More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
The heart inside my chest—the one he’d helped harden—remained completely numb.
“Feel less.” I breathed out. “Don’t allow others to drive your emotions in such a way. Shut it off.” “Shut off my feelings?” I nodded. “I can’t,” she argued, still crying. Her hands fell over her heart, and she shook her head back and forth. “This is who I am. I am the girl who feels everything.” I could tell that was true. She was the girl who felt everything, and I was the man who felt nothing at all.
“Then the world will do its best to make you nothing,” I told her. “The more feelings you give, the more they’ll take from you. Trust me. Pull yourself together.”
Anger was creeping up, and she was mentally slamming a sledgehammer against me. She was forcing me to turn back into the monster she hadn’t known she lay beside each night.
“I won’t need you. I don’t need anyone,” I barked at her, feeling annoyed by her giving personality. How ridiculous it was for her to give so much of herself so freely.
“Who hurt you so bad and made you so cold?”
How was a monster supposed to raise a child?
Who hurt me so bad and made me so cold? The ‘who’ part was easy. It was the reason that was blurred.
Yet the truth of the matter was, sometimes the ones we loved most were the monsters that tucked us in at night.
But, I am hoping that someday, you’ll somehow find a place for me in your heart, too, because that’s the thing about hearts—when you think they’re completely full, you somehow find room to add a little more love.”
He could still see the anger in his father’s eyes, but something about Rebecca’s touch kept him calm. She seemed to be the beauty that somehow tamed the beast.
Hope was the weak man’s remedy to life’s issues.
Her touch was soft, gentle, and surprisingly welcoming to my unwelcoming soul.
“I didn’t mean it in…” My words died off, and even though she kept smiling, I saw the small tremble in her bottom lip. I’d offended her. Of course I’d offended her—not on purpose, but still, it had happened. I shifted around before standing taller. I should’ve said more, but no words came to mind.
As she walked outside, I spoke. “I’m bad with words.” She turned around and shook her head. “No, I’ve read your books, and you’re great with words—almost too good. What you lack are people skills.” “I live in my head a lot. I don’t interact with people very often.”
“I know I don’t say much, and what I do say is normally the wrong thing, so I apologize for offending you.
“You’re both hot and cold all at once, and I cannot for the life of me figure you out. I don’t know how to read you,
“Blame? I meant every word I said to you that night.” “Every word?” I huffed, shocked. “So, you’re not sorry?” He stood taller and placed his hands in his jeans pockets. “Of course not. I only spoke the truth, and it’s a pity you’re just too emotional to fully accept it.”
You let your emotions drive everything you are, which in turn makes you weak.”
I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t made for these kinds of moments. I wasn’t one to give comfort.
It was all right that she and I handled things in a different fashion. She wore her heart on her sleeve, and I kept my heart wrapped in steel chains deep within my soul.
The woman who felt everything leaned in closer to the man who felt nothing at all.
“A smart woman once told me I was a shitty human, and I’m trying my best to be a little less shitty.”
The beautiful girl who felt everything. Her emotions weren’t what made her weak. They were her strength.
“The thing is, the heart never listens to
the brain’s logic, Mr. Russell.” He nudged me in the side with an all-knowing hitch in his voice. “It just feels.”
“It’s just funny, isn’t it? How the main characters never know about the adventures they’re about to go on.”
You spent most of your life struggling to avoid embracing a form of happiness, my son. When in the world will you allow yourself to be free of the chains you placed upon yourself?
But, since he had been brave enough to be more like me by feeling everything that night, I was forcing myself to be more like him by trying to feel a little less. I wondered if this was what his whole life was like, feeling everything only in the shadows.
Real life was a mess of words that sometimes worked, and other times didn’t. Real life was an array of emotions that hardly made sense. Real life was a first draft novel with scribbles and crossed out sentences, all written in crayon.
Because that was the thing about hearts—when you thought they were completely full, you somehow found room to add a little more love.
If only the world could feel the way our hearts beat as one, then maybe they wouldn’t be so harsh to judge our connection.
She was my freedom, yet I was her cage
