When I was a little kid I got a gyroscope for Christmas. The packaging said it was a “magic levitating” gyroscope, and once you got the gyroscope spinning between the two magnets you could carefully remove the base and for a couple of seconds it would magically levitate. For an eleven year old boy at Christmas, this was only fascinating enough to hold my attention for about a minute, and soon the gyroscope was forgotten, overshadowed by the bigger and better presents.

I haven’t thought about that gyroscope since I was a kid, but I’m thinking about it today. I wait until Myra disappears into the gas station to pay before putting my forehead against the steering wheel and screaming as loud as I can. I fill my lungs again, once, twice, three times, and I slowly raise my eyes and watch the color come back to my knuckles as my grip loosens on the wheel. After hovering in the air for a couple seconds, the gyroscope always succumbs to the pull of gravity at some point and comes crashing back down on the table.

 
A couple months after we broke up Myra and I got drunk at a party and hooked up in the back of her car. She was beautiful that night, vivacious, and when I woke up the next morning I could still feel the electricity on my skin. We never talked about it after that, but that night the alcohol had upset the delicate balance that was both holding me together and pulling me apart.

Fifty percent of the cells in my body are huge Myra fans. They love being around her, they love her smell, they love her laugh, her taste, her energy. They love how her body is one long serpentine curve. They love how she gets jokes that other people don’t. They love how smart she is. They love how dangerous she is. When Myra walks into the room, these are the cells that make me want to discreetly check myself in the nearest reflective surface, and they’re the cells that try to make my body jump up and run, slow motion, arms wide open, across the room to her.

My body doesn’t jump up and run, however, because the other fifty percent of the cells in my body are firmly anti-Myra. They hate her passionately. These are the cells that remember crying with the shower running, they remember waking up and feeling the cold spot in the bed where Myra should have been, they remember laying in the dirt under the fallen tree. These cells are holding a grudge, and when Myra walks into the room these cells try to get my body to run for the door on the opposite side of the room.

When Myra walks into the room, civil war erupts. It’s neighbor against neighbor, brother against brother, a colossal tug of war and I am the rope. But Myra never sees the tug of war. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen someone simultaneously running towards something while also running away from it, but to the outside observer the result looks strangely cool and collected. Looking back on it now, I really don’t know why I agreed to come on this trip with Myra. All I want out of this life is a little love and a little adventure, and at the time I guess I thought this might be an adventure. Fifty percent of my cells were probably also rooting for a little love, perhaps aided by our old ally, Mr. Booze.

I glance up to see Myra coming out of the gas station. I quickly get the gyroscope spinning again, with half of me pulling down while the other half pulls up. She smiles at me as she slides into the passenger seat, and it is then that I see that she is also carrying a case of beer. The gyroscope falters slightly as the pro-Myra cells let out a little war whoop, but all Myra sees is a body looking over it’s shoulder, reversing out of the parking space, and then turning to smile back.