Disgrace

by Brittainy C. Cherry

“Someday, somewhere—anywhere, unfailingly, you’ll find yourself, and that, and only that, can be the happiest or bitterest hour of your life.” -Pablo Neruda

Nobody told me puppies never shut up or listened. Dad said it was pretty much the same as having a kid—because I kind of never shut up or listened either.

“People don’t need nice; they need the truth. I find it ridiculous that a guy has this kind of hold on you. Have some self-respect. It’s insane to give full control of your emotions to someone who doesn’t give a damn about you.”

A lesson I should have learned a lot sooner in life!

“You don’t got to know what love is to know what it isn’t.

“Yeah? Well, I liked you better when your mouth wasn’t running and was wrapped around my cock.”

As I walked into the shop, I could smell them all—the adventures hidden behind the covers. The heartbreaking stories. The heart healing ones. The stories of love lost and found. The stories of self-discovery. The stories that made you feel less alone in a lonely world. There was no better feeling than falling in love with people you’d never truly meet, yet still, they felt like family.

Such a great description of being in love with literature.

Sometimes, all a person needed was another to listen to their uneven heartbeats.

“My parents taught me to zoom in, ya know? It’s easy to judge others from afar. It’s easy to look at someone from outside your world and make blanket statements and judgments on who those people are. Because when you see others’ flaws, you somewhat justify that your flaws are better than theirs. But when you zoom in, when you truly look at the person beside you, you’ll see many of the same things. Hope. Love. Fear. Anger. Once you zoom in, you realize we are all similar in so many ways. We all bleed red, and even monster’s hearts can break. Just gotta remember to always zoom in.”

“They’re gonna bleed you out till you’re nothing, and then they’re gonna ask how you died.”

You build your whole life around another person, and you think you’ll never be alone again, but then you are. It’s the hardest feeling to deal with. Loneliness hurts. It burns in a way that feels worse than fire.”

“You’re beautiful,” he told me once again. “Now fuck me harder than you’ve ever fucked.”

🥵 Umm, yes please.

“Are you always like this?” “Like what?” “Perfect.”

“Fix me for a while?” “I’ll fix you all night long, and then I’ll continue tomorrow.”

Swoon

He stood for the idea that even on the dark days, one could still find light. During that summer, he became my faith, and I swore for a small moment, I was his.

I combed her hair behind her ears and looked straight into those beautiful blue eyes as I spoke her way. “If you ever fall in love again, please let it be with me.”

My heart 🥹

“He heard every single word you said.” “How can you be sure?” “Because his eyes showed me exactly how my heart feels.”

Over the past year, I learned that faith wasn’t a building, yet it was a place in one’s heart.

There wasn’t one correct way to believe—there were a million possibilities out there.

“I’ve seen so many places over the past few months. I’ve witnessed a million sunrises, and I’ve seen the sun set. There were thousands of roads I’ve driven, and no matter which one I took, no matter if I went left or right, north or south, it seemed that they all led me right back to you.”

Because love—real love—didn’t mean always holding the same beliefs. It didn’t mean we had to see eye to eye on every subject. Yet what it did mean, what real love stood for was a mutual understanding. A respect for one another’s dreams and hopes and wishes and fears.

Amen