Sadie

by Courtney Summers

Whittler’s is bigger than what I come from, but doesn’t seem as clean. Or maybe you get so used to the mess of home you convince yourself over time everything’s exactly where it belongs. Nothing here is really trying for its best.

it makes me grateful but I fucking hate that too, because the kind of decency everybody ought to live by isn’t something that deserves my gratitude.

I always forget fear is a conquerable thing but I learn it over and over again and that, I guess, is better than never learning it.

Past-due notices. Seeing them puts a knot in my stomach the size of a grapefruit. That sort of dread you don’t ever forget once you’ve known it. The crushing panic of needing money you don’t have.

But love is complicated, it’s messy. It can inspire selflessness, selfishness, our greatest accomplishments and our hardest mistakes. It brings us together and it can just as easily drive us apart. It can drive us.