Somewhere Else [Damien Haas]

13. Physics

-/-/-

Did Jade tell you about the breakup? Yeah? Then I'll tell you about what happened after the breakup. Oh, she told you that too? Basically, I don't have much to say except my side of the story.

So we broke up. It was a mutual decision, because I knew she was right and she knew I was tired. It wasn't worth going back and forth a bunch of places for a person who was tired of doing that too. Back then, we were high schoolers with no concept of Newton's laws of motion, which was, according to my really smart best friend Shayne, extremely essential in a relationship. I was disinterested with what he had to say about physics, possibly because I left my science side behind in high school, but last night prior to interview day, I needed to hear it from him, simply because I knew it was a bad place and a bad time to be in love with Jade again.

"Okay, so you know Newton, right? Apple fell on his head, decided to make the hardest science known in high school, died a virgin, et cetera," he explains on the phone as I lie down on my bed at two in the morning, drowning in thoughts of falling in love. "Basically, his three laws of motion state that to summarize: first, unmoving things wouldn't move unless moved by an outside force; second, force is equal to mass over acceleration; and third, for every action, there's an equal but opposite reaction."

"Yes, I remember that despite my last encounter with it was 13 years ago."

"Great, good, great," he continues. "I read in a book once that it's good to keep those in mind when you're in a relationship, simply because they all kinda explain how to move in relationships too. For inertia, take all the shots you can get, so basically move. For acceleration, do it in moderation so your partner wouldn't feel too forced and a little too loved. For interaction, everything you do will have an effect on your partner and may work like karma, so keep an eye out for that."

"Okay, so what you're saying is, I have to do this stuff for Jade?" I ask.

"No, you have to do it to each other together," he answers. "That's what makes a healthy relationship. It isn't only you taking and she giving or only the other way around. In physics, even the slightest digit in the decimal place counts in computation. That's what everyone takes into account when in a relationship. But that's all useless if you don't have the right formula. That's what you two lacked when you first dated in high school. Not chemistry or romance or biology or... I dunno, freaking English? It was the formula. You both had no idea what to do to keep each other around. All you had was love, but what would you do with all the love if you had no idea how to give it to someone else, yeah?"

And of course, it kept me awake. Well, maybe for a while, I fell asleep almost immediately afterwards. But it stuck to my head the entire morning, and I was more than ready to tell Jade that I wanted to try again. I wanted to ask her out on a real date, but it will always feel like magic as if it were last night's night out. I wanted to move into an apartment with her, no matter how far it seemed from Mythical. I wanted to fall in love with her for real this time, and not just the idea of her. Heck, if you'd ask me, I would even love to spend the rest of my life with her. She was that unforgettable, which made her all the more lovable.

So when she told me to trust her for the interview, I knew she was going to tell them the truth. All of the truth that she knows, so I threw all the other options I had to save our asses. But she probably doesn't know the truth I planned on telling her.

When she leaves the booth, all shaken up and slightly pale, I sit her down. "Hey, hey, hey... are you okay?"

"Mhm," she mumbles, clearly not okay. "But go inside. It's your turn."

"I'll be right back," I tell her, worried for her state. "Just sit tight, drink some water, and calm down, okay? It's gonna be alright. Trust me?"

She sighs and looks at me, nodding.