On Matt and Kevin

A flood of words. I am so excited about this project. It's me spilling my inner most thoughts out on paper in the mouths of my two most favorite characters.

An excerpt:

“Give me an example of someone loving someone who’s fucked them over.” This is the question I posed to him one afternoon before we were dating. He was sitting on the floor of my living room, history book open in his lap. I was behind him, in a similar position of studying. I rapped him on the head with my highlighter as I posed this question.
“Woah. Where is this coming from?” he asked, turning half around. We’d been reading quietly for almost an hour.
I backed off a little from the vehemence accompanying the initial question. “I was just thinking.”
He nodded, accepting this as a completely legitimate answer. He thought for a moment, running a hand back through his hair (he does this all the time…). He pushed his book onto the carpet, and turned completely around, facing me, folding hs arms on the cushion of the couch.
“Jesus,” he answered after a moment.
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“Ok, how about we pick someone who existed,” I said, scooting away from him, leaning against the back of the couch, pulling one knee up to my chest.
“No, just think about this for a moment,” he said, leaning forward. “Ok, you’re just chilling, living your life, and all of a sudden, people are plotting to kill you. They arrest you, unjustly at that, torture you, and execute you. But you still love them.”
I hugged my knee to my chest. “That doesn’t happen.”
He tilted his head to the side. “But it did.”
I sighed, looking up at the ceiling. “I hate it when you preach at me.”
He pulled himself up off the floor, and sat beside me, one hand suddenly on my shoulder. “I’m not trying to. That’s just where my mind automatically goes.”
I wasn’t looking at him, eyes forced onto the floor. He squeezed my shoulder, and I almost swallowed my tongue.
“How did your mind get there?” he asked.
“Fucking Bible class.”
“Oh, yeah? The “Love Your Enemies” paper?”
“That would be it.”
“Why’s it seem so backwards to you?”
“Ok, how is it not backwards? You love people who love you, and hate people who hate you. That’s how life functions.”
“But that’s so easy. Think about it: you have to put forth absolutely no effort to like people who like you. But not everyone’s going to like you. And if you can love someone who’s not to fond of you, that’s going to completely blow them out of the water.”
“But that’s…”
“Hard? Uncomfortable? Terrifying?”
“Basically.”
He suddenly smiled. “Love it. You’ve got to throw people off guard, make them question, allow them to see the difference in your heart. That’s how change happens.”

I sat in stunned silence, letting his words infiltrate my mind.