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She’s that woman who’s instantly familiar with everyone, in a way that makes you feel chosen.
they very clearly tell the story of their relationship. Three years’ worth of birthday cakes. Three years’ worth of tiny tinsel Christmas trees. Three years’ worth of stand-up paddle-boarding, cliff jumping, sipping wine in front of a sunset, riding a share moped in front of what I assume to be the Mediterranean Sea. Three years’ grinning into each other’s mouths with their hands in each other’s hair.
He looks, as ever, like human sunshine, totally engaged, completely interested in this stranger, and it makes my chest pinch.
“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? The guy wouldn’t even let me repaint our bedroom! I wanted to know new parts of him, and I wanted to find new parts of myself.
how could I miss someone who didn’t exist? So why can’t I seem to do the same thing with my father? Why can’t I stop missing the dad I never had?
“You make the people you care about feel like . . .” He pauses. “Like you want all of them. Not just the good parts.
And as much as I’d dreamed of being a part of Peter’s tight-knit family, I realize now I’d also never cried in front of them, never complained about work or opened up about how hard I found it to trust new people. I’d never even used a curse word in front of them. Their perfection hadn’t drawn me in—it had intimidated me. I spent our whole relationship auditioning, the same way I always feel when I’m with Dad, praying I’m doing enough to make the cut.
“Because deep down, she always thought she was settling, and so I did too. I always felt like I was making up for something, or trying to win her. And I thought that made me lucky, to be with someone who chose me even though no one in her life ‘got it.’ ”
“I didn’t learn what love was supposed to feel like. It doesn’t feel natural, or come easily to me, to let anyone close.
The more important thing, though, was that she was too happy with the life she’d built for herself to change it for anyone who didn’t set her world on fire.
