It's a Love Story

by Annabel Monaghan

There’s nothing that makes a person act more insane than trying to prove how sane they actually are.

“That’s all very loud,” he says. “People want love. They want to feel connected and like they’re okay.”

I’m not sure what it is about my exasperation with Dan that feels like a break. I lean into it like it’s a safe space where I can stop berating myself.

“I think you think you have a poker face, when I can seriously see every thought as it crosses your mind. You just had a sarcastic thought.”

I have a quick thought that he looks like a bed you’d want to climb back into on a Sunday. Because it’s raining outside, and your body just wants to sink back into the warmth.

Sometimes the simplest facts are the most painful ones. They’re the ones that cut to the essence of who we are.

There’s a difference between someone loving you and agreeing with every single thing you do.”

“Everything you say is a little crazy, Jane. Doesn’t bother me a bit anymore.”

“When you smile at me, I feel like I want to capture it. But it’s not the regular way like when I see something beautiful and I want to photograph it. When you smile, it does something to me, I feel it in my chest, and I just want to figure out how to get you to do it again.”

This feels like wealth, I think. This is the thing you save up for. You live your whole life so that you can be surrounded by too many people in too small of a room and tell the story of how it all happened.

It feels good to want something for someone else, something that has nothing to do with you, just because you care about them. And I wonder if this is what love is. I rest my hand on my heart to feel if it’s changed. I think it has. I have.

“I like the way it tenses when you’re really mad. And the first time you wanted to murder me, I wanted to murder you right back, but also I was wondering what it would feel like to kiss you there and make you look happy again. Because when you laugh your jaw does this other thing that makes your face look honest. You’re beautiful when you’re having big emotions.”

“I find you exceptionally lovable.”

“I’d like to be the person who could take all of your sad things and make them happy. Like I’d hunt down each one and turn it over.”