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by Jennifer Hartmann

I guess that was why I loved too much. I had a lot of loveless holes to

“Is it, though?” He held my gaze. “Life is living. If you’re not living exactly the way you want to live, then what’s the fucking point?”

Everything except for my heart. And having an abundant heart in a hollow world was an affliction I was helpless to overcome.

If he ever sat down with my ghosts and had a heart-to-heart, he’d be running for the hills.

“Relationships are overrated. Love is nothing but a building block for collapse. A stepping stone for tripping and stumbling into a black hole you can’t climb out of it.”

But being jaded doesn’t come with age; it comes with hardship. And hardship can blow through like a stormfront, destroying everything in a blink. Five years old, fifteen, fifty. Doesn’t matter. Once you’re caught in the funnel, you never stop spinning out.”

“Pearl Jam is good. This one’s kind of depressing.” “You say depressing, I say expressive. It makes you feel…right here.”

Comet. Something happened to me. Something devastating and beautiful unfurled inside my chest.

“You raised me on a diet of beatings and cruelty. If I’m anything like her, it’s because that’s the only example I had. Congratulations.”

“Confidence is like a muscle,” I told him. “It needs consistent exercise. The more you practice, the stronger it becomes. It’s not about eliminating self-doubt entirely—it’s about pushing through it.”

And my other was still tingling with the memory of being locked with his.

When you’re always fearing the next moment, you tend to appreciate the good ones while you have them.

She was defiance. A force. A kaleidoscope in motion.

Narratives could always be rewritten. My story thus far was nothing more than a messy first draft. I was the main character in my own life, and I refused—refused—to fall secondary to the villain.

“I’ve been right in the center of them. You get back up every time you’re thrown down. You’re fighting for your life, in every sense of the word…and that’s fucking powerful.” My breath stuttered.

“Actually, it would be the satisfaction of peeling off the plastic on a new electronic device.”

I knew—this was the moment I fell in love with him.

he slid it onto the bottom of the cart and straightened, looking right at me. “How long have I been caught up on you and unable to even look at another woman?”

“A year and a half.”

arm and stretched a hard-fought smile. “Yeah, we’re taking it slow,” he said. “Nice guys might finish last, but I like to think the wait is worth it.”

“How dare you rearrange my feelings into something that makes you feel better about walking away. How dare you talk to me like I’m a child—like I’m a lost, pathetic little girl who doesn’t have the mental capacity to know what she wants. How dare you make me feel these things and then twist them into something dirty. You made me finally feel something, Reed, something other than this godforsaken pit of worthlessness and loneliness, and now you’re⁠—”

easy.” “Falling for you has been the easiest thing I’ve ever done,” I confessed through the anguish. “Everything else? Painful. Torturous. Difficult beyond belief. But loving you…” The anger died out, flatlining to a dead pulse. “Effortless.”

“You deserve to have someone in your corner, fighting like hell for you. For your honor, your worth. I want to be that person. I’ll be that guy…even if that’s all I’ll ever be.”

“You’re going to be really brave today.” “I don’t feel brave.” “That’s because you’re afraid. Being afraid always comes first. That’s the first step to being brave.”

Me: It’s not picture-book sunsets over sparkling water while splashes of color paint your face and your laughter out-sings the ocean waves. But I’m enduring.

Mina and Jayce. Mina meant “love,” and Jayce meant “to heal.”