The Gravity of Love

by

Anne
Thomas

This
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are
products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance
to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1
. 3

Chapter 2  Sometimes the Sun goes 'Round the Moon
. 10

Chapter 3  I see the Passion in your eyes
. 17

Chapter 4  Sometimes it's all a Big Surprise
. 21

Chapter 5  Sometimes All I Did was wish you'd tell me this was Love
. 28

Chapter 6  It's not the way I hoped or how I planned it
33

Chapter 7  But Somehow, it's enough...
40

Chapter 8  How could you Give your love to Someone Else?
. 45

Chapter 9  And Share Your Dreams with Me
. 49

Chapter 10  Sometimes the Very thing you're looking For...
54

Chapter 11  Is the One thing You Can't see
. 59

Chapter 12  And now we're Standing Face to Face
. 64

Chapter 13  Isn't this World a Crazy Place?
. 66

Chapter 14  Just When I Thought Our Chance had Passed
. 67

Chapter 15  You go and Save the Best for Last
67

Epilogue:
68

Molly sighed, running her hand through her
curly hair. "You don't understand, Marty."

"You're right, I don't. You got the
love of your life right in front of you and you refuse to admit it to yourself
or him, or anyone!" Her best friend said from her spot on the sofa.
Shrugging, Molly began to pace across the floor. "Red is half of me;
half of my life, half of my soul. He's the only guy I can stand talking to for
hours on end and who I eat with for almost my every meal. The only one I share
my deepest thoughts with since I first had deep thoughts. He's inspiration and
my support in everything I do. He understands me and expands upon all my
wildest dreams and constantly pushes me to do more and better. He's who I run
to when I'm hurt or something goes wrong. Why would I try and mess with what's
already so perfect? Why jinx my great luck. Why risk it all to add lover to
that list?"

Marty shook her head in disbelief. "No
Molls, no! What you just said is the perfect reason why you should make him
your lover and probably even more!"

A tall frame filled the doorway then,
showing Harrison's arrival. He cocked an eyebrow, backing away slowly.

"Why are the two of you staring at me
like that?"

_______________________________________________________________________

"Where the hell are your pants?"
Molly exclaimed through the door that was cracked open only an inch or two, the
chain lock still attached. The man outside her apartment looked like he was
suffering. It was true, he wore no pants. Instead, he was dressed in a white
muscle shirt and a hot pink towel.

"She won't let me have them back.
Please Molls, you got to help me."

Molly suddenly understood what was going to
happen next, so she slammed the door before it could happen. It was the same
story. Harrison Redford always came to her when he needed her help in getting
his latest girlfriend back. He would beg her to befriend this latest girlfriend
and find out what had gone wrong and how to fix it. She'd then relay this
information to Harrison, along with advice on how to go about getting this
unlucky girl back. But she was sick of it now. She already had so many
so-called friends, that it nearly filled all of the Nevada state and the
California Coast. All these also doubled as Harrison's exgirlfriends. No more.
Never again. Not after helping him to shatter the last girl's heart and many
more before her.

Leaving the door, she walked over to the
black leather sofa and sat down, picking up a menu. "Chinese is
good."

"Well yeah, but Chinese has it's down
sides too." Marty said, looking through the different home delivery food
menus. "I mean...there's so many boxes and you never eat them all. You
either are faced with leftovers to stick in your already overfilled
refrigerator or you have to throw it out and it's a total sin to throw out
something so amazing as Chinese food. By the way, what's with Harrison?"

Ignoring the last comment, Molly picked up
an Italian menu from the coffee table. "How about here then? You like
Italian."

"Lots of carbs and fats..." Marty
said, biting her lip in temptation.

Molly rolled her eyes. "Oh please
forget about all that crap. Loosen up a bit."

"...I will, if you tell me why
Harrison keeps knocking at your door."

She groaned because they could both hear that
he was still there, knocking and yelling through the wood. "Molly! Come
on, Molls! Please help just one last time! Please? At least let me in for a
pair of pants! Or...or a manlier colored towel? Please?"

His voice sounded muffled through the door
and not very loud, so Molly kept going. "Maybe I'll get eggplant parm.
It's horrible anywhere else, but the Italian restaurants get it perfect...oh,
and spaghetti and meatballs...though I'd want to watch Lady and the Tramp if
eating spaghetti and meatballs from a real Italian restaurant..."

