Charmed Thirds_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [111]
“We just broke up,” he said with a ragged edge to his voice.
“What a shame,” Bridget cooed, looking at me instead of him. “Why did you break up?”
“I'm not sure,” he said, his eyes drifting away. “Maybe because she's still in high school and I'm here. I'm not the one who did the breaking.”
“You're the one who's broken!” Bridget said brightly.
Kieran and I waited for her to explain why such a sad statement would bring such glee.
“You're just like Jess!”
“Okay, enough about breakups,” I said, cutting her off before she said anything more incriminating about my past with Marcus. “Let's talk about what a thrilling example you and Percy are setting for monogamy.”
“I love him,” she said, gazing at him adoringly. “So I don't sleep with anyone else. He loves me, so he doesn't sleep with anyone else. It's not too difficult.”
Sometimes Bridget and Pepe's love for each other can be so . . . annoying.
“But what about a year from now, five years from now, ten years from now?”
“Jess doesn't believe in marriage,” Bridget said, slightly off topic.
“You don't?” Kieran asked.
“Nope,” I said. “All marriages are ill-fated. The biology is boring, but humans just aren't hardwired to be with one person our whole lives.”
“You don't believe in love . . . ,” Bridget began.
“I think my girlfriend and I were in limerence, not love,” Kieran cut in.
Bridget grabbed her hair again. “Like, hello? Duh! Explain!”
“Limerence is that euphoric, almost obsessive feeling you get when you can't stand to be away from someone. It usually occurs when you first meet,” he said. “But in some relationships it can last for years. It's rare, though.”
“So limerence is mostly about lust,” Bridget said. “Love is deeper.”
“But how deep is it really?” I asked. “When most relationships go bust?”
“Oh, not this again,” Bridget groaned.
“So you think people should just jump from person to person, from limerent state to limerent state,” Kieran said with an amused lilt to his voice.
“I didn't say that,” I replied, a bit boozy myself, and woozy with words.
“Then what are you saying?”
“Do you really think that people are capable of loving only one person?” I asked.
“One,” Bridget answered softly, almost reverentially. “If you're lucky.”
I barely considered this before pressing on, dismissing her loyalty for Pepe as an anomaly, a glorious exception to the disappointing rules of romance.
“Well, I think it's possible to love someone and still be curious about someone else. And I think you should be able to act on that impulse without impunity. But in our society, where monogamy rules despite all the evidence that it doesn't work, a person is demonized for wanting to break from that traditional model of relationships. I think you can love someone, truly love someone, and still be drawn to someone else. Enough to want to kiss that other person, just to see what it would be like. Or maybe to help confirm that what you've got is better than what else is out there. Because isn't the desire alone a form of betrayal? So what further harm does it do to put those thoughts into action? Ideally, you would be able just to go back to the person you love after you've kissed that other person and discovered it wasn't as interesting as you thought it would be, which I would imagine would be the case most of the time. And in the event that it is unexpectedly amazing, isn't it better to have experienced that moment of bliss rather than imagine what it could have been like?”
I stopped talking because it was all getting too personal. Bridget's mouth was pinched shut. Kieran's hinted at a smile.
“J wants to be a swinger,” ALF said, apparently having eavesdropped on my diatribe.
“She's very polyamorous,” Pepe said, slapping him on his furry back. Percy was ALF's new best friend.
“You should move to Japan, where hardly any women want to marry,” suggested Kazuko, setting down a brown bag full of beer. “But I don't think they're having much sex, either.”
“And we all know how much J loves cock,” ALF joked.