The Gravity of Love (4 page)

"So what would it be saying for my
teaching if instead of Abram Jones falling asleep in half of my classes and me
scolding him...that I just join him today?" Marty asked.

Harrison smirked. "You realize you're
talking to your boss, right?"

"Actually, I was talking to Molly
you just happen to be standing here."

"...you realize you're still talking
to your boss, Miss Disrespect?" He teased.

She stuck her tongue out at him, then peered
in to her bag, praying she had remembered all her books that she'd need today.
They were there, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

Molly was pulling back curls back in to a
low pony tail, not having time to do it before. "No one come to my room
for lunch today I'm going to be skipping food and sleeping in."

Marty grinned, her weary eyes brightening a
little. "Yes...lunch period. I think I'll do the same."

But it was Harrison's eyes that glowed the
most when his mischievous grin appeared upon his pale lips. Flashing this look
over to Molly, he started to run to his office.

"I hate that man." Molly said
with a grimace. "He can go back there and fall asleep in his sofa and
overstuffed leather chairs and not get in trouble for it, thanks to him being a
light sleeper and every one liking him. But us? No, we can't. We actually have
to do our jobs."

"Look at it this way," Marty said
as they turned the corner, nearing their class rooms. "Christmas break is
only sixty or seventy something days away."

Molly frowned. "Was that supposed to
be comforting? Because it sucked."

This earned a laugh from Marty until she
fell against the wall and closed her eyes for a moment.

_______________________________________________________________________

Sleep. Oh, the joys of blissful sleep!
Molly was enjoying her world of dark and her mind of fog that she had just
entered, when there was a sharp knock on the door.

Gasping, she sat straight up, her chair
almost unsettling as she wiped the side of her mouth with her shirt sleeve.
Blinking a few times against the harsh light of reality, she saw the last
person she would want to see at a moment like this Candice Greybill. Taking a
breath, Molly decided dealing with it quickly would let her get back to sleep
sooner, so she plunged ahead. "Yes Candice?"

"I...I just wanted to talk to you for
a few minutes. But if you're...uh...busy? Then I'll just let it go."

Molly shook her head. "No, no by all
means, come on in."

Candice did so, walking up to her desk and
planting her hands flat upon it., her face just a foot measurement or so away.

"Well, you know, of course, that
Harrison Redford and I are finally going out. Well, I don't know if he really
ever talks to you, so I thought I'd stop by and ask if it's okay with
you."

Molly's temper soared inside her. Her
calmness came from the wisdom of knowing that Candice was only trying to get
her goat, and hell if she'd get it.

Though it did anger her to no end to let
Candice say that she and Harrison were hardly close.

She shrugged it off. "Harrison and I
are only friends. Why would I mind?"

Candice pressed on. "Why, everyone
knows that you have been in love with him for years. It's very obvious. It
always has been. So logic had me thinking that this might hurt you, seeing that
Harrison can be very blind to your feelings when it comes to attractive
women."

Molly wished that Marty was here. She had a
way of calming the storm of fury in her, even when her resistance was failing.
But she had told Marty to not come today, and she could hardly excuse herself
from Candice to go scream her frustrations out to Marty. She could do it on her
own anyway.

Swallowing the Scottish temper, she
plastered the fakest smile upon her lips. "When it comes to me, he's never
blind." She lied.

"Oh...so he just ignores your
intentions then?"

"On the contrary I ignore his.
Didn't you hear the other day? The rumors spread around?"

"Yes, I did. But then he dated me he
claimed that the kids just took a simple joke the wrong way."

"He'll claim that he's Zeus's son Hercules
if that'll get him a girl. We didn't want the rumors to keep going around
it's bad for our reputations." As soon as the words fled from her mouth,
she inwardly grimaced. There she went again painting colorful lies to save
face. A sneaky, evil voice in the back of her head told her that it was all
Harrison's fault for dating the snobbiest, bratty woman he could find within
the state. After all, how can he possibly ask her to behave when his own
girlfriend was doing this to her? He should know her better than to expect
more. Just as she knew better to expect him to stop doing idiotic acts that
landed him and Josiah in jail. But looking Candice over again, she realized how
attractive this woman was, and worried that Harrison would think of that before
thinking of what she had done.

"I agree with you. I suppose dating
you here would be bad for his reputation." She said, her words laced with
poison of a snake's. With a flash of a bright smile, she spun on her heel and
walked out of the classroom, sure to give Harrison an ear full.

_______________________________________________________________________

"Why Molls, why?" Harrison said
in complaint as he slid in to the blue Jetta.

She bit her lip, looking over her shoulder at
Marty, who was suddenly wide awake and looking very interested.

"Why Molls why what?" She asked
eagerly.

"I'm assuming you're talking about
Candy Grey?" Molly asked.

"Hell yeah I am. Why do you always get
my girlfriends upset so they rattle off in my ear for hours? Hours,
Radcliffe!"

She shrugged. "Maybe you should offer
them more security. I can't help it if their jealous of me for being you best
friend and then they want to attack me. You know how it works someone attacks
me, I attack them verbally, of course. You can't blame me for what you got
today you blame her."

Harrison looked at her, tilting his head in
patience. "She thinks I'm chasing you romantically, and the only reason
why I'm dating her is because you won't say yes it's as bad as the
kids!"

Molly smiled sweetly, patting his cheek.
"It's okay Harry, you don't have to pretend anymore. Admit it. Admit that
what she said is right and that you're wild about me, but you can't have me and
that so deeply upsets you. To the point where you have to go around dating all
these other woman to replace the feelings you have for me but none measure up
to the greatness that is me. Admit it, Harrison, because I can't help it."
She teased, then kissed his cheek and batted her eyelashes.

