Problematic Summer Romance (Not in Love, #2)

by Ali Hazelwood

held inside such mountains of grief, I constantly felt on the brink of choking. Only one thing lent me air: my rage. It reached through my rib cage and pierced little holes in my lungs. It allowed me to function. It kept me alive.

You built a nice adulthood over the ruins of a shitty adolescence

And stop acting like a red dye–guzzling child.

“I was in Ireland for a private matter. My family has an estate there, and my presence was required.” Georgia’s eyes widen. “Is everything all right?” “My father is ill.” She gasps. “I’m so sorry.” “You should be, as it appears that he’ll pull through. The devil really does look after his own.”

I’d rather shit in my hands and clap than go to the graduation of some teenager I barely know.”

“Ugh. He’s so obsessed with that.” I bury my face in the pillow. “I shouldn’t have let his cuteness blind me.” “Cuteness? He looks like he was drawn by my right hand.”

“The way you speak of him. Do you really not care that he might die?” “I do care. I am actively upset every second he remains alive.”

He truly believes that I would walk away and sleep with someone else. You have to know, I want to tell him. You have to know that I’ve been in love with you for three years longer than it was wise.

“I love you,” I interrupt him. Calm. Even. I think I hear him die. “Maya.” “I love you.” “No.” “I love you. And you are my best friend.” “No.”

“I know you think that you are in love with me, but if you give it time, it will run its course. And the kindest thing I can do for you at the moment is to free you from me.”

“I have never wanted anything as desperately, as ungovernably, as persistently as I want you. Not a single goddamn thing. Not my dead mother back. Not revenge. Not the well-being of the people I love. Not professional success, not even my own happiness. Absolutely nothing has consumed me as mercilessly as you have.”

Make no mistake, Maya: we may not have spoken or seen each other, but for the last ten months my relationship with you was the most labor-intensive and all-encompassing presence in my life.”

A realization: the space between Conor and me is not the fluid, breachable entity I believed it to be, but solid. Uncrossable. I’ve only been fooling myself. There was never a chance for us. There is only the rest of my life. Without him.

I’m not yours to set free! I am free, and I have chosen you freely over and over again. But you hate yourself too much to allow that. Deep down, you don’t believe that you are worthy of love, and you are so terrified of having me and hurting me, that you would rather spend the rest of your life giving me things I never asked for just, just to keep me at a distance.

Sometimes you give it your all, and things still don’t turn out well. Sometimes A for effort looks just like an F in a funhouse mirror.