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The first time they meet, she is small; so so small, a speck floating in the primordial atmosphere. He isn’t much bigger, but he still feels as if he could engulf her small form. They glow, all of them, like stars filling the liquid sky up to the brim. He watches her dream, and finds himself glued to her despite all the others pressing up against them. He can feel her heat radiating onto him, and he swears that for a moment he has a thought. This must be what consciousness feels like.
The second time they meet, they are children. They look up at the huge wall before them, and he takes an audible gulp. She tugs him forward, urging him to get it over with because she doesn’t want to be here any more than he does. She and his other comrade step back and he squeezes his shaky hands into fists until his knuckles are white and his stubby nails are threatening to break the skin of his hands. The next few hours are a blur, and he wakes up to see utter destruction. There are people screaming things he can’t understand, screaming names he does not know. There is running, and there is shouting, and there is pushing. The metallic smell of blood is overwhelming. He sees the bodies and hears the cries, and he crumbles. He doesn’t want to do this anymore.
The fifth time they meet, her hair is golden again. She wears rich colors that contrast her pale skin, the fabric folding and swooping in intricate designs between pearl embellishments and diamond accents. They have been destined to be together for eternity, ever since they were small. They entwine their fingers together across the gap of their throwns, and the small display of affection satisfies their parents. She does not love him. He knows she does not love him. He rubs the back of her small hand with his thumb, and she smiles up at him. It is a cold, stiff smile. Her eyes only seem to regain life when her chambermaid enters the hall, pitch black hair falling onto her face as she whispers something into his wife’s ear. She gives her maid a smile, a genuine smile, and he knows who the real owner of her heart is.
The sixth time around, she is five years younger than him. He stands at the front of the classroom, chalk in hand, as he spoon feeds information to thirty bored teenagers. It’s his first year teaching, and he’s trying his hardest not to let his hand shake as he writes the last few words of the poem in scratchy handwriting. He finishes his lecture on Poe with only minor distractions, and lets out a sigh of relief as the last bell of the day rings. He sits at his desk and tugs on the collar of his dress shirt as his pupils file out of the room. He shuffles papers, loosens his tie, and looks up at the girl before him. She leans against his desk, her uniform blouse unbuttoned at the top to show off the tshirt she wore under it. She raises a hand to remove his glasses for him, before letting them hang on the neckline of said tshirt. She twirls the sucker in her mouth before taking it out and popping it into his. He could be fired if someone found out about their relationship. She’s a year away from twenty and too busy having fun to care about consequences, and he’s too in love with her to stop it.
The eighth time they meet, she is not married. She is royalty again, just not married. He thinks that the regal life suits her to some extent. He watches her address the angry crowd of Frenchmen from atop her balcony. He is shouting with the group of rioters, his clothes dirty and sticking to his bronze skin no thanks to the merciless sun. She looks down at her people revolting, a small scowl glazing her sharp features. She sees livestock; bodies. He swears she’d take his breath away if he didn’t want to hang her right now. She turns to her public speaker and then back towards the crowd. She is looking down at him, her eyes piercing his like predatory claws. Then, in a voice loud enough to be heard over the crowd’s shouts and curses, she makes it clear who she is. “Let them eat cake.”
She’s the one in a crowd the tenth time they meet. She watches his head bob up and down, his fingers played across the bass and plucking the chords like it was his job. Well, it was. The music pounds into her like a jackhammer, reverberating through her spine and up her ribs and out her finger tips. She jumps along with the other bodies, mouthing the words to the chorus because she lost her voice screaming out lyrics two songs ago. After the show, she catches up with him, and she notices he looks much taller in person. His dyed hair sticks to his forehead and his arms are on display for everyone to see through the ripped sides of his shirt, long and toned. She asks him to autograph her CD and strikes up a conversation, desperately trying to keep him with her as long as possible before he boards the band bus and rides off to the next show. His eyes are shy and he smiles as she goes on about how she loves his music, and before he knows what he’s doing he writes his personal number on the CD case and hands it back to her.
