Never Leave, Never Lie

by Thea Verdone

I could forget everything about myself and still know that I love you.

“Wait!” Alek begged. Can you leave something with me? Something you’ll have to come back for. Ian’s brows darted together. “What? Like collateral?” Please. “You already have it.” Alek wrote a giant question mark and held the clipboard up. “You’re the collateral, Alek. I’ll always come back for you.”

“I may have betrayed you in every other way, but my cock and my heart have always belonged to you.”

may know nothing about your past, but I know you. You’re not beyond redemption, not to me.” “I’m not a house, Ian, and if I was, I’d be condemned. A meth lab explosion. A nuclear wasteland where not even plants can grow.”

“Things will never get better. I am unlovable. Everyone would be better off without me,” Dr. Dhawan said. “Sometimes the thoughts we have about ourselves, or the world, can be incorrect. Those erroneous thoughts are called cognitive distortions. “Just as with the piano, there are neural pathways that form when we think these thoughts, and the longer we believe them, the more they become cemented in our mind. But if we can identify and change those thoughts; talk back to them, if you will, we can reshape those pathways into something more healthy, something more honest.”

“Fear is only proof you are alive.

You can be afraid and still be brave.

“I know you hate me and I know what that’s like. But you know what you taught me? You can hate someone and love them too. You can hate someone so much you think you’ll never be able to look at them without your heart breaking, only to fall in love with them all over again. Whether it’s a month, or a year, or the rest of my life, I’m not giving up on you. I won’t ever leave you. I won’t let you go without a fight. I’ll wait for you. Leave me if you want. Never come back if that’s what you decide. But there will never be anyone else for me. Only you. Only fucking you.”