Leaps // Naomi & Matthias
This was far from the first time Matthias had let his heart leap before his mind advised it; he'd been doing it for years. Ninety of them, in fact, if Rosie could be counted at all at such a young age. He'd been only four, and her only six, but he'd clung to her and her scraps of affection like the smell of varnish on his father's waistcoat; always present, yet never entirely noticed until absent. She had tolerated him at best, picked on him at worst, yet he had barely batted an eyelid, staying by her heel like a lapdog until her father heard him. "Where were you born, boy?"
"Germany, sir!"
"And your parents?" "Poland, sir!" And suddenly she was kept from him, not allowed, forbidden from going near the boy with the strange accent. Matthias forgot her easily, in the way that small boys do, remembering only at his parent's reminding many years later, when he was old enough to laugh fondly at the ridiculous notion. With age it became more difficult to forget, despite Macha's assurances that all of this would fade in time. He recalled his fiancée far more vividly with each passing day, resplendent in all her beauty; not as he'd last seen her, broken and gaunt with no life in her cheeks. The memory, forever perfect in his mind, of him stealing a kiss from her in the rain as she greeted him at the gates of her school, and of every kiss after that, sparking something that he'd never felt before. At the time, he'd never expected to feel it again with anyone else. At the time he'd never thought he'd have to, thought he'd be kissing her forever at every chance he'd get. His youth knew little of the world. Countless others filled the gap. Women he swore he'd spend a life with from every country in Europe. Circumstances dictated otherwise each time, through accidents, painful both mentally and physically, or quite simply not working out. Each time he moved on, each time it was less difficult to overcome than the previous. Each time he remembered them long after, and remembers them still.
Auguste became a first in a long time. The first to change Matthias's view on who was right to love. The first to spark up that something yet again, that something he wasn't sure he'd ever have again. The first to truly break him when all was lost. Also the first to drive him across the pond. Now he'd let himself do it again. And yet again his heart had to torture him for not listening, for not being more careful, for not giving himself more time. As he lay on his sheets, eyes shut against their glaring white that juxtaposed his dark mood, he ran through all of them in his mind. Recollecting each mistake he'd made, each time he'd lost them for whatever reason. Sobbing in a way that would have shamed him if there was anyone to see, deaf, dumb and blind to his surrounds, he punished himself for once more letting his heart leap before his mind advised it.