The Pairing

by Casey McQuiston

The problem is, we’ve only ever been everything or nothing to each other. I don’t know how to start being something to him.

This has always been the difference between us. I look at a mountain and think, What a nice view. Kit looks at a mountain and thinks, I wonder if I could climb that.

Every day I wake up in the town I grew up in, and I put on my boots and roll up my sleeves and work so hard to be pretty good at a few things, because I know I’d fuck up anything bigger. I would be so much braver if I was someone I could trust.

great misconception has been that people don’t miss them. It’s hard for them to believe that they have so much to offer, that people want them around and think of them fondly when they’re gone. They don’t expect anyone to care if they leave.

they were possessed of a fierce, stubborn conviction that it was their right to be miserable.

I started putting a little bit of myself into a lot of things instead of all of myself into one thing. Like if I’m always just starting something, I can always be in that beginning stage when it’s shiny and new and full of possibility, and if I never try to finish, I never get to the part where I fuck it up.”

“ça ne veut rien dire, si cela ne te rend pas heureux.” That doesn’t mean anything if it doesn’t make you happy.

Sometimes I think the only way to keep something forever is to lose it and let it haunt you.