Regretting You

by Colleen Hoover

I wonder if humans are the only living creatures that ever feel hollow inside. I don’t understand how my body can be full of everything bodies are full of—bones and muscles and blood and organs—yet my chest sometimes feels vacant, as if someone could scream into my mouth and it would echo inside of me.

It used to feel like home. Now it feels like an institution, and my mom and I are the only patients.

“I’ve believed in you since the moment I met you. I believe in myself now that I’ve finally left you.”

“Welcome to the theme park,” Jonah says. I look at him quizzically, so he begins to offer up an explanation. “Right after something tragic happens, you feel like you’ve fallen off a cliff. But after the tragedy starts to sink in, you realize you didn’t fall off a cliff. You’re on an eternal roller coaster that just reached the bottom. Now it’s gonna be up and down and upside down for a long, long time. Maybe even forever.”

“Clara isn’t struggling because Chris is no longer here. She’s struggling because he’s never coming back. There’s a difference.”

Sometimes when he says things to me, his words feel like they reach me through my chest rather than through my ears.