The crests of every relationship, Sallie figured, were always followed by troughs (and crests again, if you had the patience—which she didn’t). She imagined their attraction turning to repulsion, just like that between a pith ball and a like-charged rod.

My God, she thought. Would I polarize him?

She thought of all the work that it would take to maintain equilibrium. She had only so much potential energy to give.

Would it be enough?

Meanwhile, James was having thoughts parallel to Sallie’s. The look in her eyes had given him a shock. He started to wonder if their “going out” would reduce to zero everything they had. Friendship had long been the basic element of their relationship. Now, both of them contemplated change. Yes, as Lenz had observed, change can turn on the source that created it, creating a force opposite to the best intentions.

James knew that the road to a simple harmonic relationship would be a hard one to follow. The critical point could only be reached through the passing of three states, each one causing a change in speed and the refraction toward or away from the norm.

And James seriously doubted that he and Sallie had the chemistry—or, in this case, physics—to make it.

If it is to be assumed that Newton was correct (as is the general consensus), to every action there is always opposed an equal action. That is to say that love always goes against a certain gradient. Sometimes risk. Sometimes popular opinion. In this case, regret.

Yes, James feared that liking Sallie would lead him to regret. He would regret liking her in the first place. He would regret breaking off their friendship. He would regret it when, after the statistically assured breakup, they would avoid each other like oil and water.

James did not want Sallie’s and his friendship to consist of meetings between classes and periodic waves in the halls. He knew that if their lives had to revolve around each other, they’d grow bored (not to mention dizzy). The damage would be done—the recoil irreparable.

After the initial impulse, James wondered, would the momentum remain constant?

Sallie’s doubts were only reinforced by her textbook. It defined a “couple” as “two forces on a body of equal magnitude and opposite direction, having lines of action that are parallel but do not coincide.”

Would we ever intersect? she asked herself.

She feared fusion would only bring fission, with the mass deficits too great and the energy spent too consuming to make the romantic endeavor worthwhile.

James, having a larger surface and cross-sectional area than Sallie, was worried about the strain that would possibly put a damper on their combined molecular activity. He calculated that as the length of their involvement grew, so would the tensile strain.

He also feared the work that would be needed when he and Sallie wouldn’t be together. Using W = Fd as his guideline, James figured out the work that it would take to keep their relationship at a constant force when he and Sallie were more than a mile apart. Furthermore, if he wanted to reduce the force (and, therefore, the work), he would have to slow down love’s acceleration by massive proportions.

With a girl like Sallie, a constant velocity with little to no acceleration would not be acceptable (or so James thought).

And yet a velocity increase would require an energy increase. Energy that James would find hard to muster up in this, his hardest year in high school.

Even simple harmonic motion, that romantic-sounding phenomenon, said that acceleration was proportional to negative displacement, which was not an encouraging thought.

Would we lapse into inertia without constant acceleration, requiring a larger force? James asked himself.

Even batteries would be sources of potential difference, thought Sallie.

I don’t even know if she’s a conductor or an insulator of emotion, James realized.

Boyle’s law soon served as Sallie’s guide.

According to Boyle, if the velocity of their affair decreased, the pressure would increase proportionally. Sallie was not prepared for this. Her heart had only a certain capacity for crisis.

Finishing her calculations, Sallie finally computed that the stress and strain of a romantic bond with James would be merely a waste of power, damaging the caring she had for him in the past.

She did not want the universe’s ever-growing entropy to interfere with her love life.

And thus, James drifted out of the focus of Sallie Brown’s affections.

And, in an action so simultaneous that many scientific minds would have been baffled, James Helprin took Sallie out of his romantic-life equation. He knew the friction of a merging of their hearts wouldn’t be beneficial. It would be theoretically and realistically wrong.

The next time they found themselves looking at each other, James and Sallie both smiled.

In the end, friendship was proven to be the dominant force. The head and the heart were found to be the joint sources of true romance.

It has been demonstrated.

WHAT A SONG CAN DO

If I didn’t have music, I don’t know

if I could ever be truly happy.

Happiness is music to me. Like when

I am in Caleb’s room, playing

my guitar for him, watching him

close his eyes to listen and knowing

he understands what I am

singing. That is all I need

to make a room full of happiness—

two boys, one love, and a song.

I think the reason my parents wanted me

to play classical music was because

it didn’t have any words. They would keep me

as a sound, not a voice. But I had

other ideas. I blew off the recorder,

did not bow to the violin, benched the piano, saved

up for a guitar. Then I used it to write

love songs for boys, and sad songs for love.

