The Gravity of Us

The Gravity of Us is a heartfelt story of two people who found love in the most impossible of circumstances.

Brilliantly written and enchanting. Highly recommend.

“She was the girl who felt everything, and I was the man who felt nothing at all.” – Graham

3.5✨

’I smiled. He grimaced. Our usual.’

“You need a break. Plus, we can’t be late.”
I cleared my throat and kept typing. “I decided I’m going to have to miss out on this silly engagement. Sorry, Jane.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her jaw slacken. “Silly engagement? Graham…it’s your father’s funeral.”
“You say that as if it should mean something to me.”
“It does mean something to you.”
“Don’t tell me what does and doesn’t mean something to me. It’s belittling.”
“You’re tired,” she said. There you go again, telling me about myself.
“I’ll sleep when I’m eighty, or when I’m my father. I’m sure he’s sleeping well tonight.”
She cringed. I didn’t care.
“It’s time to hop in the shower and get dressed. I hung your suit in the bathroom.”
“I told you, I cannot make this engagement. I have a deadline to meet.”
“While you have a deadline to meet, your father has already met his deadline, and now it’s time to send off his manuscript.”
“His manuscript being his casket?”
Jane’s brows furrowed. “No. Don’t be silly. His body is the manuscript; his casket is the book cover.”
“A freaking expensive book cover, too. I can’t believe he picked one that is lined with gold.” I paused and bit my lip. “On second thought, I easily believe that. You know my father.”
“Can you pretend you’re sad at the funeral? People will talk if they see you smiling.”
I gave her a tight fake frown. She rolled her eyes.
“Good, now repeat after me: my father was truly loved, and he will be missed dearly.”
“My father was truly a dick, and he won’t be missed at all.”
She patted my chest. “Close enough. Now go get dressed.”
Standing up, I grumbled the whole way.

why did i find that whole exchange hilarious 😆

”Lucille—”
“You can call me Lucy.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-six.”
“Lucy is a name for a child. If you ever truly want to make it in the world, you should go by Lucille.”
“Noted. If you ever want to be the life of the party, you should consider the nickname Graham Cracker.”
“Are you always this ridiculous?”
“Only at funerals where people have to buy tickets.”
“What was the selling price?”
“They ranged from two hundred to two thousand dollars.”
He gasped. “Are you kidding me? People paid two thousand dollars to look at a dead body?!”
I ran my hands through my hair. “Plus tax.”
“I’m worried about the future generations.”

I laughed. “Richard hasn’t gone down on me in what feels like years.”
Her mouth dropped open in disbelief. “Then you should’ve broken up with him years ago, sister. A boy who doesn’t go down doesn’t have the right to your services once he goes up.”

“It’s six in the evening.”
I turned around and raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, it is.”
“I eat dinner at six in my office.”
“Yes, I know.”
He cleared his throat and shifted around in his shoes. His stare fell to the floor for a few beats before he looked up at me. “Professor Oliver’s wife, Mary, sent me two weeks of frozen dinners.”
“Oh wow, that was sweet of her.”
He nodded once. “Yes. One of the meals is in the oven now, and she made each pan enough for more than one person.”
“Oh.” He kept staring at me, but didn’t say anything. “Graham?”
“Yes, Lucille?”
“Are you asking me to eat dinner with you tonight?”
“If you would like to, there’s enough.”

loved how awkward graham was. so the ‘grumpy’ trope did deliver i guess. but the heroine, described as a hippie that brought crystal ball everywhere and uses sage was not enough to fill the sunshine role for me

still not sure on how to feel bout this author’s writing style. torn between deep & beautiful or just dramatic & pretentiously extra :

”Graham Cracker?” I said softly, turning my body toward him, moving a few inches closer.
“Yes, Lucille?” he replied, turning more toward me.
“Every word you’ve ever written becomes my new favorite story.”

“Lucille,” I called, straightening my tie.
“A bit of advice.”
“Yes?” She wrapped her arms around her body and when she looked at me, her smile was gone, replaced by a heavy frown.
“Feel less.” I breathed out. “Don’t allow others to drive your emotions in such a way. Shut it off.”
“Shut off my feelings?”
I nodded.
“I can’t,” she argued, still crying. Her hands fell over her heart, and she shook her head back and forth. “This is who I am. I am the girl who feels everything.”
I could tell that was true. She was the girl who felt everything, and I was the man who felt nothing at all.
“Then the world will do its best to make you nothing,” I told her. “The more feelings you give, the more they’ll take from you. Trust me. Pull yourself together.”
“Doesn’t it tire you?” I asked.
“To feel so much?”
“Doesn’t it tire you to not feel at all?”
In that moment, I realized I’d come face to face with my polar opposite, and I didn’t have a clue what else to say to a stranger as strange as her.
“Goodbye, Lucille,” I said.
“Goodbye, Graham Cracker,” she replied.

‘It was all right that she and I handled things in a different fashion. She wore her heart on her sleeve, and I kept my heart wrapped in steel chains deep within my soul.
Without thought, I held her closer as her body continued to shake. The woman who felt everything leaned in closer to the man who felt nothing at all.
For a split second in time, I felt a little of her pain while she encountered my coldness, and neither one of us seemed to mind’

“Being around you does something strange to me, something that hasn’t happened in such a long time.”
“What happens?”
He took my hand in his then led it to his chest, and his next words came out as a whisper. “My heart begins to beat again.”

“Lucille?”
“Yes?”
“You make the world a lot less dark.”

