The Rule Book

by Sarah Adams

this industry is all about playing your cards right—and the key to doing that is to not show them too early.

people on the other end of email correspondences tend to say yes more often when they have the incorrect assumption I’m a dude.

the making friends part is easy. It’s the keeping them that’s proved tricky.

We’re a love-hate situation. As in, I mostly love to hate him.

Because when a man doesn’t encourage you to reach for the stars, Nora Bug, he’s putting you in a glass jar to contain your light. We don’t have to settle for air through holes poked in the top of a lid. We get to become stars ourselves

you should never shit where your gift horse lies.” I slide around to the opposite side of the island. “That’s definitely not how the phrase goes.” “Close enough.”

I feel like I’m being pretty transparent here. That she’s understanding what I’m saying without me having to say the awkward words Hey, I’m still in love with you and unless you love me back, we can’t do this because it hurts so damn much to be near you and not have you. But then she says, “Is it…do you…do you still hate me?” My heart rips down the middle. Do I hate her? I hate that when your mouth curves into a smile, I can’t kiss it. I hate that you hold my heart in a vise grip and you have no idea. I hate that I’ve never been able to move on from you—not for a single day. I hate that if I were to tell you all of this, you’d leave, and I’d be left vulnerable and bleeding out at the bar.

“The bird that catches the worm never sleeps.” “That’s not the phrase.” “It should be.”

opinions are not fact. As my mom always said, opinions only become truth if you accept them as such.

And this is what I love about women. Movies prefer to portray us as catty—but I know better because of moments like this. And moments where complete strangers have banded together in the bathroom to find me a tampon when I started my period unprepared.

“I only lost because I want to show you in a physical way that I’m intentionally and completely vulnerable to you, Nora. That I’ll gladly lose to you every day of my life—because for me, the prize is just being near you.”

“I’ve had to make gray, self-preserving choices too,” she continues. “I think every woman fighting for equality has or will have to at some point to be honest. And we need each other’s support along the way.