"Bread sticks...I want cheesy bread
sticks." Marty said, licking her lips. "If I'm going to forget all
this 'crap' about carbs and all, I'm going all out. And a...medium pizza for
us. Unless you're going to invite Harrison in?"

Molly shook her head. "No, medium will
work. Why don't you go order in the back room so the restaurant don't think
their delivery guy will be threatened by the madman outside the door?"

Marty took the cell phone from her pocket.
"Okay, I will. But when I get back, I want to know how you got such a
strong stubborn man like Harrison Redford to be groveling at your door and why
you're not answering it."

"Molly! Please? You have those forest
green towels...that'll work just fine. And I need a phone to call the taxi
you can just slide it through the mail slot if you want..."

She groaned, grabbing a throw pillow and
making its name literal.

"Hey, was that directed to me?"
Harrison yelled.

Marty walked in a few minutes later and
checked her watch. "Food should be here by seven. Want to go through your
movie collection a while?"

"In a moment." Molly said,
cleaning out her refrigerator to ready for more food.

"Is Harrison still out there?"

She shrugged. "I think so. At least
from in here you can barely hear his anger."

Marty watched a smirk appear on her
friend's face. "So...why is he here?"

"He wants pants, I think."

"Pants? He's standing outside your
door for pants?" Marty said, looking as if her friend had gone insane.

"Well, that's the only part I'm willing
to acknowledge."

"And the other part that you're
not?"

Molly sighed, leaning against the fridge
and opening a can of soda. "He wants my help with another one of his
girlfriends. He knows I won't do it, but he thinks if he begs long enough, I
will because I caved before. He thinks he can walk all over me. I'm showing him
he can't."

"So you're not even going to give him
pants?"

Molly laughed with a sigh. "He expects
me to do too much for him. Let him suffer a bit and learn how to take care of
himself."

"Huh...well, he's your friend. I guess
he's not going anywhere anyway. I mean, you two have been in so many fights
through the long years..."

"Twenty four years," she noted.
"Yeah...we got into some horrible disputes through them."

Marty walked out of the kitchen and looked
towards the door, where Harrison was still groaning in fizzing anger. "I'm
sure there will be many more through the rest of the years."

Molly shook her head. "Just ignore the
doggy. He'll get hungry eventually and find his own way back home."

"Yeah...unless he snatches our food
before we get it in here." Marty said in worry.

Molly and Marty sat on the black sofa with
their feet crossed on the coffee table, watching Lady and the Tramp and eating
all the food they ordered, save the cheesy bread sticks that Marty had so
craved. Those had been snatched up by Harrison and his bright pink towel before
the bags made it in to the apartment.

"Just wondering..." Marty started
as a song she thought boring on the movie came on.

"How do you get such an unbreakable
man to plead for your help? I mean, just to know for myself when I find a guy
like that. How do you get them to beg?"

Molly laughed. "You don't! Red is
better when he's being closed and stubborn than when he's outside your door
pantless."

Marty got a devilish look in her mismatched
color eyes that made Molly put up her hand to stop her. "None of that,
thank you."

She giggled, but relented. "If you say
so."

Outside the door, Harrison shoved in the
last part of his last bread stick. "You know, if you don't help, Amber
will leave me. And then the whole breakup ordeal will have to start all over
again...isn't it easier to just help me get her back?"

"No!" Molly growled from her spot
in the room, then made the movie louder.

The alarm clock blared some kind of
eighties music on the radio, the time flashing warningly. Molly groaned,
burying her face in her

pillow, wishing for anything but to wake up
now.

Yet as she snuck a peak and the angry
numbers, she moaned and slowly got up, dragging her weary body in to the
shower. After she was awake enough, she shut the water off, toweled off and
quickly got dressed. Looking in the mirror, she turned on her hair dryer to
full blast, drying her soft auburn curls that cascaded down to the middle of
her back. Not having time to brush it out, she ran her hands through it to
fluff it enough to look suitable, then rubbed at her bloodshot dark brown eyes.

"Molly! Hurry up, we'll be late!
Harrison already left for work!" She heard Marty yell in.

Slipping on a pair of brown suede high
heels that matched her mid calf length skirt, she grabbed her coat and
messenger bag and ran out the door to car pool with Marty.

_______________________________________________________________________

Molly grabbed her bag and walked down the
school hallway and swung in to the classroom that was Marty's. "You
ready?" She asked when she saw all the kids gone.

