how to fall in love - jercy

25 - how to fall in love

p.j.

it's been eleven months since the night jason and i locked eyes at the bar. the night i told him that i didn't believe in soulmates. the night i became infatuated forever. almost a full year.

we spent the day baking cookies in the kitchen. jason lifted me on to the kitchen counter and kissed me until the oven beeped and we were both breathless. i had my legs locked around him and my arms around his neck. his hands were in my hair and gripping my waist, pushing against me as if trying to become one with me.

like we were humans that zeus had made, split into two and having to search for each other. and we were two halves that had found each other and desperately trying to become one again.

just like how he told me that night almost a year ago.

one year isn't a long time, in retrospect. usually i could blink once and months would just fly by. one numb and empty day after another.

one year ago, i would not recognize the me now.

right now, i'm cuddled up to a hot blonde guy in crooked glasses who had fallen asleep. he's basically lying on top of me with his arm wrapped tightly around my waist. there's a nature documentary playing quietly in the background, but neither of us were really watching and now the remote is too far away to change the show without waking him. my fingers lightly rubbed his back in slow circles as i hummed a tune that i can't quite recognize. i think i heard it once on the radio about a year ago.

who was i a year ago?

as far as jason was concerned, nobody.

i obsessively checked grindr for new messages. i'd hook up with strangers and cry in their showers the next morning so they wouldn't hear me over the sound of running water. the weekend nights i'm not in bed with someone i don't know, i was skateboarding and attempting dangerous tricks until my knees and elbows were purple and my palms we're bleeding. i wouldn't go back home until everything properly hurt. on weekday evenings, i'd binge cheesy teen romance movies and feel like shit when the credits roll and the closing music plays.

it wasn't jason grace that fixed me or saved me. not at all. it was the realization that i was not special or different. while that deterred others, it set me free. i deserved to be loved and happy like everyone else.

me from a year ago would look in the mirror and wonder who it was staring back. he'd ask, "how does one fall in love?" to his guitar late at night, keeping up the neighbors with his mediocre strumming, hoping that i, me now, would answer.

well, i have the answer now, last year's percy.

how do you fall in love, you ask?

you let yourself.