Forever Right Now

by Emma Scott

“Forgetting is pretending it never happened,” Max said. “You need to remember and remember and remember, until it has no power over you anymore. Someday, I’m going to walk up to that lamppost and all of the memories will still be there, but they’ll be a part of who I am. Instead of having a shitty day, I’ll smile and think of how it was a piece of my past, but not the sum of it.”

“Everyone is worthy of love,” Max said. “But it starts with loving yourself first. That sounds like cheesy, clichéd shit, but it’s true. You have to know you can be good for someone else. Not just to fill up that hole in yourself, but to give.”

“We’re all made up of strengths and weaknesses, every one of us. You have strengths. Plenty. Getting clean is a strength. Picking yourself back up again after you fall, that’s a strength.”

“You can get used to a lot of things,” Darlene said. “Doesn’t mean they’re good for you.”

You deserved to be loved as you are, Darlene. Not in bits and pieces.”

It’s not always easy being the good guy, especially when being good or nice is so often mistaken for being weak.”

“You get back what you put in. Negative shit gets you negative shit. Positive energy begets positive energy. Whatever you put out there in the universe…it listens. And then it answers. So when I talk, I try to give it something it wants to hear and hope it answers with something I want to hear.”

Acceptance, I thought, is a kind of love too.