brooke hargett's blog

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There’s this great line in “Silver Lining’s Playbook.”  Well, there’s a lot of great lines in it, but one of them really stood out to me.  It’s the part where Tiffany, is trying to get Pat to make come kind of connection with her for this dance they are doing. He isn’t into it. Finally, she tells him to walk towards her as if she’s Nikki, (his wife he’s trying to win back). He doesn’t go for it at first, but when he finally does, there’s this electric moment where you can feel the connection between them. When he stops only inches from her, she says,

“Now, THAT’S emotion.”

I love that line.  Emotion is my favorite element of  any story.  I love situations that are emotionally charged and have complex characters. Today I decided to write an emotionally charged moment. (The following is fiction, random, and not connected to any books I’m writing.)

 

He stared at the wedding ring curled around his finger, unblinking. The incriminating words clung to his lips, threatening to jump.

“I never meant for anything to happen.” Even as he said it, hoping for some sense of relief in unburdening, he hated himself. “You know I love you.”

At least those words were true. There was no denying their connection. They way she could fit in the crook of his arm, the way he made her laugh, how the sight of her made him come undone, like it was the first time.

He blinked, forcing the images from his mind, as the unfamiliar hazel eyes from hours earlier skittered through his line of thinking. Tendrils of light perfume lingered. He didn’t know her name, which both ashamed and relieved him.  In a haze fueled by alcohol he’d dulled himself to everything except those hazel eyes.

“It didn’t mean anything.”

At the silence, he hunched over, the guilt swallowing him, making it hard to get air. His eyes burned, and he wasn’t sure if tears would make it better or worse.  Either way, they wouldn’t change the facts.

He wanted to go back to when they first met, when things weren’t complicated, when the summers were lazy, and the nights were long.  He wanted to see the way her nose would crinkle when she was trying to be serious, and he wasn’t. He would give anything to run his hands through her hair, gentle at first, and then bolder with intensity. He missed the ripple of her laugh.  It had been so long since he’d heard it. He wasn’t even sure he remembered what her laugh sounded like anymore.

It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t. He fell to his knees, the wet dirt seeping in, as the rain mixed with tears.

He placed his shaking hand on the cold, slick grave.

His fingers trailed across the indentation, stringing together the words, in loving memory. 

“You know I love you,” he said again, the sentence catching in his throat.  “I’ll always love you.”

I hope you got sucked in.

Brooke