. And I wanted Harry to know me.

"Are you in the cold now?"

"I think so." I know so.

"For how long?"

"Too long." We conversed quietly with delicacy as if the dust could be woken from sleep if we were too loud.

"The night doesn't last forever. The sun comes out from the dark eventually in her inevitable fate. And when she arrives, she arrives too with beauty and colors. In a rebirth."

I sighed.

"The sunrise holds a sort of promise. That there is light after dark. That you can step out of a frigid shadow when time allows. Some of us can't help but sleep during the day and that's okay, but only if you let yourself live in light eventually again," he continued.

I didn't speak because I knew we weren't just talking about the earth's orbit. I let Bear's heavy breathing reply for me instead. My heel rapped gently against the wall.

"I've always preferred sunrises. Waking up early to see them; to see the sun coax from its slumber in a sea of dewy pastels or burning neons. The process unique each time, but magnificent nonetheless. Birds chirping in support, cheering for the huge star's return."

"You're optimistic that way," I decided.

"I'd call it hope."

How do you find hope while tangled in the vines of neglect? Of abandon? Of broken promise?

"Anticipation for greatness," I equated to his phrase.

"Not just anticipation. The fight for it. Hope is nothing without a force behind it, or else all hope would be is simply liking the idea of something. Hope has fuel, a sense of resilience."

"Hope can be deceiving. People's hopes can't always align. They clash. When people don't live up to other people's hopes, those people get hurt and have to seek out different resources to make up for it."

I bet Matt hoped for a different wife. One that was enough and could always sufficiently love him and make him happy. I couldn't. I failed him no matter how much he tried. So he sought out the secretary.

"Wanting something is different from hoping for it though."

"What do you mean?"

"A want is nothing but a desire. Having hope to me means your standards are higher than accepting a situation ending in atrocity. Hopes are beliefs. You can hope for something, or in other words believe it can actually happen."

He resumed his thoughts shortly after taking a breather. "Things can't always go as we want them to. People betray other people. They hurt other people. You don't so much hope that a field of flowers won't ever get trampled—you hope that it will always stay intact and effervescent. If it does get trampled, you don't have to lose hope, because maybe it'll get replanted. If you live life with no anticipation for anything but dread or a residence in the dark, you'll always stay there."

"Assumptions are deadly though."

I lost hope as the count of Matt's clandestine meetings with the secretary surpassed the ability to be recorded with my ten fingers. I stopped assuming we had a chance anymore. That he would love me again.

"Assuming you can be happy is different then hoping you will. Hoping for it opens you up to the idea of it, therefore welcoming it into your life. Assumptions can create disappointment if you assume life won't be anything but peachy. You can't just assume to not be hurt, or to be hurt and bounce back automatically. You need hope to get through those tough parts, or else you're really just closed off from the idea of healing all together, and if that's the case, how do you heal?"

I wasn't sure if what Harry had just said remotely made sense, but I knew what he meant.

What if I didn't want to heal? If I knew healing meant leaving behind all I had in life—or once had, why would I want to do it? I might be alone in every single aspect except physically, but at least I had that to latch onto when Matt was at the house.

I didn't deserve to heal. I was the one who fell short on our promise first. Matt wouldn't resort to another woman's embrace if I stopped being a good enough wife. I wasn't the hurt one.

But maybe Harry was right. If I really did change and was who Matt had once known, maybe he'd love me again and leave the secretary. If I hoped our marriage could be what it once was, maybe I could repair it. Repair me. Repair us.

Maybe that's where I went wrong, when I gave up on our relationship.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

Matt came home with his fingers clutching the side of his neck. One hand with a tight grasp on his briefcase. The other with an awkward hold on compromising skin. Both void of the ring.

When he walked by and into his office, his hold loosened and it wasn't hard to catch a glimpse of the blotchy purple and blue mark. The popped blood vessels. The patch of a lover's intimate touch.

My lips hadn't brushed a single cell of Matt's in months. I wondered how long her's had been.

It was a slap to the wrist that rolled right off my back, just another stone tied to my ankles.

Harry and I returned back to our respective abodes after he received a call from his girlfriend who had arrived at his house.

I paced around the foyer having come to the conclusion that I should talk to Matt and tell him I'd change and he wouldn't need her anymore.

But when I saw him and his popped blood vessels, his gaze became that of Medusa's and I was cemented to the spot.

