All Your Perfects

by Colleen Hoover

I’ve met people who smile with their eyes, but he frowns with his.

“Whores,” I mutter. “Whores with no food,” Graham says. “Maybe they’ll both starve to death.” I smile.

“If you only shine light on your flaws, all your perfects will dim.”

“Ethan doesn’t know how to change a tire. We’ve had two flats since we’ve been together and he had to call a tow truck both times.” Graham shakes his head a little and says, “I’m not looking for reasons to excuse the bastard, but that’s not so bad. A lot of guys don’t know how to change a tire.” “I know. That’s not the bad part. The bad part is that I do know how to change a tire. He just refused to let me because it would have embarrassed him to have to stand aside while a girl changed his tire.”

Does she know when Ethan proposed to me, he cried when I said yes? She must not realize this or she wouldn’t have thrown away her relationship with a guy who impressed me more in one hour than Ethan did in four years.

it’s hard to admit that a marriage might be over when the love is still there. People are led to believe that a marriage ends only when the love has been lost. When anger replaces happiness. When contempt replaces bliss.

People can’t always control who their circumstances turn them into.

The problem is, love and happiness are not concordant. One can exist without the other.

So many issues in my life and marriage would be nonexistent if I didn’t feel so incomplete without a child.

They have absolutely no compassion for people in my situation. If they knew how many women have spent years dreaming of a positive result, they’d never even think to make light of it.

Even without social media, not a single day goes by without being reminded that I might never be a mother. Every time I see a child. Every time I see a pregnant woman. Every time I run into people like Eleanor. Almost every movie I watch, every book I read, every song I hear. And lately . . . every time my husband touches me.

“I’m tired of fucking for the sake of science, Quinn. It would be nice if just one time I could be inside you because you want me there. Not because it’s a requirement to getting pregnant.”

I do what I do best. I walk away until I’m strong enough to pretend the conversation never happened. And he does what he does best. He leaves me alone in my grief because I’ve made it so hard for him to console me.

I realize why I find him so attractive. It’s because he makes me feel attractive. The way he looks at me. The way he talks to me. I’m not sure anyone has ever made me feel as beautiful as he makes me feel when he looks at me.

You’ll eat my tomatoes, I’ll eat every other vegetable on your plate. Nothing goes to waste. It’s a perfect match.”

I’ve never thought about this from their perspective. I don’t like how these thoughts are making me feel. Ashamed. Like maybe I’m not only preventing Graham from ever having a child, but I’m preventing his family from being able to love a child that Graham would be perfectly capable of creating if not for me.

sadness is like a spiderweb. You don’t see it until you’re caught up in it, and then you have to claw at yourself to try to break free.

sigh heavily; disappointed that there won’t even be a chance this leads to anything. It’s difficult enough bringing myself to make love at all anymore, so the fact that this time doesn’t even count fills me with regret. Why couldn’t this have happened last week, instead?

“Sometimes I feel like I’m making love to a corpse.” I swipe angrily at my tears. Of course he feels like he’s making love to a corpse. It’s because he is. I haven’t felt alive inside in years. I’ve slowly been rotting away, and that rot is now eating at my marriage to the point that I can no longer hide it.

Apologies are good for admitting regret, but they do very little in removing the truth from the actions that caused the regret.

“We’re all full of flaws. Hundreds of them. They’re like tiny holes all over our skin. And like your fortune said, sometimes we shine too much light on our own flaws. But there are some people who try to ignore their own flaws by shining light on other people’s to the point that the other person’s flaws become their only focus. They pick at them, little by little, until they rip wide open and that’s all we become to them. One giant, gaping flaw.”

When you meet someone who is good for you, they won’t fill you with insecurities by focusing on your flaws. They’ll fill you with inspiration, because they’ll focus on all the best parts of you.”

“I’m sorry for what I did to you in your nightmare. Please forgive me tonight when you dream.” I still have the card. I smile every time I think about it. Some men can’t even apologize for the mistakes they make in reality. But my husband apologizes for the mistakes he makes in my dreams.

I flip my hand over and press the glass against my palm. It pierces my skin, but I continue to press harder. I watch as it goes deeper and deeper into my palm. I watch as blood bubbles up around the glass. My chest still somehow hurts worse than my hand. So much worse.

I’m not mad at Andrea. She’s not the one who made a commitment to me. She has no loyalty to me or I to her. I’m only mad at one person in this scenario and that is my husband.

If a scientist could figure out how to align the heart with the brain, there would be very little agony left in the world.

“Who are you right now? What did you do with my husband?” He faces forward and leans back against his seat, covering his eyes with his arm. “He’s probably somewhere with my wife. It’s been a while since I’ve seen her.”

“I love you,” he says quietly, shaking his head. “I always have. No matter how much you wish I didn’t.”