He groaned, throwing his head back to stare
at the ceiling. "Just drive."

"You know, you could have just driven
home with her why are you in my car and not your girlfriend's car?"

"She might be on to something
here..." Marty said, keeping up the joke. "Maybe you should admit it,
Harry."

Harrison whipped around, sticking his index
finger just inches from her nose. "Only, and I mean only, can Molly call
me that. No one else. And yes, that includes you, Marty."

They couldn't resist. In unison, they said,
"Can Candy Grey call you Harry?"

He didn't bother to tell them no. Just
groaned again and reached for the door handle. "Walking the ten miles is
better than this." He said, tugging on the metal.

She grabbed his shoulder and sat him back
down. "Alright, no more teasing. Just handle that woman and don't let her
come after me. I won't put up with that and you know it."

He nodded. "I know, and you shouldn't
have to. We'll solve it. I'll solve it."

Both of them, satisfied with that
conclusion, stopped the conversation and started a new one, this time with
music added and the road moving beneath them.

_______________________________________________________________________

Molly stared in frustration at her stack of
bills and her checkbook that was growing less and less. Groaning, she ran her
hand through her curly hair. The nagging voice that was always in the back of
her head at times like these had returned. Churning her mind and making her
think of 'what could have been'. What she could be doing right now if she had
taken the path she had wanted.

Ten years ago, at the ripe age of eighteen,
she had been accepted to Yale. It had been her dream come true. She could
hardly breath for days after that acceptance letter had reached her hands,
which was where it stayed for over a week. She wouldn't put it down it went
everywhere with her. She even clenched it in her hand when she finally passed
out from exhaustion, due to the excitement of planning throughout that day.

Yale. It was hard to get better than that.
And it had been all that she had ever worked for. That letter was proof that
she could make even her most wildest dreams to come true.

But then, just as she was packing her bags
in to her economy car, her world tilted on its axis. Her father had suffered
through a devastating heart attack that took away so much even his own voice.
As quickly as those bags had been put in her car, they were taken out. She had
made some quick, tearful phone calls that sent her rejection to her dream life,
then moved back in to her parents' home to help take care of her father.
Meanwhile, she went to a community college that granted her a teaching license
after she had put her four years in. Four years that were supposed to be the
beginning of her training as a lawyer.

But she told herself she was happy. Because
she had to be. Because she'd never leave her father at his time of need. And
with help from her, he did get better and he did regain his voice.

And thanks to Harrison, she didn't have to
go to a bad city school the only ones that she had been getting accepted to.
He had gotten her in to a good high school in her desired position. After all,
he could sympathize he had a little brother who had gotten sick and prevented
things from happening too. Only Harrison had no big dreams. But he did have
brains. He had been accepted in to Harvard one up on her. All through school
they had placed bets and went against each other to see who could do better on
everything tests, pop quizzes, homework. It had been great, but Harrison had
won. He applied for Harvard and Yale just like she did but not because he
wanted it, but just to put a finale on for their years of competition. He had
gotten in to Harvard, and he had left it for the military. Which made Molly
frustrated and scared at the time for turning down something that she hadn't
achieved and for him possibly dying before coming home. But she had gotten over
both and soon beamed in pride for him. He had come back a man not an aimless
boy that he had once been. It had made all the difference and she loved him for
it. But then his brother had grown ill and everything that been taught to him
from the military was dead. He regressed to the reckless, irresponsible boy she
knew and threw his golden opportunity away. As someone who had been forced to from
personal happenings, she had been angered once again by his actions.
Supposedly, she still was angry after seeing the man he was and the man he
could have been. Not angry at him, but at cruel life's circumstances. His
father had always wanted him to take over the business of running the school
Harrison's great great grandfather had run the whole school on his own once
had been the principal and the main teacher of three. He had bought the school
later on and passed it down and it landed in Harrison's unwanting hands. It
was a job that insulted his brains that could have done much more he had said
it often and Molly had always agreed. But he stopped thinking that way and
ended up right there, where he had spent his whole life running away from.

But it wasn't all bad. At least he had
given her a good job. It had also made her leave home for the first time. The
school teetered on the edge of Nevada and California, where as they had been
living up in Vermont.

It was a home of beautiful memories. Memories
of when things were happy and simple and the biggest concern of theirs was
where they would meet each other after school.

She had loved his mother. The dearest woman
that had ever lived, she was sure. Because her own was a workaholic like
Molly's father. And since she had two parents hardly ever there, Harrison's
mother had taken over. Molly even had her own room in the Redford home. And she
loved the Redford mother as much as her own parents.

But that was Vermont. Harrison's father,
separated from their mother, lived in Nevada and worked as the owner and the
principal of their school. Molly had followed Harrison there as soon as her
father was back in to health and they were pushing her out with force.

Harrison had been wonderful. Besides the job,
he had gotten her an apartment that was directly below him. Had a woman he knew
from school that taught history to make friends with her and show her around
the new city when he couldn't. He had set up her entire life all she needed
was to follow it. Originally, their pact was that it would be only temporarily.
She'd retake a test or two, fill out a few applications, and she'd send them
all to Yale and Harvard and get in to pick up her life again. But she had
gotten comfortable in her laid back ways. She had taken a test and gotten a low
grade. She had applied only once for Harvard and Yale. And she had gotten
negative replies for both. Her spirit, hardly in it anymore, gave up easily. At
the time, she had been comfortable with the life Harrison had set up, and ended
up making it permanent.