Once I had gathered some courage, I burst into his office.

"I want to change," I declared, my hands in fists and heart on fire.

Matt lowered the phone from his ear. The hickey was on full display. He looked confused at my outburst. Not intrigued, just confused.

"Another time Evdoxia?" His eyes bounced between me and the phone. Ev, Ev, Ev.

I was coughing up smoke. I wouldn't want to interrupt his job. "Is it work?"

He cleared his throat. "Well... no, but it's important."

"Please, Matt. Please just talk to me," I begged with fierce resilience.

He had a torn expression. "Okay."

He said okay! Okay, okay, okay. He chose me! He chose me for once!

I couldn't help but smile big and bright. Hope, hope, hope. Thank you Harry for the hope.

We weren't doomed unless I anticipated it, right?

I was distracted by contemplating what to say next so I didn't hear him when he ended the call.

"What's up?" He said.

"Things have been different ever since—"

The ringing of his phone cut me off and stole his attention. I caught how a tiny smile clambered onto his face when he read the caller ID. Mine fell.

"Sorry I have to take this. We can talk later right?" He proposed. For some reason I couldn't believe him.

"But—" I tried.

"I can't." He reached to pick up the phone and started shooing me out with his hand.

I left with cloudy vision, hearing him smoothly croon, "Melly-mellifluous," before I shut the door completely.

Her name was Melly? He had a pet name for her? Melly-mellifluous? Said in the playful, lovesick, puppy love way he used to talk to me.

And this was why hope was a false advertisement. Cause even if you can manage to latch onto even the slightest strand of it, it seems to always distintegrate in the matter of seconds.

Hope is a power struggle between realism and idealism. And when you try to use it against fate, it will always lose.

I could hope I wouldn't lose Matt. But, I already had. And you can't revive the dead.

So maybe, hope is okay. But you can't let it deceive you into having impossible expectations. Hope must be reasonable. Or all it is is a wish.

I needed to hope whatever the remains Matt and I had lay in weren't quicksand and I'd find my way out alive. Not hope I would convince Matt to love me again when he'd fallen in love with someone else.

Enlightened, I decided to absorb my newfound reality outside of the house in which reality shackled my wrists and ankles.

I went outside and laid down in the street, feeling a whisper left of the warmth Harry's presence radiated.

Sunset was coming to a close, today the sun having left a mixture of dull dusty rose and powdery lilac. I simply watched until the moon and stars were the only source of light in the sky, feeling as though the sun sunk around the curve of the earth but also a little bit into me.

The crunch of feet against the gravelly street stirred me from my devotion.

Harry loomed over me, his head blocking the moon causing his ringlets to shine and gleam, his upper half surrounded by an angelic glimmer.

We took each other in, not saying a word as he crouched down and pressed himself flat parallel to me.

"This hurts." He broke the quietude.

"What does?" I asked faintly.

He shifted with a frown of discomfort. "The street. The pebbles and rocks are digging into my back."

"You get used to it."

"I guess," he sighed and gave up trying to find a comfortable position. "What are you doing out here?"

"Needed some air."

Harry puckered his lips as if to kiss a star. "Me too."

We sat there in silence for a while and let the buzz of crickets and whistle of wind blown trees play a tune in the backdrop of our thinking.

"It's pretty," he commented.

"Hm?"

He pointed up above to where small white dots plastered themselves onto the contrasting peak into space.

Grabbing my hand with his own, he held our arms up, mine much like jelly, and used his pointer finger to circle a specific star.

"That one's mine," he claimed.

"Oh?" I let out a small laugh.

He twisted his neck to face me, beaming like a dork. "Yup. Now you choose yours."

After some contemplation, I dragged our arms over and stuck out my own finger to identify my choice.

"Evdoxia!" He exclaimed in a scolding manner.

"What?"

"Really—that star?"

"What's wrong with it?"

"You chose practically the dimmest, teeny-weeny speck in this whole atmosphere," he complained dramatically. I wondered if he understood that in sitting beside me, he had done the same.

I bit back a smile. "Teeny-weeny?"

"Yes. Teeny-weeny. Teensy-tiny. Whatever you want to call it."

"That star may be twice the size than every star we can see right now. Maybe it's just farther away, shining brighter from a distance, hiding its true glory," I rebutted uncharacteristically. It sounded like something Harry would've said.

"You do have a point," he admitted in defeat.

