Morning would come before we knew it. It always did. But we still had the night, and for now, we were together, so I just closed my eyes and drank it all in.
Because if you were the problem, chances were you could also be the solution. The only way to find out was to take another shot.
What do you do when you finally hear everything you’ve always thought said aloud?
The truth was, I wasn’t sure. But I wanted to keep believing people could change, and it was certainly easier to do so when you were in the midst of it.
I waited. Because with Eli, he was never trying to get you to finish for him. He always knew where he was going, even if it took a little while to get there.
I trailed off and he didn’t push me to finish. I was finding that I liked that.
Sometimes you dont even want to think aout what people are doing with their groceries.
I had this wild thought that he was the only one in all this chaos who was just like me, and that was comforting and profound all at once.
Whenever you made a choice, especially one you’d been resisting, it always affected everything else, some in big ways, like a tremor beneath your feet, others in so tiny a shift you hardly noticed a change at all. But it was happening.
That was the thing about being on the inside: the world was just going on, even when it seemed like time for you had stopped for good.
I mean, at first, it was kind of disappointing. But people recover from disappointment. Otherwise we’d all be hanging from nooses. Right?
Nothing like being scolded by a hippie.
It’s so, so stupid what we do to ourselves because we’re afraid. It’s so stupid.
And I felt a sudden whirl in my head, knowing this leap was inevitable, that I wasn’t just standing on the cliff, toes poking over, but already in mid-air.
All the bitchy girls in the world are just a training ground for what men can do to you.
I’ve always known who I am. I might not work perfectly, or be like them, but that’s okay. I know I work in my own way.
Self respect, Colie. If you don’t have it, the world will walk all over you.
That was the thing about being alone, in theory or in principle. Whatever happened-good, bad, or anywhere in between-it was always, if nothing else, all your own.
Whenever something great happens, you’re always kind of poised for the universe to correct itself.
I wondered if he ever thought of me, and hated the pang I felt when I told myself he didn’t.