It doesn’t make what he did right in any sense, but a person can understand a behavior without excusing it.

No matter how much you love someone—the capacity of that love is meaningless if it outweighs your capacity to forgive.

“Our marriage hasn’t been perfect. No marriage is perfect. There were times when she gave up on us. There were even more times when I gave up on us. The secret to our longevity is that we never gave up at the same time.”

He nudges his head toward the ocean. “That being one of them. How can something exist that is that magnificent and powerful without something even more magnificent and powerful creating it?”

“When you look at the earth’s existence as a whole, we’re nothing. We haven’t even been here long enough to earn bragging rights. Yet humans believe we’re the center of the universe. We focus on the stupidest, most mundane issues. We stress about things that mean absolutely nothing to the universe, when we should be nothing but grateful that evolution even gave our species a chance to have problems. Because one of these days . . . humans won’t exist. History will repeat itself and earth will move on to a different species altogether. Me and you . . . we’re just two people out of an entire race that, in retrospect, is still way less impressive at sustainability than a dinosaur. We just haven’t reached our expiration date yet.”

“We can’t have kids, Quinn. And you know what? I’m okay with that. I didn’t marry you for the potential kids we might have had together one day. I fell in love with you and I committed to you because I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. That’s all I cared about when I said my vows. But I’m starting to realize that maybe you didn’t marry me for the same reasons.”

this is what our marriage is . . . if this is all it will ever be . . . just me and you . . . will that be enough? Am I enough for you, Quinn?”

The problem is . . . he could be so much more without me.

You really are the sweetest man I know, Mr. Wells.”

When you got back to the car with the dress hidden inside of a garment bag, you couldn’t stop laughing. You said the ladies who were helping you thought you were insane, buying a dress just a day before your wedding. You said they gasped when you told them you’re a procrastinator and that you still haven’t picked out a groom.

Hurricanes aren’t a constant threat to coastal towns. There are more days with great weather and perfect beach days than there are hurricanes. Marriages are similar, in that there are a lot of great days with no arguments, when both people are filled with so much love for each other. But then you have the threatening-weather days. There might only be a few a year, but they can do enough damage that it takes years to repair. Some of the coastal towns will be prepared for the bad-weather days. They’ll save their best resources and most of their energy so that they’ll be stocked up and prepared for the aftermath. But some towns won’t be as prepared. They’ll put all their resources into the good weather days in hopes that the severe weather will never come. It’s the lazier choice and the choice with greater consequences. I think that’s the difference in the marriages that survive and the marriages that don’t. Some people think the focus in a marriage should be put on all the perfect days. They love as much and as hard as they can when everything is going right. But if a person gives all of themselves in the good times, hoping the bad times never come, there may not be enough resources or energy left to withstand those Category 5 moments.

I promise that I will love you more during the storms than I will love you during the perfect days. I promise to love you more when you’re hurting than when you’re happy.

I promise to love you more when we’re poor than when we’re swimming in riches. I promise to love you more when you’re crying than when you’re laughing. I promise to love you more when you’re sick than when you’re healthy. I promise to love you more when you hate me than when you love me. And I promise . . . I swear . . . that I love you more as you read this letter than I did when I wrote it.

can’t wait to shine light on all your perfects.

You’re asleep on the couch right now. Your feet are in my lap and every now and then, your whole body jerks, like you’re jumping in your dream. I keep trying to write you this letter, but your feet keep knocking my arm, making the pen slide off the page. If my handwriting is shit, it’s your fault.

I think Caroline saw the look on my face while I was holding him and thought I was looking at him with such intensity because I wanted one of my own. But I was actually looking at him and wondering if you would continue to love me if I never became the one thing you wished I could be.

I walked to the living room and sat down on the couch, wondering if new possibilities would open up for you if I left you. Maybe if you weren’t tied to me, somewhere down the line you could meet a man who already had children. You could fall in love with him and be a stepmother to his children and have some semblance of happiness brought back into your life.

I promise to love you more as a childless woman than I would love you as a mother.

And I promise . . . I swear . . . that if you choose to end things between us, I will love you more as you’re walking out the door than on the day you walked down the aisle.

It’s proof that fate exists.” I shake my head and point to his fortune. “Your fortune says you would succeed in a business endeavor that day, but you didn’t even go to work. How is that proof that we’re soul mates?” His lips curl up into a grin. “If I had been at work I never would have met you, Quinn. I’d say that’s the biggest work-related success I’ve ever had.”

“Graham?” I turn back around. “You didn’t read yours?” Graham glances over his shoulder and smiles at me. “I didn’t need to, Quinn. I’ll read it on our twenty-fifth anniversary.” He faces the stove and resumes cooking like he didn’t just say something that feels more healing than anything he’s ever said or done.

I know how grateful he is for everything I can give him.