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.

Sometimes when we’re alone, he looks at me in a way that makes me feel empty when he looks away.

It’s like my chest has been on a constant search for its missing piece, and Jonah is holding it in his fist.

“You’re a sacrificer. I don’t even know if that’s a real word, but that’s what you are. You do things you don’t want to do to make life better for the people around you.

“It means people who make mistakes usually learn from them. That doesn’t make them hypocrites. It makes them experienced.”

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

I think it’s time I figure out who I was meant to become before I started living my life for everyone else.

Attraction isn’t something that only happens once, with one person. It’s part of what drives humans. Our attraction to each other, to art, to food, to entertainment. Attraction is fun. So when you decide to commit to someone, you aren’t saying, ‘I promise I’ll never be attracted to anyone else.’ You’re saying, ‘I promise to commit to you, despite my potential future attraction to other people.’”

“Relationships are hard for that very reason. Your body and your heart don’t stop finding the beauty and the attraction in other people simply because you’ve made a commitment to one person. If you ever find yourself in a situation where you’re drawn to someone else, it’s up to you to remove yourself from that situation before it becomes too hard to fight.”