One True Loves

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

I’m mad at almost everything that changed without me.

“We loved each other and we lost each other. And now, even though we still love each other, the pieces don’t fit like they used to.”

I could make myself fit for him. He could make himself fit for me. But that’s not true love.

“Always the one stopping us from going just one step further than we should.” “Yeah, but you always gave me the courage to do what I wanted to do,” I say. “I’m not sure I would have had the guts to do half the things I did if I didn’t have you believing in me, egging me on.”

The first person who just liked me for me. That . . . that was life changing. Truly.”

“You’re a lot of the reason why I am who I am,”

“there is no me without you.” Jesse kisses me then.

“No,” he says, “c’mon. I waited years just to hear your voice.”

Don’t ever let anyone tell you the most romantic part of love is the beginning. The most romantic part is when you know it has to end.

Falling out of love with someone you still like feels exactly like lying in a warm bed and hearing the alarm clock. No matter how good you feel right now, you know it’s time to go.

Jesse is home. Jesse is alive. But Jesse is no longer mine.

The footprints start off together and they grow apart. I get it. It’s fine. It’s the truth.

It was about whether Jesse and I still had something, or whether we didn’t.

“What was I saying? Oh, right. If Sam doesn’t take you back, I will personally kick his ass.”

Lmao

“I’m happy for you,” Jesse says. “I am.”

Maybe relationships are supposed to end with tears or screams. Maybe they are supposed to conclude with two people saying everything they never said or ripping into each other in a way that can’t be undone. I don’t know. I’ve only really ended one relationship in my life. It is this one. And this one ends with a good-natured game of I Spy. We

“I love you,” I say. “I’ve always loved you. I’ll always love you.”

“You were a wonderful person to love,” I say. “It felt so good to love you, to be loved by you.” “Well, it was the easiest thing I ever did,” he says.

“Emma, listen to me. Go find him right now and tell him that you want to be with him.” “You mean like go to his office at school?”

Thank you for guiding me toward a life that makes me happy.”

“Fifteen years ago, I watched you go off with Jesse and I told myself that you had made your decision and there was nothing that I could do about it. And here we are, all this time later, and I’m doing the same thing. That’s not . . . I can’t do it again. I’m fighting for you.

I have spent this time alone moping around like a bird with a broken wing just hoping that you’d come back to me. But it’s not enough to hope. I’m an adult now. I’m not a teenager like I was back then, the first time. I’m a man now. And it’s not enough for me to hope for you.

“You’ll be my wife?”

that means everything except hello.

I was wrong before, when I said there’s nothing more romantic than the end of a relationship. It is this. There is nothing more romantic than this. Holding the very person that you thought you lost, and knowing you’ll never lose them again. I don’t think that true love means your only love. I think true love means loving truly. Loving purely. Loving wholly.

Sam and I honeymoon in Montreal.

Eaaase i want one there too!

310. Santa Monica, California. “Hello?” “Emma?” The voice is instantly familiar. One I could never forget.

Iabsolutely love how she decided tfo close their story off woth this

“I didn’t get it back then. I thought . . . I thought choosing him meant you didn’t love me. I thought because we didn’t work out, it meant we were a failure or a mistake. But I understand it now. Because I love her. I love her so much I can’t see straight. But it doesn’t change how I felt about you or how thankful I am to have loved you once. It’s just . . .”

“I’m the past. And she’s the present.”

“I guess what I’m saying is I’ve come around to your way of thinking. I am immensely thankful I was married to you once. I am so grateful for our wedding day. Just because something isn’t meant to last a lifetime doesn’t mean it wasn’t meant to be. We were meant to have been.”

“You and I aren’t going to spend our lives together,” Jesse says. “But I finally understand that that doesn’t take away any of the beauty of the fact that we were right for each other once.”

“I am who I am because I loved you once,” he says.