Regretting You

by Colleen Hoover

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.

Sometimes you have to walk away from the fight in order to win it.

It’s my birthday, and I’m surrounded by everyone important to me, but for some reason, I feel more alone than I’ve ever felt.

I guess that happens when you become a mother, though. Your focus is no longer on yourself. Your life becomes all about this beautiful tiny little human you created.

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

Eventually, the contents inside the globe would begin to settle. All would grow still, and then the globes on my shelf would return to their quiet, peaceful states. I liked them because they reminded me of life. How sometimes, it feels like someone is shaking the world around you, and things are flying at you from every direction, but if you wait long enough, everything will start to calm. I liked that feeling of knowing that the storm inside always eventually settles. This week proved to me that sometimes the storm doesn’t settle. Sometimes the damage is too catastrophic to be repaired.

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

I cannot believe how much I’m feeling right now. Before I showed up here today, I lived without Miller in my life perfectly fine. Now I feel like every minute I spend without him is going to be torture.

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

“Yeah, well, I don’t expect you to understand. You were never in my shoes. You didn’t have to stand on the sidelines and watch the girl you were in love with build a life with your best friend.”

“Jealousy can make a person do some shitty things, Morgan.”

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.”

She shakes her head. “My God. We have been so mean to each other.” I nod in agreement. “I didn’t think we had it in us.” “You grounded me from reading books,” she says, laughing. “You called me predictable.” “Well, you definitely proved me wrong.”