Learning Each Other’s Gravity

“Dear Diary, let me tell you another story of where I left my Pawprints…”

June slid into July the way good routines did: not with fireworks, but with repetition that felt safe.

Bumbly met Pausy a few times a week, and it was always at her house. Not because he didn’t like going out—he did—but because her home had boundaries that weren’t emotional at all. They were architectural. The living room was accessible. The rest of the house… wasn’t really built for wheels, turning radii, or the quiet choreography of transfers.

So the living room became their whole universe.

It smelled like kid shampoo and laundry that never fully finished. There were toys in small drifts, a sippy cup that appeared in new places like a magic trick, and the constant soft hum of a home that never truly powered down. Bumbly rolled in along the same path each time—careful, practiced, his chair’s motor purring like a well-trained animal. Pausy’s eight-year-old watched him with the frank focus kids had, while the one-year-old treated his wheels like a fascinating moving object that absolutely deserved a sticky handprint.

Bumbly didn’t mind. Sticky was honest.

They talked a lot. About nothing, about everything. Pausy told stories in small, careful pieces—like she was always checking whether change was safe before she allowed it in the room. Bumbly listened the way he always did when he cared: fully, without rushing, without trying to “solve” her into a different person.

And then they played. Not in a staged “look, we’re wholesome” way—just in the messy living reality of it. A game with the eight-year-old that turned into laughter. A silly face that made the one-year-old squeal. A moment where Pausy’s shoulders dropped, almost surprised, as if her body had forgotten it was allowed to relax.

When bedtime arrived, the whole house shifted. Lights dimmed. The living room got quieter, like a theater after the audience left. Pausy returned from the kids’ rooms with that familiar parental softness—tired, protective, proud—and Bumbly found himself studying her the way you studied a skyline you wanted to remember.

They poured whisky after. Bumbly’s came with a straw, the glass sweating gently on the table. Pausy held hers like a small reward. Then they watched videos—random clips, old music, dumb internet chaos, anything that made the silence feel friendly instead of loaded.

In those first weeks, closeness grew the way gravity did: invisible at first, then undeniable.

It started with small contact—Pausy sitting close enough that her knee brushed his chair. A hand on his forearm that stayed a second longer than necessary. Bumbly feeling his chest warm in that dangerous, hopeful way that said, I’m attaching.

Eventually, the living room developed a routine within the routine.

They dismantled parts of his wheelchair—not because anything was wrong with it, but because they were building comfort out of engineering. Brakes locked. Headrest off. One armrest removed. Cushions arranged like quiet accomplices. Pausy would climb carefully into his lap and into his arms, settling against him while the TV flickered, her breath warming the fur at his collarbone.

She liked his touch in a very specific way—practical, chosen, unhurried. She preferred his hand tucked inside her bra, his thumbs gently caressing her nipples while they watched the screen like nothing extraordinary was happening at all.

Bumbly didn’t narrate it. He didn’t make it a performance. He let it be what it was: intimacy designed around bodies that had limits and still wanted closeness anyway.

And when he wasn’t there, they were still there—on the phone.

Hours at a time.

Pausy would talk while folding tiny clothes. Bumbly would listen while his charger cable blinked green in the corner. Sometimes they didn’t even talk much; they just stayed connected, like both of them were testing whether “someone who stays” could be real without turning into a trap.

That was when Plume started planting the seed.

Not loudly. Not dramatically. Plume never needed volume. He used timing.

A message would arrive when Pausy finally sat down. A “helpful” comment dressed as concern. A little feather of doubt that didn’t argue—it suggested.

This is a bad idea.
Your kids will get attached.
You’re going to end up hurt.

Pausy didn’t show Bumbly every message. She didn’t want to be “dramatic.” She didn’t want to admit she was rattled. But Bumbly noticed the micro-changes: the way her fingers tightened around her glass, the way she went quiet in the middle of a laugh, the way her eyes flicked to her phone like it held weather warnings.

Bumbly had met fear before. He lived in a world that handed it out for free.

So he did what he could do—what he was best at.

He stayed. He listened. He made the living room feel safe enough to tell the truth in.

Excerpt

In June and July 2013, Pausy and Bumbly met several times a week—always in her living room, the only accessible part of the house. They played with her kids, shared whisky after bedtime, and built intimacy out of trust and wheelchair logistics… while Plume kept whispering, “This is a bad idea.”

Tweets

Pausy’s house wasn’t accessible—so the living room became a whole universe. Toys, whisky, late-night videos… and feelings that grew like gravity.
They engineered intimacy the way they engineered access: brakes locked, cushions stacked, trust first.
Meanwhile, Plume didn’t shout. He planted one seed at a time: “This is a bad idea.”

SEO metadata

SEO title: Learning Each Other’s Gravity: Pausy & Bumbly (2013)
Meta description: June–July 2013: Pausy and Bumbly met in her living room—kids, whisky, closeness, and accessibility rituals—while Plume seeded doubt.
Slug: learning-each-others-gravity-pausy-bumbly-june-july-2013
Focus keyphrase: wheelchair dating in a single parent home
Secondary keyphrases: accessible living room date, intimacy with disability, found family routine, emotional manipulation seed of doubt
OG social title: The Living Room Became Their Whole World—Until Doubt Knocked
OG social description: They met weekly in the only accessible room, built comfort from planning, and grew close—while Plume quietly tried to rewrite the story.
OG image alt-text: Warm living room with an accessible wheelchair setup beside a sofa; Pausy cuddles in Bumbly’s arms watching TV, whisky on the table, a phone glowing with a feather-like notification.