“One day you’ll be happy we didn’t work out,” I promised him. “One day you’ll wake up with Talon on your left side and someone else on your right, and you’ll realize how happy you are that you and I didn’t work out.”
“One day I’m going to wake up,” he replied, his mood somber, “and it will be you lying beside me.”

Lucy lowered her voice and whispered, “If you need to fall, fall into me.”
Within seconds, gravity found me. Every sense of floating was gone, every sense of strength no longer mine. I began to descend, faster and faster, crashing down, waiting for the impact to hit, but she was there.
She was right beside me.
She caught me before I hit the ground.
She became my strength when I could no longer be brave.’

’My mouth crashed into hers, making my mind swirl as I felt her lips on mine. I felt her entire being wrapping around my soul, soaking me in, changing me into a better man than I’d ever thought I could be. I’d died a million deaths before I gave living a chance, and my first breath of life was taken from her lips.’

“Lucille?” he whispered against my neck as I snuggled myself closer to his warmth.
“Yes?”
“I don’t want it to be true, but I want to prepare you. There’s going to come a time that I let you down. I don’t want to, but I think when people love each other, they sometimes let each other down.”
“Yes,” I nodded, knowingly. “But I am strong enough to lift myself back up. There will be a day that I let you down, too.”
“Yes,” he yawned before pulling my body closer to his. “But I’m certain on those days I’ll somehow love you more.”

"She was the girl who felt everything, and I was the man who felt nothing at all."

She was the girl who felt everything, and I was the man who felt nothing at all.

Loving Lucy Hope Palmer wasn’t a choice; it was my destiny.

“It’s you,” I whispered, our lips still slightly touching. “My greatest hope is, and always will be, you.

She was my freedom, yet I was her cage.

“Lucille?” “Yes?” “You make the world a lot less dark.”

Every word you’ve ever written becomes my new favorite story.

"Just because I'm not like you doesn't mean I'm weak."

She was all over the place: flighty, random, passionate, and emotionally overcharged. It was as if she was fully aware of her faults, and she allowed them to exist regardless. Somehow those faults made her whole.

One day I'd stop being so nosey, but obviously that day wasn't today.

"If you need to fall, fall into me."

"I shouldn't be surprised by humans at all, but still, each day they tend to shock me with their lack of intelligence."

"Please excuse me, I must go someplace other than right here," Graham coldly stated.

"Just because you smile and act free doesn't mean the cage doesn't exist. It merely means you lowered your standards for how far you'll allow yourself to fly."

Talon was my savior, and I'd promised myself to be a dad to her, not merely a father. Any person could be a father. It took a real man to step up to the role of being a dad. And I owed that to her. She deserved to have me fully.

"You're a prize of a woman, rose petals in your hair and all."

"You make the world a lot less dark."

Loving Lucy Hope Palmer wasn't a choice; it was my destiny.

If love were a person, it would be her.

"My greatest hope is, and always will be, you."

There was something romantic about the way she moved throughout the world, the way she danced on her tiptoes and laughed without any regard for appearing ridiculous. There was something so true about how she held one's eye contact, and the way she smiled.

She was the girl who felt everything, and I was the man who felt nothing at all.

We weren't supposed to fall for one another, she and I. Yet it seemed gravity had a way of pulling us closer.

"It's not going to be easy. It might be very hard, and weird, and out of the norm, but I promise you, if you give me a chance, if you give us a few moments, I'll make it worth all of your time. Say okay?"

Our kiss was as if heaven and hell collided together, and each choice was right and wrong at the same exact time. We kissed as if we were making a mistake and the best decision all at once. His lips made me float higher, yet somehow descend. His breaths somehow made my heart beat faster as it came to a complete halt. Our love was everything good and bad wrapped in one kiss.

Everything in life happened for a reason, happened exactly how it was meant to, no matter how painful it seemed. Some love stories were meant to be forever, and others just for a season.

Love. The emotion that made people both soar and crash. The feeling that lit humans up and burned their hearts. The beginning and ending of every journey.

Nothing good ever came from an unexpected letter written in black ink.

Real life was a mess of words that sometimes worked, and other times didn't. Real life was an array of emotions that hardly made sense. Real life was a first draft novel with scribbles and crossed out sentences, all written in crayon. It wasn't beautiful. It came without warning. It came without ease.

Because that was the thing about hearts— when you thought they were completely full, you somehow found room to add a little more love.

"Being with someone you aren't meant to be with out of fear of being alone isn't worth it. I promise you, you'll spend your life being lonelier with him than you would being without him. Love doesn't push things away. Love doesn't suffocate. It makes the world bloom. She taught me that. She taught me how love works, and I'm certain she taught you the same."

Sometimes when your heart wanted a full-length novel, the world only gave you a novella, and sometimes when you wanted forever you only had those few seconds of now. And all I could do, all anyone could ever do, was make each moment count.

"There might be a million reasons why you think it couldn't work, but all you need is one reason why it could. That reason is love."

If only the world could feel the way our hearts beat as one, then maybe they wouldn’t be so harsh to judge our connection.

"Air above me, earth below me, fire within me, water surround me…"

She was the girl who felt everything, and I was the man who felt nothing at all.

She was the one thing off-limits, and the only thing I’d ever craved.

Heartbreak took love and mutilated it, humiliated it, scarred it. Heartbreak slowly began to freeze heartbeats that had once been so welcoming to love.

“Being around you does something strange to me, something that hasn’t happened in such a long time.”
“What happens?” He took my hand in his then led it to his chest, and his next words came out as a whisper.
“My heart begins to beat again.”