The Physics of Love

Chapter 29

Coming back to school after holidays feels like recovering from flu. Getting out of bed this morning was a revolutionary achievement and all the food tastes funny since breakfast. I guess it's a lack of MSG and strong spices; after the last week's feast, we're back to healthy stuff, as usual, and it will for sure be my chance to shed a few pounds since I hate everything that touched my palate today. Mom believes in days off when it comes to healthy habits. She says they give you some satisfaction and reward at the same time and help you stay disciplined until the next treat day.

Navigating through the school corridors, I feel my legs are heavy and dragging. Maybe a walk in the sun will help me sober up a little. The weather is still nice and sunny, almost unpleasantly warm for the winter outfit I'm wearing. No matter what the temperatures are these days, I can't give up on my jacket at least until March, I just can't. The viruses got so weird and nasty; the minute you loosen up a little and give in to the deceiving impression of an early spring, they crawl into the system and you end up getting shots and drinking teas instead of finally breathing in the some fresh air and enjoying the sun. I 'm not leaving my heavy equipment at home any time soon, no way.

I message Ted asking him to meet me outside and find a spot near the gate that provides a view to the main entrance and everybody going in and out. I've never cared much about the people surrounding me. Besides my best friend and a few other moderately bearable individuals, I would hardly notice anybody else, much less take an interest in their personal lives. From the point of a suburban teenage girl, I must have been the most tedious female friend to be around, since my score in spreading news, gossiping or badmouthing is extremely low. However, the recent course of events concerning my emotional life and its wakening somehow brought a new topic to my attention – the dynamics of couples. I purposefully make it sound scientific because for me it's a sort of a psychology workshop. In practice, though, I'm just staring at people I'm not close with, trying to figure out what their relationships are like from within, which is absolutely none of my business. If I was any closer, I would eavesdrop too.

The first couple coming out is Hailey and James. They are a brand new, fresh from the oven, still clueless about each other's flaws, pair of love birds. I'm not surprised by Hailey's choice here. James is one of those quiet, brooding guys who don't reveal much about themselves on the spot and even though that's not a proof that he, under any circumstances, can equate Hailey's precocious intellectual prowess, he still takes precedence among the guys his age whose foolish simpers make us gag on a daily basis. And given the amount of champagne Hailey consumed on New Year's Eve, he must have really stood up. Anyways, they're now constantly all over each other, settling in every intimate corner they can find to exchange quick kisses or maybe something more. I give them a month of a honeymoon period before they break up due to irreconcilable differences and move on to live the same thing with someone else.

Here come Kim and Eric, a couple with clean history, no break ups, no cheating, no incidents. They've spent a whole year together now and being a cheerleader and a jock, they've shown incredible maturity in the matters of the heart. They walk next to each other with no physical contact. They don't hold hands, they don't hug, they don't even talk. He keeps the door for her and offers to take her bag, she accepts and nods politely. The stage they're going through now could simply be a period of relaxation next to a familiar person or they could have reached a place where they have nothing to say to each other any more.

And finally, Jane and David, two seniors blindly in love since forever. They walk hand in hand, thoroughly focused on each other, like the world around them doesn't exist. She whispers something in his ear and he gives her a peck on the forehead. The word is they both gave up their preferred colleges and chose the third option to be able to stay together. We always get struck by such romances. Are they really so lucky to have found their other half so early in life or are they somehow infatuated and detached from reality, being in love with love instead of a person?