The Way I Am Now (The Way I Used to Be, #2)

by Amber Smith

She doesn’t even say anything; she just steps forward, right into me, her head tucking perfectly under my chin as it always did.

But then I’m around her and I remember almost immediately that for all her darkness, she can be just as bright, too.

“Well, fuck, Josh.” She throws her hands up. “This is just classic us all over again, isn’t it?” Classic us. I hate that I love the way that sounds.

I realize the wild rattling of my heart isn’t because it’s shattering. It’s because this is the best, the strongest, my heart has felt in months.

Because it wouldn’t be someone like Josh—there’s no one like Josh—it would be Josh.

“I think you love the person you knew back then, the person you believe I can become again one day. But that’s not the same as loving me the way I am now.”

She spent so much of our relationship hiding her emotions because this is how she feels things—deeply, completely. That and this: she really has always cared.

whatever the question, whatever she wants, my answer is always going to be yes.

“My favorite person in the world is a little edgy and weird, herself.”

“I know how hard that was for you to say.” I shake my head. “No, it wasn’t.”

I am this… disaster, I am this thing that is incapable of not fucking everything up, I am this curse on the people I love. I never thought anyone could hurt me worse than I hurt myself. But knowing that he thinks the same terrible things about me that I do—it’s too much to even process.