I sang myself to find myself

in a language far from my parents’

expectations. I taught myself the strings,

the chords, the fretting. But I did not

have to teach myself the words.

They’d always been there, notes to myself,

waiting for the music to bring them out.

All I had to do was recognize the possible

music and the songs were everywhere.

It is not something I have control over,

no more than I can control the sights

that appear before my eyes. I will be staring off

in class, barely hearing the echo of

my teacher’s words, when suddenly

a verse will arrive free-form in my thoughts.

when I look out a window

I wish for you on the other side

even if you’re not there

I can see you in the clouds

As I transcribe the words in my notebook,

I can hear the sound of it in my head.

Many teachers have caught me strumming

an imaginary guitar, trying to find the chords

before they vanish with the next thought.

The first time I went out with Caleb,

this happened to me. We were talking

in the park, having a conversation that lasted

the afternoon and the evening,

finding all of our common coincidences,

baring some of our unfortunate quirks.

At one point he went to get us sodas,

leaving me with my thoughts and the trees.

I was elated to have found someone

who could be both interested and interesting.

My thoughts revealed themselves

in the terms of a song.

you could be

the leaf that never falls from the tree

you could be

the sun that never leaves the sky

this might be

the happy ending without the ending

this might be

a reason to try

When he returned to me, he had two bottles

in his hands, and I was making furious leaps

into my notebook, playing the ghost guitar

and singing solos to the birds around me.

I apologized, embarrassed to be caught

showing myself so early, but he said

it was charming, then asked me if I needed time

to finish my refrain. Perhaps it was because he said

something so perfect, or perhaps it was because

the song made me brave, but I asked him

if he wanted to hear it, and when he said yes,

I sang to him, accompanied only by

the guitar in my head and the beat

of my heart. When I was done, there was

a moment of absolute silence, and I felt

like the ground had been pulled out from under me

and I was about to fall far. But then the ground

came back, as he told me it was wonderful,

as he asked me to sing it to him again.

It is a sad fact of our present times

that it’s nearly impossible to turn on the radio

and hear a g*y boy with a guitar.

Where are the indigo boys, to show me the way?

Caleb teases me, because while

he has a g*y music collection—pop queens

and piano boys—I am, he insists, a closet

lesbian. So I play him some Dylan, some Joni,

some Nick Drake, and I tell him there is

room for me to sing about the two of us

tangled up in blue under a pink pink pink

pink moon. Music, like love,

cannot be defined, except

in the broadest of senses.

My father complains, my mother stays silent.

My father says it’s not the music he minds,

but that I play it so loud. They want me

to sing in the basement, but I can’t think

with the laundry and the cobwebs—

down there, all my songs begin to have

pipes. So I become a bedroom Cinderella

on a tighter deadline, allowed to sing loud

until the hour-hand tips the ten. Then I strum

softly, sing in a whisper.

I think they would like the songs better

if I left out the names, or changed

the pronouns.

No more danger.

Time’s a stranger.

When I’m in his arms.

In his arms.

He could break me.

But instead he wakes me.

When I’m in his arms.

In his arms.

I am not the first person

to avoid the second person.

But I am certainly the first person

to do it in my house.

I never thought I would end up with

someone who wasn’t possessed

by music in the same way I am.

I imagined a relationship of duets,

of you play me yours and I’ll

play you mine. Caleb doesn’t

even listen to the music I like. He dances

instead, frees himself that way

while I prefer the quieter corners,

the blank pages. Part of my music

is being alone, having that time

to shut down all the other noises

to hear the tune underneath.

Sometimes I retreat when he

wants me most. Sometimes

he wants me most when I

retreat. I will let the phone ring,

let the IM blink, and he will know

that I am there, not realizing I am

also in another place. I still sing him

songs before I am ready, sing him

back the moments he has missed.

as if to say, this is where I was

when you couldn’t find me.

The sound of my voice means

I have returned to him, ready

for a different kind of duet,

that delicate, serendipitous pairing

of listened and sung. He accepts that,

and wants more.

black ink

falls on the blue lines

spelling out silences

harboring words

you think

my love’s not the true kind

unanswering questions

do not disturb

but I’m not leaving you

when I leave you

I’m not forgetting

that we’re getting somewhere

I’m just trying

to figure my part of this

my place in the world

with you standing there

with you standing there…

Our local coffee hangout decides to throw

a weekly open mic night. I decide to go

as a member of the audience, unsure

about playing in a town that knows me

unwell. A local band snarls through

Tags: David Levithan Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net