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He had many red flags along the way. A man who didn’t like pizza, tacos, or pajamas on Sunday afternoons wasn’t someone who was meant to cross my path.
that’s the thing about hearts—when you think they’re completely full, you somehow find room to add a little more love.”
“Perhaps I’m one of those novels where you have to keep turning the page until the very end to understand the meaning.”
“Just because you smile and act free doesn’t mean the cage doesn’t exist. It merely means you lowered your standards for how far you’ll allow yourself to fly.”
This life is short, and you never know how many chapters you have left in your novel, Graham. Live each day as if it’s the final page. Breathe each moment as if it’s the final word. Be brave, my son. Be brave.”
“Being around you does something strange to me, something that hasn’t happened in such a long time.” “What happens?” He took my hand in his then led it to his chest, and his next words came out as a whisper. “My heart begins to beat again.”
“Loneliness is a liar,” Graham told me, sitting down on the edge of his bed as he spoke. “It’s toxic and deadly most of the time. It forces people to believe they are better off with the devil himself than being alone, because somehow being alone means a person failed. Somehow being alone means a person isn’t good enough. So, more often than not, the poison of loneliness seeps in and makes a person believe that any kind of attention must stand for love. Fake love that is built on a bed of loneliness will fail—I should know. I’ve been alone all my life.”
A great story always had structure. But life wasn’t a great story. 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. It wasn’t beautiful. It came without warning. It came without ease. And when the novel of real life came to fuck you up, it made sure to knock the air from your lungs and leave your bleeding heart for the wolves.
‘The world’s a little darker tonight, Graham.’ Then he wiped away his tears and said, ‘But still, I must believe that the sun will rise tomorrow.’”
“It’s you,” I whispered, our lips still slightly touching. “My greatest hope is, and always will be, you.”
Sometimes when your heart wanted a full-length novel, the world only gave you a novella, and sometimes when you wanted forever you only had those few seconds of now.