She does not love him for the next few lifetimes after that, not until the fifteenth. She is falling this time, quite literally falling from atop the tightrope. He swings down just in time to catch her, the back of his knees hooked on the yellow swing as he throws her into the air again and she lands perfectly on her own swing. Now it’s his turn to fall. He lets go of the swing and feels his heart pound against his other organs and adrenaline seeps into the crevices of his body. She catches him by the arm and thows him back up, and he flips twice before landing on his swing. The circus tent fills with cheers and he glances down at all the smiling faces for a split second, not daring to look any longer for fear of getting dizzy. They are human birds in this life, acrobats. She jumps into the air and he does so as well, catching her fingers midair and letting them cage around each other. His stomach is a butterfly habitat as they freefall down towards the safety netting, and the way she’s smiling at him makes him think that even if they miss the net, and the cold ground hitting his body and cracking his bones like toothpicks is the last thing he feels, he’d still fly with her in the afterlife. They miss the net.
The nineteenth time is his least favorite. They are blindfolded and binded, kneeling down into the hard gravel. He winces as he feels the barrel of the gun press up against the nape of his neck, cold metal meeting hot flesh. She kneels next to him, the taste of her own blood on her lips and her nose bruised and very likely broken. She told him they shouldn’t have stuck around in that town, told him that everyday they were closer to being caught. The dry desert air cracked her skin and she was glad she was blindfolded because she was almost certain he was crying. They were read aloud their charges as she heard the safety of the gun against her head click. Robbery. Possession of stolen goods. Evasion of the law. Disrupting the peace. Shooting in a saloon, endangering the public. Murder. The list of their crimes did not stop there, but the sheriff didn’t know that. She reached her hands over towards his, taking one of his hot sweaty palms in her own. It was uncomfortable and awkward, but she didn’t care. She knew their luck would run out one day, she just wished it hadn’t been on her birthday.
The twenty first time, they are dancing. The audience is quiet as their bodies sway and curve, fluid motions and swift movements. Her feet are killing her, every twirl and toe point sending pain up the lace ribbons of her ballet slippers and into her body. Still, she endures it to be at his side. He moves with her effortlessly, like dancing with her was second nature to him. He pulls her in close for a second, and she feels their chests mold against each other. He smells like vanilla and sweat, and she wishes that he would crush the life out of her right then and there just to stop her heart from beating so harshly. He lets go of her after the dance ends, and they both take a bow as the audience claps and roses are thrown to them on stage. They are breathing hard and beyond exhausted by the time they make it backstage, and already their stylists and makeup teams are prepping them for the next show. She wants to tell him that she loves him, that he when they dance together nothing else in the world matters, that she’s second guessed herself all her life but he is the one thing she is sure about, but just as she opens her mouth, he turns to her. He tells her how good she was tonight, and she can see the love in his eyes, the type of platonic love one gives to a sister or a pet. Not a lover. His partner suddenly comes up behind him and lifts him off the ground, muscles rippling around his waist and laughing deeply. He is not hers to call her own. She watches as he gives the other a soft kiss on his short blonde hair, one full of love and genuine affection. And she smiles, and she bites her tongue, like she has so many times before.
The twenty fifth time feels so familiar. They are wrapped around each other, his head nuzzled into the crook of her neck and her arms wrapped lazily on his shoulders. The bunks are quiet, the rest of the trainees already fast asleep. He shouldn’t be in the girls cabin this late at night, but she snuck him in anyways and threatened to murder someone if one of the girls said a word. She feels vulnerable in his grip, and it’s strangely comforting. She’s wearing his uniform jacket and tugs it closer to herself. He still smells like sweat in this life, but with a hint of grass instead of vanilla. The moonlight kisses his sleeping features and she decides that chocolate is her favorite color because the way his hair looks right now is amazing. The quiet of the cabin becomes aching, and she feels sleep slowly reaching for her. They always end up back at this life.