It Ends with Us (It Ends with Us, #1)

by Colleen Hoover

I think about how sometimes, no matter how convinced you are that your life will turn out a certain way, all that certainty can be washed away with a simple change in tide.

Imagine all the people you meet in your life. There are so many. They come in like waves, trickling in and out with the tide. Some waves are much bigger and make more of an impact than others. Sometimes the waves bring with them things from deep in the bottom of the sea and they leave those things tossed onto the shore. Imprints against the grains of sand that prove the waves had once been there, long after the tide recedes.

Maybe love isn’t something that comes full circle. It just ebbs and flows, in and out, just like the people in our lives.

I love him. I still do and I always will. He was a huge wave that left a lot of imprints on my life, and I’ll feel the weight of that love until I die. I’ve accepted that.

I run back to my bedroom and fall onto my bed. The same bed I share with my husband. The same bed he makes love to me on. The same bed he lays me on when it’s time for him to clean up his messes.

You’re only human. And as humans, we can’t expect to shoulder all of our pain. Sometimes we have to share it with the people who love us so we don’t come crashing down from the weight of it all. But I can’t help you unless I know you need it. Ask me for help.

“In the future . . . if by some miracle you ever find yourself in the position to fall in love again . . . fall in love with me.”

It’s not a person’s actions that hurt the most. It’s the love. If there was no love attached to the action, the pain would be a little easier to bear.

Sometimes even grown women need their mother’s comfort so we can just take a break from having to be strong all the time.

Cycles exist because they are excruciating to break. It takes an astronomical amount of pain and courage to disrupt a familiar pattern. Sometimes it seems easier to just keep running in the same familiar circles, rather than facing the fear of jumping and possibly not landing on your feet.