Without Merit

by Colleen Hoover

“Out of all the places we could be, we’re right here. At the same time.”

My father is a huge Cowboys fan and he’s been talking about tonight’s game between Dallas and Green Bay incessantly. He’s only going to be mad that I dressed Him as a Packers fan.

“Don’t make your presence known. Make your absence felt.”

There’s something freeing about refusing to stress over stressful situations. No matter how much thought or time you put into a decision, you’re still only going to be wrong or right.

spontaneity and refusal to weigh the consequences of my decisions are my two favorite things about me.

A person can’t help their attraction to another person, but a person can help their actions toward another person.

“Not every mistake deserves a consequence. Sometimes the only thing it deserves is forgiveness.”

I wish I could apply that thinking to my family but I’m not sure I’m capable of that much forgiveness.

I glance to the other side of the copier and see Luck’s worn notebook with all his conquests in it. I glance back at him and he isn’t looking at me. I flip to the last page and sure enough, he has my name written down. It says, 332.5 M.V., her bed, DNF. I got DNF’d. A big, fat DID NOT FINISH. “Do I at least get a participation trophy for this?”

I don’t want to die. If I wanted to die, I wouldn’t have gone to Utah for help.

What teenager doesn’t think about what it would be like to die every now and then?

IF THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF THE EARTH WERE COMPRESSED INTO A SINGLE CALENDAR YEAR, HUMANS WOULDN’T EVEN APPEAR UNTIL DECEMBER 31ST AT 11:00 P.M.

“Humans are romantic creatures. It’s reassuring to believe this all-knowing being who has the power to create anything and everything still loves the human race more than any of it.”

I tend to think a lot of people are wrong a lot of the time.

I’m not even sure home is a word that can be used to describe where I live. It’s just a house filled with people who are counting down the days until they don’t have to live with each other anymore.

I want us all to be normal. It can’t be that hard. “Why can’t we be a normal family?”

“I hate this family sometimes,” I whisper. “So much.” Sagan pulls his sketch pad in front of him. “Not an unprecedented feeling for a teenager.”

“Tuqburni is used to describe the all-encompassing feeling of not being able to live without someone. Which is why the literal translation is, ‘You bury me.’ ”

NOT EVERY MISTAKE DESERVES A CONSEQUENCE. SOMETIMES THE ONLY THING IT DESERVES IS FORGIVENESS.

“You think just because I’m an adult I have it all figured out? You think I’m not allowed to make mistakes?”

“No matter how hard you try, things don’t always turn out the way you wish they could.”

I sigh. Fallen is an understatement. It was more like collapsed. Plummeted. Crumpled at his feet. Anything but fallen.

Maybe that’s the root of a lot of family issues. It isn’t actually the issues people are hung up about for so long. It’s that no one has the courage to take the first step in talking about the issues.

We aren’t put on this earth to be carbon copies of our parents. Peace doesn’t come to everyone in the same form.”

“Having depression is no more out of your control than Sagan’s intolerance to milk, or Utah’s pale skin, or Honor’s bad vision. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. But it’s not something you can ignore or correct on your own. And it doesn’t make you abnormal.

“Your whole family suffers from all kinds of things. You shouldn’t feel so special, Merit. We’re all a degree of fucked-up.”

“A lot of people who suffer from depression don’t even know they have it. It’s a gradual change. Or at least it was for me. I used to feel like I was on top of the world. Then one day, I noticed that it felt like I was no longer on top of the world. I was just floating around inside of it. And then eventually, it felt like the world was on top of me.”

What I’m saying is, the same two things could happen to two people, but that doesn’t mean they would experience the exact same stress over it. We all have different levels of stress that we’re accustomed to.

We’re just two different people with two different sets of experiences.”

“It annoys me when people try to convince other people that their anger or stress isn’t warranted if someone else in the world is worse off than them. It’s bullshit. Your emotions and reactions are valid, Merit. Don’t let anyone tell you any different. You’re the only one who feels them.”

Somebody said Utah is gay. Is that like a bastard?”