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All I ever knew him to be was this effortlessly upbeat, hunky, talented guy. The sun shone out of Ren’s ass, the world was at his fingertips, and secretly, that level of happy-go-lucky perfection grated on me. But what Ren’s shown me is that inside this mature exterior of the pristine swan, there’s a long-ago ugly duckling. A sweet, awkward dork who never really fit in, who still maybe doesn’t feel like he fits in anywhere. And that means we have a metric shit ton more in common than I ever thought.
but I like my books. They’re one of the most vital tools in my arsenal for navigating human behavior, to explore my feelings about the parts of life that most confuse me. Books help me feel a bit more connected to a world that often is hard to make sense of. Books are patient with me. They don’t laugh at me instead of with me. They don’t ask why I’m “always” frowning, or why I can’t sit still. Books welcome me—weirdness and all—and take me exactly as I am.
expert, I love someone who’s autistic. And I hope you know I’m a safe place for you to be you.”
Any person who ever saw you having a fucking ball being a theater geek and gave you shit for it, they weren’t worth your time.
My therapist says, show people who you really are, and you get the absolute thrill of knowing they love you for you. That’s why the friends I do have aren’t many, but they know and love the real me.”
I hate her. I’m wildly jealous of this woman, who I can only assume is entirely, completely worthy of him. And I know, I trust that she is, because I trust Ren.
The one that believes someone could love her without one day resenting her, without seeing her laundry list of needs and hurdles as burdens but rather as beautiful parts of what make her her.
Because I know that having arthritis, being autistic, does not make me less whole or human. It doesn’t make me wrong or broken. It makes some things in my life more challenging in ways,
yeah, I have a sense of humor about my medical dossier.
‘If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry.’ So, I crack jokes.”
The only thing I have on my side, I realized, is time. Time to show her I can take it slow, build trust and comfort. Time to show her I don’t find a single thing about how she ticks or what she needs to be intrusive or inconvenient or anything else the people from her past made her feel.
When you live with chronic pain, you get used to living through it. You just do life, until you collapse. Then you pick yourself up, change around the meds, and try again.
“As always, I can only promise my best.” Isn’t that true. It’s all anyone can do.
“Can I come over tonight?” “I mean . . . like I said, I might be out of commission.” “I know that. I just want to stay with you.”
If he doesn’t care, I don’t.
my family’s weird and overwhelming. I’m one of the rowdy ones, and I still find us too intense sometimes.
No embarrassing stories from the early years. Frankie’s seen me make a fool out of myself enough.” Freya rolls her eyes. “Why are men so fragile? We have other things to talk about besides the time you pooped in Grandpa’s hat after it had fallen off the coatrack and landed upside down.” “I was potty training!”
‘To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.’ ”
‘To cheat oneself out of love,’ ” he says, “ ‘is the most terrible deception; it is an eternal loss for which there is no reparation.’
“Remember. Give me a chance. Don’t assume I can’t.”
“I’m worried you’ll get hurt. Not because I think you’re incapable or that badminton is beyond you—truly, I don’t—but look at us—” He gestures to his brothers, all of whom are over six feet and pushing two hundred pounds.
But it’s not a contact sport.” “Everything is a contact sport in the Bergman household.”
“I can take care of myself.” “You have,” he says. “You still do. You always will. I’ve just joined in, too. Now we take care of each other.”
he whispers. “I told you.” I glare at him. “And I told you,” I hiss back, “that I don’t need another fussy mother. So, back off, Ren.”
she touches me—twirling my hair around her fingers, sliding my palm against hers in a steady rhythm—that make me feel like she’s wrapped me into her sensory habits, her need to move and touch, and I can’t find a word to explain how much that means to me. Emotion hitches in my throat as she leans and presses a kiss to my neck.
I’m saving that fortune paper for a day in the future. One involving a sparkly ring and me hiving with anxiety.
“You have my heart, Søren Bergman,” she whispers against my neck. “Please, please be careful with it.”
I don’t want my health stuff to prevent you from doing your work and being successful.”
“I didn’t need you here, Ren.” He leans in, a breath away from me. “I needed to be here.”
“Because if not, how do I ever outstrip your past? No matter how much I reassure you that I will never resent you, that I will never consider you and my own happiness at odds, you don’t believe me. I have to act how you think I should. I can’t have my own needs in this relationship.”
Will he really always look at me like this, when I’m at my worst? Like he loves me, like my pain is as real to him as it is to me?
we were no longer alone in that. So, I have a relationship to your pain. It’s not mine, and I don’t get to tell you what to do with it, but I get to choose to love you through it.
“I’ll give you time. But I’m not walking away from this, not for good. You deserve better than that. And I do, too.”
“Okay. What level of self-sabotage did we just activate?”
“Relationships aren’t perfect, Frankie. They’re living, breathing things. They have growing pains. They have highs and lows. They take trust and forgiveness. They don’t require perfection or flawlessness. They just require two people who want to love each other and keep learning the best way to do that.”
“You reacted badly to being loved well.” “I love him,” I sob, covering my face. “And I just made him leave.” “I know, Frankie. And that is what we have to work on. Because Ren doesn’t need that shit in his life, and neither do you.”
“That I deserve love for being exactly who I am,” I admit miserably. “That the person worthy of my love will love all of me.”
you will never know if he’s going to hurt you, not definitively. Guess what, Frankie? Nobody knows if love’s going to hurt them. You simply have to take a chance.”
“How do you fight for someone who doesn’t want to be fought for? How do you repair something that they say is irrevocably broken?” “You show up and demonstrate hope. You show her that, yes, things break, and they’ll never be what they were before, but when you piece them together, they can still be beautiful, only different.”
I made a choice that made her feel like a problem I prioritized rather than the person I love.
“Frankie. I love you,” I whisper, cupping her face, so close, so soft. “Still?” she asks warily. “Even after the past few weeks?” “Still. Always. I’d wait lifetimes for you, Frankie. You would always be worth it.”
“Some imperfections aren’t so beautiful, Ren.” “No. Perhaps not.” I slip my fingers through her hair. “But if they’re yours, I love them. And you love mine.”
“She said you can’t believe someone’s love for you until you think that you’re worthy of it,” she says quietly, staring at the fire. “You have to love yourself. And in that way, I think you are far ahead of me, Ren.” “How do you mean?” She sighs. “Some days I do feel cynical. Other days I’m optimistic. I think that on hard days, when everything hurts and everything feels difficult, I don’t find myself very lovable. And I know it’s not true that I’m not allowed to struggle, that I’m not lovable when I do, but it feels . . . real.”
Like the parts that I felt made me weird were actually the parts you liked best.”
I’m moving kinda slow today. Getting knocked around by a bunch of spry people my age makes me cranky when it’s a slow day for me. I don’t want to get grumpy.”
But some nights I don’t want my boyfriend doubling as my bodyguard. I just want to hold your hand and have all your attention on me instead of focused on protecting me from people trying to knock my legs out from underneath me.”
I wouldn’t exactly mind, but we’d need to ask permission. And I don’t want to make you wait around while I dork out on a Shakespeare set.”
“That waiting-lifetimes thing,” she says quietly, seriously. “It goes both ways. I would stand there and watch you nerd out on that stage, watch you, gleeful, giddy, dorky to your heart’s content, as long as you wanted. So don’t do that. Don’t make this one-sided, understand?”
