How Freaking Romantic

by Emily Harding

“I’m too much. I feel too much.” “It’s better than not feeling anything at all,” he says. His voice is deep and gravelly. “Except people don’t see it that way. They see that I’m too angry and too opinionated. I’m abrasive and let my emotions get the better of me, and that’s a lot for people to deal with, so—” “Who told you that?” I sigh, working to make my tone light, like I’m joking. Like this isn’t the most honest I’ve been with anyone in my entire life. “Everyone has told me that.”

“You’re not a lot, Bea. You care about the people in your life. You defend them and you don’t try to be anyone other than yourself. If anybody has a problem with that, it just means they’ve learned somewhere along the line that those things are faults. That’s for them to work out, not you.”

You deserve the same care and love you give away to everyone else, Bea. And at some point, you need to fight for you just as much as you fight for everybody else.”