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Before this, I was Layla Robinson, crazy in love with her stepbrother. Now, I’m Layla Robinson, crushing on her poetry professor.
He is like my personal moon—unattainable, to be admired from afar. He is my cancer, slowly killing me, and I don’t even mind.
when I look inside me—a selfish, crazy girl who fell in the wrong kind of love—so I’d rather not look.
“Art is painful, Layla. It’s potentially dangerous. Explosive. It takes everything from you, sometimes more than you can afford. It’s a beast, and it’s always starving. You feed it and feed it…until you have nothing left.” He sucks in a breath. “But you don’t mind because you’d rather chase the high of creating something than live in darkness. It’s insanity.”
“I’m scared…” I whisper brokenly. “Of what?” Of always being this miserable and alone.
I realized this was love—brutal, dark, and never-ending. It’s madness.
“Because unrequited love is like a dead, useless organ. It’s functionless. It’s sicker than a disease. You can cure a disease, but you can’t fix a defective soul. That’s the most frustrating thing in the world, to be that powerless.”
He needs me. He needs to exert his power over me because his love has made him powerless. He needs me begging because his love has made him a beggar himself. The lust he feels for me comes from the love he feels for her.
Because I’m a girl who’s not supposed to be the love of someone’s life, not with my selfishness. I was meant to live in the shadows and secrets. I can be Thomas’ secret, for a little while, at least—until I absorb all of his pain and set him free.
“This is what I think about,” he bites. “It doesn’t even matter if you’re around. This. Bursting every door down so I can get to your pussy. All I can think about is fucking you, Layla. All the time. Every time. You’re in my fucking blood, and I’ll tear apart anyone who dares to fucking touch you.”
We shouldn’t look for love stories where there are none to be found.”
I bet if he told me to stay still so he could cut out a piece of my heart, I’d obey him. I’m so far gone for him that he could fool me easily.
I want to be ruined for every other man out there because no one is like him. If I can’t have him, then no one will ever have me. I’ll be alone. The very thing I was running from…I want it now.
Loving myself means fighting for myself, fighting for my sanity, and I will fucking fight.
“A lover is the one who waits,” he paraphrases. “Then, I’ll wait. Forever.”
bravery is not the absence of fear, but the courage to do something despite it—taking that first step despite the danger of falling, creating a piece of art knowing that people might not appreciate it. Bravery is like falling in love. You don’t know if the person will reciprocate, but still you fall.
