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I’ve tried to load something, anything, for the last ten minutes to keep my brain from spiraling into terrible person mode and judging and nicknaming everyone. But it’s too late now. Keeping my features neutral while my ears bleed is a feat.
men who read are a particular weakness of mine.
Most of the time, people are too uncomfortable with negativity and pain for honest answers. Wanting to fix it, fix me, they offer positivity and solutions, which become toxic in their frequency. I’m an optimistic person in my own way, but there’s a danger in forceful optimism and not recognizing reality. I exist in a state of perpetual pain, and I’ve had to accept that to survive—it’d be nice if others acknowledged and were okay with it. Otherwise, the guilt and anxiety of being “a downer” are put on me too.
Haunting memories I spent years burying with pastries and a healthy dosing of ganache
“This isn’t the right time for donuts, dear.” Lies. Any time is the right time for donuts.
The man’s a freakin’ Dorito.
Enter the dance of the handshake-hug. Which is totally fine and not awkward at all.
He’s everything—late nights chasing fireflies, picking lilacs in blossom, boombox blaring, singing and dancing in the rain, and utter defeat and humiliation. He, frankly, is home. And I’m suddenly sick.
There is an apple. But I’m not that bored.
Even sweatpants will elicit a stare and a pursed-lip look. Like, Oh, I didn’t know we were giving up today.
The shorts are clinging on for dear life. But again, the butt says “pizza,” so never letting go, Jack. Unlike Rose, I mean it. No banishing them to a cold, watery grave for me.
“The Imperial March” from Star Wars pricks my ears, and the screen on my phone illuminates,
Incoming: Caroline O’Shea—DO NOT ANSWER UNLESS YOU DESIRE PAIN.
It’s the embodiment of Paris, beautiful and romantic, but its history is brimming with a dark, creepy undercurrent. Like my soul. Like life. It’s the spot I go to when I need a reminder I’m small potatoes, and so are my problems.
Thousands of lifetimes happened here before me: some not so pleasant, some wonderful. All bigger than me on a bench feeling shitty for myself.
Nana. My life source. An extreme lover of old movies.
futures I soon learned never do pan out how we imagine they should.
classic films featuring Paris in her hard-felt absence. Audrey Hepburn’s How to Steal a Million, Charade, Funny Face, and Paris When It
Sizzles, in particular. But An American in Paris had its own unique charm too.
Ernest Hemingway’s words circulating through my brain. “There are only two places in the world where we can live happy—at home and in Paris.”
just like my dear Audrey Hepburn taught me to do in Sabrina.
(You Drive Me) Glazy
Very impressed with the perfect written reference to Brittany Spears!!
He shakes his head, smiling into his cup. “I have no doubt you could win whatever you want with me, Peaches.”
“It’s okay. Let it out. I’ve got you.”
“Let yourself fall, Peaches. It’s okay. I’ll catch you,” he says with an unfamiliar softness.
“But the eye contact thing is entirely your fault. Nobody else looks at me as intensely as you do.” “I look at you how you should be looked at.” He shrugs.
“Because I’ve been in love with you since we were five, and you’re finally giving me a chance to get close to you.”
“Maybe I accepted a long time ago I was always going to be miserably in love when it came to you and learned to mask the crack.”
you needed a villain that day more than you needed the truth.”
The need to feel his lips on mine. The need to have his warmth on me. To no longer find myself wrapped in his scent but to be buried in it instead.
QMD (question of mass destruction)
How long have I been surviving without living? And how long has my heart just been left to pump blood?
I swear all it takes is a fixer or dreamer to mention one of the Holy Trinity of Cures—yoga, diets, and supplements. And bam! I’m one eye of newt short from cursing Harmony with a perpetual bad hair day.
I have the charm and body type of a potato.
this is the real world where dreams go to die.
These are all the things that Caroline says are wrong with me, and his voice is treating them like they’re treasures, like they’re worth revering.
now that all the bitter resentment is gone, I have to deal with my feelings for Liam.
“I’ll have to add it to my list.” “What list?” “Moments with you I don’t take for granted.”
Living in history is natural here. It’s a big reason I’ve needed Paris these past few years. Because when the present is a dumpster fire and the future feels an awful lot like a land of broken dreams, being surrounded by a world gone by is like being wrapped tight in a reminder that life is relentless in its existence and hardship, but people are remarkably resilient.
The poet Alfred de Musset once said, “the only true language in the world is a kiss,”
things left unsaid bubble to the surface, baring themselves in the warm sunlight of this embrace. Like somehow, our kisses were inevitable. The magnetic pull would never relent until our lips were finally molded together.
The hollow cavity in my chest cracks open with his words, filling endlessly with all things old Hollywood glitz and glamor, warm nights and fireflies, and picnics with peaches, because that’s what Liam is to me when the shield is down. Maybe he is magical after all.
“Most people try to fix the mess, but you don’t.” “That’s because there isn’t a mess to fix. This is your life.”
“That’s also very true.” Another yawn passes through, and I burrow deeper into Liam. “I’m stealing more of your heat.” “Steal away,” he whispers into my hair.
more than any dream about Gene Kelly, my biggest dream has always been him.
“Because I’ve wanted you since before I knew what wanting someone felt like, and finally having you and knowing it wasn’t real? That’s worse than not having you at all.
It’s entirely possible that the worst night of my life also gave me some of the best parts of my reality.
I let out an exalting breath before his lips capture mine in a slow, gentle conversation. One filled with forgiveness for the past and joy for the future. Eventually,
If Paris is the color of a café au lait, Portsmouth is a vintage pinot noir.
To me, the permanence is in the moment, not the love. Because a lot of the time we measure success in forever, but with my disease, I’ve had to learn to have success in fleeting moments, or else what was the point of anything?
