Problematic Summer Romance (Not in Love, #2)

by Ali Hazelwood

Rue

“You built a nice adulthood over the ruins of a shitty adolescence,” my therapist once said, and I enjoy the mental image of it. The idea of life as something I could choose, cultivate day by day, curate and nurture. Being mindful, instead of reactive.

😐

and Conor…he’s always been good at feeding me.

pussyfooting.”

“Because that’s how relationships work. If it’s a good one, you let loose. You show all sides of yourself.”

What’s a tiny little bit of heartbreak, when faced with the vastness of mankind?

“I need to be sure that you know this isn’t going there.” I’m being rebuked. Scolded, even. I must be into that.

“Of course I fucking want you. You are stupidly beautiful, and too fucking smart for your own good, and I refuse to go there, Maya.”

ur kidding

“Why did you pick up, then?” “Because you called.”

Oh

BITCHHJHHHH

I wait, patient. Knowing that he’ll get there. He always does.

Tethered together through a satellite that’s a million miles away.

I’m being devious. I’m being unfair and problematic and manipulative. I should tell him the truth—I want him, I miss him,

ew the fuck

WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIR

“Can you be good? Just for once?”

It’s like my body knows where you are, at any given moment.”

Big Grape!”

I will wait for it. I will wait for you.”

“I have never wanted anything as desperately, as ungovernably, as persistently as I want you.

I miss Conor, but not in the way I used to. Less like a hole in my chest, and more of a temporary ache in my joints.

You are disruptive. Of my work. Of my sleep. Of my ability to think.”