Love & Lyrics (Editing)

Chapter 18

The rough bark of a pine tree dug into my back while my wrists were pinned above my head by his strong masculine arm. Rain poured from the sky like the wrath of God the day he flooded the Earth, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. All that mattered in this moment was the man that stood before me staring into my eyes while rivulets of water coursed down his face. His blue eyes burned with passion unspoken, and I found that just looking into them made my lungs constrict and my heart race.

Just as my patience abandoned me, his lips met mine. His other hand began its slow descent down my body and stopped behind my knee. Without hesitation, I allowed him to take my weight as he hitched me up so both my legs were wrapped around his waist. Faster than I could blink he was shirtless and so was I and the roughness of the tree no longer bothered me. I pressed myself closer to him as he kissed his way down my neck and when my heart should have accelerated even faster, it faltered instead.

Although I continued to kiss him, suddenly I wasn’t so sure of myself, or more specifically of Sam and this situation we were in. He pulled us away from the side of the tree and laid me down on the plush grass of Kerry Park, while he continued to set my body on fire. My heart had chosen now to lay siege to my mind, when it was at its weakest and most distracted.

My heart asked me, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” and my mind responded, “I should think it would be obvious.”

My heart retorted, “You don’t love him. You’ll only break his heart.”

My mind selfishly rebutted, “We’re two consenting adults and you don’t need love to do this. Besides who says I don’t love him?”

There was a long silence between my heart and my mind as my heart silently broke. “Maybe he makes you feel beautiful and special and loved. And maybe you do love him, but you are not in love with him for it is impossible to be in love with two men at once. To be in love, requires you to invest every fiber of your being in one person. Do not kid yourself into thinking that that one person is Sam.”

I could feel my mind’s hesitance to accept the later when it played on my heart’s weakest point. “He’ll just leave you again. He’ll come up with some excuse for why you can’t be together. He won’t tell you his feelings; he’ll just act on them. To choose him is irrational.”

“Love is rarely rational.”

“Sam is the better choice.”

“But not necessarily the better man for you.”

“You know he’s half in love with you already and you would never want for anything. He’s daring, smart, and adventurous-” My mind began.

“but not the one.” My heart interjected.

My mind finally went quiet and I realized that Sam was no longer kissing me. Instead he was staring into my eyes with a look of love and resign. It was at that moment, I knew he had sensed my hesitance and had come to the same conclusion as I.

“Sam, I-“ my throat closed as tears welled up in my eyes. Could I really do this? Could I bear to be without Sam in my life? I knew that it was selfishness speaking when my heart so obviously longed for another, so I began again.

“Sam. You are an amazingly talented man and as much as my mind is begging me to shut up and pick up where we left off I can’t because-”

“Because I’m not Chris. I know. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t felt this coming, but it’s okay. I understand.”

He understood? How could he understand when I didn’t even understand it myself?

“You-You felt it coming? How? I didn’t even feel it coming.” I asked rewording my thoughts from moments ago.