If I Was Your Girl

by Meredith Russo

This book is for all of you.

Damn that’s a really good dedication.

I had started to feel like I was just standing still, like life was passing me by outside and I would be forever trapped in our house with nowhere to go and no one to talk to.

I found Bee and Chloe rounding the far corner. They stopped midstride.

Yeah they’re dating. Or hooking up. Or something.

You can’t have art if you spend all your time forgetting pain.”

I wondered if Bee knew how privileged she was to be able to feel anything at all, if she knew just how scary numbness could be. How it felt, sometimes, like a darkened room with no way out.

smart’s the same as scared sometimes,”

What…what does that even mean??

“My favorite passage from John is, ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him may not perish.’ It’s so life-focused, you know? So hopeful.”

You wanna flex your bible knowledge? That’s not the way to do it, because everyone knows that verse, even me.

Maybe secrets and lies were a part of life; maybe everyone had something they were lying to themselves about, or something they were hiding.

I looked up at the cross again and wondered if I was supposed to hear this particular sermon at this particular moment for a reason.

Signs. Yes I am well acquainted with such.

singing along loudly to Taylor Swift.

I still don’t love that Taylor Swift is SUCH a country/southern/basic white girl thing.

pea coat

One word. Not two.

I thought of Grant holding my hand as we walked down a New York City street, of lounging on a blanket in Central Park, reading for class as he napped peacefully beside me.

This sounds like a dream

“All Night” by Icona Pop

That REALLY dates this book. I would have been in seventh grade.

I thought of Andrew then, that sad child who wanted desperately for someone to be a friend, for someone to understand, who never could have imagined a future like this. Who couldn’t imagine a future at all.