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The moment Emma came into view, my entire world slipped into slow motion. My brain took a screenshot. I felt the moment freeze and save. She was beautiful.
“Why not forgive? In a world where you can choose anger or empathy, always choose empathy, Justin.
Sometimes the best way to show love or be kind to someone is to meet them where they are.”
“What if the universe listened? What if you or your mom or the kids were supposed to die in a car crash and your dad said ‘Take me instead’—and the universe did. And nobody remembers the way it was supposed to be because that’s the deal. You never get to know that he’s a hero. The fates are reversed and the tribute takes the thing he asked for to save someone he loves. If you think of it that way, instead of being sad that he’s gone, be happy that he got what he wanted. And that somebody loved you enough to take your place.”
I think sometimes the key to happiness is framing those things in a different way.”
“Maybe home isn’t a place. Maybe it’s a person.”
“I’m serious,” she said. “This feels different from your normal MO and there’s only so much trauma you can handle. You’ve met your lifetime maximum already. If he fucks with you and you unravel, I’m going to unalive him with a can opener.”
“Unhealed trauma is a crack. And all the little hard things that trickle into it that would have rolled off someone else, settle. Then when life gets cold, that crack gets bigger, longer, deeper. It makes new breaks.
Being broken is not an excuse for bad behavior, you still have to make good choices and do the right thing. But it can be the reason. And sometimes understanding the reason can be what helps you heal.”
“If you can choose anger or empathy, always choose empathy, Justin. It’s so much healthier than anger. For both of you.”
Sometimes I felt like I was roaming this earth as a ghost, seeing everything and feeling nothing. These tiny things, a fluttering heart, butterflies in my stomach—the urge to dock. I never got to feel like this.
It’s funny how when you find someone you like as much as I liked her, the destination is suddenly wherever they are. Even if there’s someplace better, you wouldn’t go if they couldn’t come.
Emma had an aloofness to her. Like she was just along for the ride and the ride didn’t mean much.
“You don’t want anything that can’t fit in your luggage.” She stared at me like she’d just had an epiphany. “The lengths you will go to stay living in the chaos you’re accustomed to—” I rolled my eyes. “What chaos?” “The chaos you grew up in! This whole life you’ve made—the travel nursing and the constant moving—you’re reliving your childhood,” she said. “Doing it in a safe way you can control. You slap the word ‘adventure’ on it like lipstick on a pig, but it is what it is, just another way to keep you from ever belonging to anywhere or anyone.”
Every single molecule of my body was in the place where his mouth touched mine. I hadn’t even seen it coming and then suddenly it was everything and all there was. The headlights of a truck, so close and fast it’s all you can see before it hits you.
He was tired and stressed. It was probably making him a little more direct and edgier than usual. But there was something so primal and matter-of-fact about the way he said he wanted to see me. Like seeing me was a need. The way someone says they need to eat or sleep.
Not everything that comes out of crisis is bad. Sometimes your traumas are the reason you know how to help.
I felt like I could stay in this moment forever. Like it was timeless because of how absolutely perfect it was. And yet there was nothing perfect about it. Not in the traditional sense. We were in pajamas. We weren’t on a date, standing under the moon. We were next to a sink full of dirty dishes and a crusty waffle iron. There wasn’t music playing or candlelight or rose petals. But it was perfect. I wouldn’t have changed a single thing about it.
“Sometimes I feel like the seasons could come and go and come and go, a hundred years could pass, a thousand, the ground could collapse under us, this house could crumble and go back to the earth, and we would still be standing here frozen in time, because every second I’m with you is eternal. I’ve never felt anything like it.”
“You’re not asking too much,” he said. “You were just asking the wrong person. Ask me instead.”
For the first time in my life, I was capable of love—and the loss that came with it. I could handle it now. I’d healed enough for it.
I’d realized something after being with her. A valuable lesson that I think all the best and most enduring romances have figured out. The love stories sold us the wrong thing. The best kind of love doesn’t happen on moonlit walks and romantic vacations. It happens in between the folds of everyday life. It’s not grand gestures that show how you feel, it’s all the little secret things you do to make her life better that you never tell her about.
Taking the end piece of the bread at breakfast so she can have the last middle piece for her sandwich when you pack her lunch. Making sure her car always has gas so she never has to stop at the pump. Telling her you’re not cold and to take your jacket when you are in fact, very, very cold. It’s watching TV on a rainy Sunday while you’re doing laundry and turning her light off when she’s fallen asleep reading. Sharing pizza crusts and laughing about something the kids did and taking care of each other when you’re sick.
It isn’t glamorous, it isn’t all butterflies and stars in your eyes. It’s real. This is the kind of love that forever is made of. Because if it’s this good when life is draining and mundane and hard, think of how wonderful it...
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