I let him know a hurt had been mended in a way that he couldn’t have known, and for that alone there would always be a piece of me indebted to him.
Because even if the whole world was throwing rocks at you, if you still had your mother or father at your back, you’d be okay.
There is a whole lot more to life than winning.
The only thing Jess really cared about were those two children and letting them know they were okay. Because even if the whole world was throwing rocks at you, if you had your mother at your back, you’d be okay. Some deep-rooted part of you would know you were loved. That you deserved to be loved.
When you put someone down all the time, eventually they stop listening to the sensible stuff.
There is a hunger in you. A fearlessness. You just buried it, like most people do.
Push yourself. Don’t Settle. Just live well. Just LIVE.
We are all part of some great cycle, some pattern that it was only God’s purpose to understand.
Somewhere in this world is a man who loves you, who understands how precious and clever and kind you are. A man who has always loved you and, to his detriment, suspects he always will.
And it was suddenly very simple: There was no choice.
Just live well. Just live.
Do you know how hard it is to say nothing? When every atom of you strains to do the opposite? I had practiced not saying anything the whole way from the airport, and it was still nearly killing me.
The thing about being catapulted into a whole new life – or at least, shoved up so hard against someone else’s life that you might as well have your face pressed against their window – is that it forces you to rethink your idea of who you are. Or how you might seem to other people.
I realized I was afraid of living without him. How is it you have the right to destroy my life, I wanted to demand of him, but I’m not allowed a say in yours? But I had promised.
He smelt of the sun, as if it had seeped deep into his skin, and I found myself inhaling silently, as if he were something delicious.
Try to write at least 500 words a day. You may ditch 499 of them tomorrow, but you will still be moving forward.
If all we are allowed is hours, minutes, I want to be able to etch each of them on to my memory with exquisite clarity so that I can recall them at moments like this, when my very soul feels blackened.
Sometimes life is a series of obstacles, a matter of putting one foot in front of the other. Sometimes, she realizes suddenly, it is simply a matter of blind faith.
So this is it. You are scored on my heart, Clark. You were from the first day you walked in, with your ridiculous clothes and your bad jokes and your complete inability to ever hide a single thing you felt.
But don’t blame me for the food. My wife knows a hundred and one ways to incinerate a cow, and as far as I can tell she’s still experimenting.