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“Gill loved you,” he argues. “Because of osmosis,” I say. “Because you were there.
Only for me, it’s never been about controlling the feelings themselves. I wouldn’t know where to begin with that. It’s more, controlling the expectations you have for certain people. If a person lets you down, it’s time to reconsider what you’re asking of them.
I’m not sure what parts of me are him and which parts are genuinely my own. And I want to know. I want to know myself, to test my edges and see where I stop and the rest of the world begins.
You can’t force a person to show up, but you can learn a lesson when they don’t. Trust people’s actions, not their words.
Don’t wait on anyone who’s in no rush to get to you.
“There’s steadiness and dependability, and those are great. But settling? Just deciding you already know everything you like and dislike on the entire planet, everything you’re good at, every friend you’re going to make, and every food you’re ever going to eat?
I’ve always cleaved to the people I love, tried to orient my orbit around them. Maybe, I realize, I’ve been trying to make myself un-leave-able.
“I believe in you. I believe you should and will have everything you’ve ever wanted, if you’re not too scared to go after it.”
Or maybe like, I’m here. And I know he won’t be forever, or maybe even very long, but it helps knowing that right now he is. That can be enough.
I knew he wouldn’t change. But a part of me kept hoping I had changed enough that he couldn’t hurt me, or that this new iteration of me would be the one worth sticking around for.
“You make the people you care about feel like . . .” He pauses. “Like you want all of them. Not just the good parts. And that’s terrifying to someone who’s spent a lifetime avoiding those other pieces of themselves.”
“You, my girl, are whoever you decide to be. But I hope you always keep some piece of that girl who sat by the window, hoping for the best. Life’s short enough without us talking ourselves out of hope and trying to dodge every bad feeling.
But keeping every glimmer of hope out has isolated me too, and I want to be seen. I want to be loved.
I want to live with the hope that things can get better, even if, in the end, they don’t.
“I won’t hurt you, Daphne.” “You don’t know that,” I whisper. “I know how hard I’ll try,” he says. “Just stay. I love you. I want you. Stay.”
“You aren’t what I pictured,” I say. “You are so, so, so much better than what my cynical little brain could’ve ever come up with.”
Things were allowed to be complicated. They were allowed to be messy. We were allowed to disagree and argue and even hurt each other, on occasion, and it didn’t mean it was time to let the revolving door of life carry us away from each other.