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“If my eyes could show my soul, everyone would cry when they saw me smile.” —Kurt Cobain 1
Rejecting something out of fear only paints you a fool.”
Coping mechanism number one: remind yourself that your thoughts are not always your friend. They can lie like a motherfucker.
You like her. Fuck. I do. She makes me laugh, and she’s just so strange. In a good way. Like an Escher drawing, surreal and a little disorienting but you want to keep looking because you know you’ll discover something new.
I’m not supposed to like him anymore. I made a vow, damn it. But when he looks at me as though I’m the best thing he’s seen all day, it’s hard not to smile back.
“Because no one who lives honestly is perfect all the time. Those perfect people? They’re often living a lie.
“There is no such thing as perfect. Human beings make mistakes. Humans who feel greatly often make the biggest ones. It’s the intent that counts. Is it a mistake based on hate, selfishness, or moral cowardice? Give them no quarter. But an honest mistake backed by a true heart is another matter entirely.”
Forgive the small blunders. Don’t lose out on something due to pride.”
“I was standing there, looking at her, and she became … more. I couldn’t … I couldn’t think, man. Everything simply …” I wave a hand in annoyance at myself. “Tilted. The world tilted, and there she was. You know?3”
I’d stared at her in that shadowed hallway and it fully hit me how much I want her. I want her under me, over me, beside me. I want to dedicate hours memorizing the pattern of her freckles, each curve and dip of her body. I want her body against mine until her scent is in my skin. I want to taste her, to fuck her, to laugh with her. I want everything.
“I said that because I wanted to be close to you and am too emotionally stunted to man up to it. There isn’t anyone I want to be around more than you. You occupy my thoughts, haunt my dreams. I can no more stay away from you than I can try to keep my heart from beating.”
The door buzzer goes off. Dr. Stern. Finally. I move to let her in, but Stella clutches my hips. Her wide blue eyes, dull with fever, find mine. “Don’t leave me.” Fuck. She’s breaking my heart. I cup her cheek. “Never, baby. I’m just getting the door, okay?” She blinks, looking hazy and confused. I kiss her temple. “I’ll be right back. I promise.”
“We live in a world where people greet each other with ‘How are you?’ But few of us actually want an answer. It’s kind of hilarious if you think about it. We don’t really want to know how someone else is doing, but we want to look as though we do.”
Because when I’m low, I don’t want to be the one seeking out company. I want someone to find me, to tell me I’m wanted, needed. And when I don’t get that, I sink lower.
“Because I love champagne,” she says, pouring each of us a glass. “And you should indulge in what you love every day.”
denying ourselves daily joy is to live a half life.
“Stella Button, you annoy the hell out of me sometimes, but I like that you’re willing to fight my battles. Even if you’re fighting me while doing it.”
“Stells,” he whispers, “where have you been all my life?” A lump rises in my throat. “Drifting.” The corner of his lip quirks. “Well, stop. Don’t drift away.” “Okay.”
“Call it selfish, but I want the experience of dating, that anticipation of working up to sex while getting to know you better. Because you are too important to turn into something as simple as casual sex. I don’t want to lose you to that.”
“Stells,” I rasp, because my voice isn’t all there yet. “You’re always surprising me. Always making me so fucking happy just to be with you.”
He places a light kiss on my head. “Let yourself be loved, Stella Button. You deserve it.”
Stella giggles. That sound. It bubbles over my skin, trips my heart. I love that sound.
“I know you now, Stells. You’re wonderful, perfect, exactly as you are.”
I hug her with all the tenderness and love I can, curling my body as far as I can over her smaller form as though I can somehow cover up all her hurts and take them away. I hold her until she becomes warm and soft, her breath slowing. I’ll hold her forever if that’s what she wants.
I press my lips to her head. Of course we’re permanent. I’m totally gone for Stella. “Babe, whatever you want is what we’ll do.”
We stare at each other. She looks at me with such trust and tenderness that my heart starts to hurt. I want to pull her into me and hide her away from the world, from anything that could ever hurt her. But I know that won’t work. We can’t protect the ones we love; we can only let them know we’ll be there to pick them up when they fall.
John’s lips curl wryly as his thumb slowly caresses the corner of my mouth. “Stella Button, the moment you ripped that ice cream out of my hand, you knocked me off-balance. All I could do was fall.”
“I’m with you, Button. Whatever happens, I’m always with you.”
“I cannot chase you,” I say woodenly. God, the pain keeps growing. The hurt. “I’ve chased down people who were supposed to love me all my life. I can’t do that anymore.” A fist of feeling lodges itself behind my breastbone, and I swallow hard. “I shouldn’t have to.”
“You are my brother,” he says after a minute. “Life without you doesn’t … It doesn’t fucking work.”
Stella knew exactly what I needed and got it for me. Even though I stomped on her heart and cast her aside, she helped me.
“I want to be the one taking care of her. Not because she can’t, but because I can.”
