Sometimes you’re going to need me to hold your hand down the hills, and sometimes I’ll need you to lead me up the mountain, but everything, from this point forward, we’re going to face together.
I take in the view for a moment. It’s like a wall of ocean and beach in front of us as far as I can see. The water looks like it’s alive. Heaving. Breathing. It’s both magnificent and terrifying.
Samson’s expression changes when I say that. There’s a sadness in him and a little bit of it seeps out. I don’t like it because apparently sadness is what I connect with. I feel like he’s tugging at my soul with that look.
Here comes the gaslighting. He’s attempting to make me feel crazy for being scared, even though my fear is more than warranted.
I’m drowning, Samson. And you’re the one holding me underwater.
I hear people talk about good men, but I’m starting to think that’s a myth.
Because I’ve been feeling like drowning lately, and sometimes people need a reminder that they just need to keep swimming.
It proves that time, distance, and devastation allow people enough opportunity to craft villains out of people they don’t even know. But Kenna was never a villain. She was a victim.
I couldn’t breathe because you were dead, and how was I supposed to breathe when you had no air?
I was jealous of anyone who had ever loved something enough to experience losing it.
Is it fair to assume this continued because you started to develop feelings for Willow?” I can’t even say yes out loud. Instead, I just nod.
Your own father doesn’t know you received a scholarship?” “Nope.” “Why haven’t you told him?” “Because it would make him feel like he did something right. And I had to work for the scholarship because he did everything wrong.
He presses a gentle kiss there and it feels just like the first time he kissed me there all those years ago. He brings his mouth to my ear, and in a whisper, he says, “You can stop swimming now, Lily. We finally reached the shore.
It’s as if he kissed me backward, from the inside out – the same way I think he looks at me sometimes. Like he sees the inside of me before he notices what’s outside.
I want to have a yard that I can plant stuff in. Stuff that will flourish and not die. I want to learn how to talk to people without wishing I could retract every word I said. I want to be good at feeling things when a guy touches my waist. I want to be good at life. I want to make it look effortless, but up until this point, I’ve made every aspect of life appear entirely too difficult to navigate.
I kissed you because I like you.
We are keeping a mother from her child. That’s not okay. Scotty would be so mad at us.
There’s no way I can be around him all summer and not want to be consumed by him.
Like I’d never really opened my eyes until she came along. I was blind but now I see.
But what if the only way of knowing you grew a heart bone is by feeling the agony caused by the break?