We sat around the kitchen table picking off of foil-covered plates. Conrad kept sneaking looks at me, and every time I looked back, he looked away. I’m right here, I wanted to tell him. I’m still here.
There’s no use in asking what if. No one could ever give you the answers.
I think I see the difference now, between loving someone from afar and loving someone up close. When you see them up close, you see the real them, but they also get to see the real you.
Happiness is a Slurpee and a hot pink straw.
Everything in my room was old and faded, but I loved that about it. It felt like there might be secrets in the walls, in the four-poster bed, especially in that music box.
If you were mine, I would never have broken up with you, not in a million years.
It’s scary how easy promises were broken.
When boy likes you, you say no thank you. You don’t kick him on the ground.
When you walk on the beach at night, you can say things you can’t say in real life.
I loved the feeling of talking and having somebody really listen to what I have to say. It was like a high or something.
Everything good, everything magical happens between the months of June and August. Winters are simply a time to count the weeks until the next summer.
Firsts are best because they are beginnings.
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. A burn for a burn. A life for a life. That’s how all this got started. And that’s how it’s going to end.
I knew it in my bones. That this time was it. I had finally made my choice, and so had he. He let me go. I was relieved, which I expected. What I didn’t expect was to feel so much grief.
Here’s something else, something important: Love is not transactional. It is not a bank account, you don’t always get what you put in. Sometimes you put in so much and get very little return on your investment, at least that you can see right away.
It feels strange to have spent much time wishing for something, for someone and then one day, suddenly, to just stop.
You can’t put being in love on a scale. Either you are or you aren’t.
To belong to someone – I didn’t know it, but now that I think about, it seems like that’s all I’ve ever wanted. To really be somebody’s, and to have them be mine.
How was I supposed to know what’s real and what’s not? It feels like I’m the only one who doesn’t know the difference.
I loved him in a way that you can really only do the first time around. It’s the kind of love that doesn’t know better and doesn’t want to-it’s dizzy and foolish and fierce. That kind of love is really a one-time-only thing.
If love is like a possession, maybe my letters are like my exorcisms.