This Is How It Always Is

by Laurie Frankel

When she opened the door and he saw her, Penn said, “Oh.” It wasn’t that Rosie was so beautiful, though she was, that is, he thought she was, that is, he felt she was. He had to rely on this vague sense of what she looked like because he couldn’t see her. It was as if she were backlit, bright sun behind her preventing his eyes from adjusting so he could see her properly. Or it was as if he were fainting, the black bits at the sides folding his vision into smaller and smaller origami boxes. But it was none of those things. It was like when your car spins out on an icy road, and your senses turn up so high that time seems to slow because you notice everything, and you just sit in your spinning car waiting, waiting, to see if you’re going to die. He couldn’t look at her because every sense and every fraction of a moment and every atom of his body was being in love with her. It was weird.

Omg. 13 pages into the book and she already hit us with a quote so beautiful I read it 4 times.