History Is All You Left Me

by Adam Silvera

I’m lucky to have parents who know when to go to war with me and when to leave me alone in the battlef ield.

It’s weird how when we’re done it doesn’t feel weird at all, how I never want to be invisible when I’m with him, and how I can’t believe I ever thought I would doubt this moment in the f irst place.

Four times. I’ve told Theo I love him four times, and it was easier with each one.

And then you died, and now I’m left wandering around with zero sense of direction. Talking to someone else who’s lost might help.

When we had our eventual reunion, you would be able to see how my love for you trumped my own happiness.

I’m not strong enough to suffer alone.

Playing dumb is another form of lying, I know.

It already sucks how I’m breaking my own heart for his happiness. But if he’s happy, I’m happy. Right?

silence is sometimes better than someone speaking before they’re ready. That is how lies slip out.

What I’ve now learned is, going forward, I have to be careful whom I trust with my heart. I have to be suspicious that someone will use the love I give and carry it over to someone else.

I’ll never understand how time can make a moment feel as close as yesterday and as far as years.

Maybe my self-destructive streak isn’t so much about cheating on a single person as it is about cheating on love itself. Love, the hugest liar in this universe.