The Way I Used to Be (The Way I Used to Be, #1)

by Amber Smith

Why do I feel like, sometimes, I have no one in the entire world who knows me in even the slightest, most insignificant way?

Sometimes he uses his words like weapons to chip away at my icy exterior and sometimes he can break through to the slightly defrosted layer beneath. But then again, sometimes he just hits solid iceberg. For instance, he knows what he’s doing when next he says, “And you should smile more too.” I look away, embarrassed. He has no way of knowing how sometimes it physically hurts to smile. How a smile can sometimes feel like the biggest lie I’ve ever told.

His hands, his arms, can hold the pieces in place temporarily, maybe even for a long time, but he can never truly put them back together. That’s not his job. He’s not the hero and he’s not the enemy and he’s not a god. He’s just a boy. And I’m just a girl, a girl who needs to pick up her own pieces and put them back together herself.

All these maybes swimming around my head make me think that “maybe” could just be another word for hope.