He sunk our hands to his chest, over his heart which danced a slow thud.

"I name her Olenska."

"Like Ellen Olenska?"

"Yeah."

"You like The Age of Innocence?"

"It's one of my favorites," I revealed.

He stuck out his bottom lip. "Interesting... I can't say the ending was very nice."

That was what I loved about it. I weirdly sought out stories or movies with sad endings. It was less predictable, more realistic. "It makes sense though—the ending. It's the truth, how things would probably end up in real life."

"You're not a happy ending kind of gal?"

"Nope. Newland would've probably been happier with Ellen, but he stayed with May and did what was right morally, which is admirable. Even if it was cause of society at the time."

"I mean Ellen left and went back to Europe, so he didn't have much of a choice," he added.

"She did what she thought was best for the both of them."

"Do you think it was?"

"No. I don't think it was fair. May deserved someone who reciprocated her love. Newland deserved to be with who he loved, as did Ellen."

"May even told Newland not to give Ellen up. But he stayed with her and lived a mediocre life," he lamented, clicking his tongue.

"Do you think he should've cheated on her?"

"I had thought and was hoping he and Ellen would end up with each other from the start. So pretty much." Poor May.

"I think the point of the book was to show how the justification of adultery is a reflection of circumstance."

There was no question to how Ellen Olenska had every right to cheat on her partner. But Newland? Not at all. However when reading, that's all the author makes you want to happen.

Were Matt's actions justified? Would an outsider looking in want Matt to end up with the secretary—with Melly? Matt may have thought that his love would expand no farther than me, but that's because I was all he knew before meeting her.

I didn't want Matt to be like Newland and stay with me despite the prospect of a more exciting, passionate relationship. Times were different, it wouldn't be a total shame to society to end our marriage.

As much as it hurt to comprehend, I might just be May. And I think maybe I could deserve more than what Newland, or Matt, had to offer me and vice versa.

The entirety of today was intense. Realization after realization was dawning upon me rapidly. All thanks to the curious mossy eyed man beside me.

Harry's hand was warm and soft, his thumb tracing invisible shapes and patterns onto my palm. Our fingers weren't intertwined, our hands just rested in one another's like they were pockets and needed a place to hide from the cold. From the shadows we found ourselves in.

The clasp didn't fire a flurry of tingles through my veins or make me squirm in glee. It was different. In a good way. In the way that a married woman and man in a relationship needed while being unaware of one another's reasons.

"Agreed. Edith Wharton fell in love while married, so she would know." There was a hint of something I couldn't discern in Harry's voice.

"Apparently he was a wack job," I noted.

I felt the rumble of laughter in Harry's chest before it escaped his mouth. "We're all a little bit of a wack job, don't you think?"

"Some of us more than others," I teased and prodded him with a finger that was rested on him.

"Whatever." He acted offended and carried our hands to his under eyes, blotting the skin as if to wipe away tears.

I giggled and he watched me amusedly once his faux tears had all dried.

"Well... how about you? What are you gonna call your star?"

He pretended to think deeply and made obnoxiously loud hm sounds. "Evdoxia."

"Bleh. C'mon," I ridiculed.

He rolled his eyes. "You're supposed to say, aw! That's so cute!" His voice got high pitched and girly at his impersonation making me roll my eyes right back. "You know, I was gonna say your name backwards, but it was too complicated to do on the spot."

I didn't even try to attempt that mess of sounds. "Yeah, that's not gonna work. It's your star. Do I remember which one? Definitely not—but that's not the point. Choose a name."

We both laughed cause we had no clue which star he originally adopted as his own.

"How about Archer?" He suggested.

"Newland Archer?"

"Indeed," he confirmed, "there he is." He pointed to the star to the right of Olenska.

In a hopeful tone he said, "in the night sky, in our imaginations, they can end up with one another."

I frowned. "Is May the first forgotten chosen star?"

"Sadly."

As if he was aware of my dampened, solemn mood, he made an offer to cheer me up. "Wanna hear one of my favorite lines?"

"Sure," I replied airily and we turned to face one another.

"He simply felt that if he could carry away the vision of the spot of earth she walked on, and the way the sky and sea enclosed it, the rest of the world might seem less empty."

⇢ ⇢ ⇢

I really liked the ending of this chapter

ps the song lyric at the beginning changed

thanks for reading :)

peace out ☺