The Rom-Commers

by Katherine Center

Usually I started with words and found the feelings later, if that makes sense.

and then, with a tenderness I never would have expected from the person who’d just called me a “failed nobody writer,” he worked his arm behind my shoulders to raise me up to take some sips.

“A rom-com should give you a swoony, hopeful, delicious, rising feeling of anticipation as you look forward to the moment when the two leads, who are clearly mad for each other, finally overcome all their obstacles, both internal and external, and get together.”

We all know where it’s headed. The fun is how we get there.

“Fine. Fall on me sometime, and I’ll show you.”

“I just need to do something I’m proud of.”

I realized what he was shifting it from was me.

I had a theory that we gravitate toward the stories we need in life.

Bearing witness to the suffering of others? I don’t know if there’s anything kinder than that. And kindness is a form of emotional courage.

When Charlie Yates is scared of something, he pretends it doesn’t matter.

“Believing in things that aren’t real? Making something out of nothing? Connecting dots that don’t need or want to be connected? That’s what all the best writers do.”

“I’m not complaining,” Charlie said. “That’s just—a lot of arms and legs.”

Had I really been insisting all this time that there was nothing even remotely romantic about two people randomly falling on top of each other?

There was a good writing lesson in there—that being dismissed is worse than being scorned.

“Because the bad thing you’re worried about is never the bad thing that happens.”

Stories exist for the emotions they create—and

“I’ll do this research,” he said then, “and I’ll let you slam into me a hundred times, and I’ll watch you ogle that Italian guy, and I’ll double-knot your laces all night long …”

“The most vital thing you can learn to do is tell your own story”

Your first meeting with someone should never be an ask. It should be a give.

The rejection descended into a burning humiliation.

Charlie was sitting up—and looking down at me. “I think,” he said, surprisingly lucid for a moment, “that you’re my favorite person I’ve ever met.”

Take deep breaths because they inflate your chest and hide your collapsing soul.

“I just got up every day, and went to bed every night, and tried to be a good person in between.”

“Whatever story you tell yourself about your life, that’s the one that’ll be true.”

He just … lit me up. And I missed that light so much.

“I’m so sorry, Emma,” he said then. “I would write a hundred happy endings for us if I could.”

“I just want to belong to you,” he’d say. “And I want you to belong to me.”

Appreciate your person.”