Older

by Jennifer Hartmann

Life is like photography. You need the negatives to develop. —Ziad K. Abdelnour

“You don’t know me well enough to like me.” “Yeah.” I stared at him, held his gaze. “Maybe that’s why I do.”

“Listen to me. When something breaks you, you pick up the pieces and put yourself back together. Maybe it’s with stitches and glue sticks, but it’s enough to keep going. Nobody needs to stay broken.”

And that’s the key—living through it, not in it.

“Beautiful things don’t last,”

“I know. But they can still be beautiful while they’re here.”

“Falling for you has been the easiest thing I’ve ever done,” I confessed through the anguish. “Everything else? Painful.

But loving you…” The anger died out, flatlining to a dead pulse. “Effortless.”

“Love is weak. Love is selfish. It’s not this fairy-tale illusion of candy hearts and paper flowers. It’s messy and painful. But it’s always worth it.”

Not all mothers were meant to be caretakers. Not all monsters were meant to be rehabilitated. And not all love stories were meant to last.

“You look exactly like how I remember you. Just…” “Just what?” His eyes rolled over me, head to toe. “Older.”

Erasing the past doesn’t do us any favors. If everything had an easy way out, we’d be a brittle, complacent species.”

Imperfections are what bind us together. Our common thread.