"Yup, just a minute and then we can go
to lunch."

"Is Harry coming?"

Marty looked up at her in surprise.
"What, didn't you hear the girl talk today? Harrison is already out to
lunch with a new girlfriend."

Molly's eyes widened. "What? No, I
didn't hear that! But...but it's been less than a week since he was whining
outside my door about Amber he already has a new girl?"

She shrugged. "You know Harrison. He
don't fool around when he don't have a girl in his life. He goes from one to
the next as fast as possible. And look at the guy he sure has the goods to
pull it off."

Molly groaned, kicking the floor and
leaving behind a black mark from the sole of her shoe. "I can't believe
him. You see? This is why I don't help him anymore he don't really care about
these girls. He don't love them. He just wants his fun. And when it's done
being fun...he's done with them and it's on to a new girl. I can't stand the
way he treats women!"

Marty shrugged. "You know him better
than anyone, so I know you don't need me to go in to a false comforting talk
about how it won't last and that he really does care for these girls and all
that such."

Molly swallowed her anger and started to
walk out of the classroom and towards their car.

_______________________________________________________________________

The next day, as Molly busily set out to
grad the tests that were just taken, Harrison came walking in.

"What's Principal Redford doing
here?" She heard one of the five students that had stayed behind to wait
for their test results, whisper.

"I don't know...anyone here in
trouble?" Another one replied.

Molly nodded. She was.

"This isn't a good time, Principal
Redford. See, I have to finish grading these tests for the students"

"It can wait a minute." He said
instead, taking the red pen from her hand and gathering the testing folder in
his arms so she wouldn't be tempted.

"I think we need to talk about that event
a few days ago Radcliffe, now that there's not a locked door between us."

Molly blushed, vividly remembering this
man, now in a respectable suit looking very suave, standing in hardly anything
other than a hot pink towel. If any of the students ever found out, he'd have a
hard time getting their respect again. Or stop their bouts of laughter.

"Sure. What do you need? To discuss
your wardrobe tastes or your begging techniques?"

He scowled at her. "Not funny. I'm
serious."

She crossed her arms. "After seeing
you in that towel outside my door for hours...eh, so am I." She whispered,
but his eyes flamed in anger, and she knew it was time to stop the jokes.
"Alright, fine. What do you really want to talk about? Because I meant
what I said the other night. I didn't change my mind. I won't do it."

Harrison put the test folder down on a
filing cabinet and took her hands in his. "Please? Molls, you know me. I
wouldn't ask you to do something I thought was going to hurt you in any way. I
just thought...I needed help!"

"Help? You're dating a new girl
already, Red!"

"Because Amber dumped me."

"Not even week ago! Four days!"

A smirk crossed his face. "You know I
wouldn't have to bother with any of these silly women if only you'd just
finally say yes."

It was a joke that they made when they were
having relationship problems, never taken seriously. She laughed and slapped
his arm.

"Out of here I got work to do! Now
scoot!, Red!"

He cupped her cheek and smiled, then walked
out.

Indeed, what he had told her was an old joke.
But as she looked around her, she saw that her students, whispering and looking
vastly interested, hadn't caught on to that part.

_______________________________________________________________________

Eighties music blasted from the radio, the
time flashing angrily once again. Morning had come and Marty was already
yelling from the door so they could take off to work. And once again, she had
to rush around to get ready and run. Once sitting in the passenger seat, Marty
handed her a breakfast bar. "Because I know you couldn't have had time to
eat."

Molly flashed her a grateful smile.
"We're going to have to go shopping after school I'm near out of food
and I'm craving all kinds of ice cream right now..."

Marty laughed. "Then come over to my
apartment you know I'm always stocked with your food cravings. And the best
part? I'm right down the hall!"

"Oh yes, that indeed helps."

"Ya know...I know for a fact that
Harrison has plenty of your food craving goodies and he's right above
you..."

Molly rolled her eyes. "Red and I are
going through a bit of a...hard time. Today we made it all better on the
surface, but we both know nothin has been solved. And until it is solved,
that's going to be an uncomfortable barrier between us."

"And meanwhile, you're both going to
ignore it and he'll act completely casual and you'll act like you have no idea
what could be wrong between you until you had enough and you explode on him.
Then it'll be a whole fit, you two will swear never to talk again and one of you
will threaten to move out. Every time...you two are getting to be utterly
predictable." Marty rattled off.