Variation

by Rebecca Yarros

It had been so long that I’d felt anything but numb that the anger was a blessing.

What I’d done to her required blood, full-knees groveling, and probably a piece of my soul, and even then I wasn’t sure it would be enough.

“Sometimes I can’t decide if I love or despise you.”

What the hell was it about a backward baseball cap that made me feel seventeen again?

It makes us all feel seventeen again, girl. 😍😂

I’m not seeing anyone, and even if I had been, it’s hard to focus on anyone else once you walk into a room,”

she didn’t tell me no. We both knew that single word would stop me in my tracks.

“I’ll fold,” I promised, my voice lowering. “I’ll turn myself inside out if it means I get to be hers.”

“That’s a very real fact of life. I live in a constant state of wanting you. I have since I was seventeen years old. Wanting you is all I know.”

“I want all of you. No masks. No walls. No more pretending what’s between us is fake when we both know it’s excruciating, and terrifying, and amazingly real. I want more than five minutes.”

“Truth always differs depending on who’s telling the story, and in complicated situations, there are countless variations. But when it comes to that summer, in every single variant, I’m the asshole who wasn’t strong enough to hold on to her.”

You are every person I go into the water for. There are hundreds of them, but they’re all you.

“Slow?” I shook my head. “Allie, I’ve loved you for eleven years. Anything less than me waking up next to you every morning would feel fucking glacial.”