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Maybe growing up means growing apart. And maybe it’s other people meaning more to you than the ones who used to mean the most.
It feels, instead, like I’m walking up to a moment that’s been waiting on me all my life.
“That nothing will come between us, not even each other.”
Something can feel good, but not feel right. That night, we may have managed to feel good for a few moments, but I can’t remember the last time we felt right together.
“I’d rather give up on this relationship than give up on you, Ko, and if we continue down this road, I’m afraid we’ll keep going through the motions but end up resenting each other.”
we’ve been broken a long time. We’ve held this relationship together with Gorilla Glue, masking tape and sheer force of will. But there are too many gaps and holes and tears. What we had will never be whole again, but we can be something new.
Sometimes we don’t realize that the move we’re making will be the one that changes everything, not just for us, but for someone else.
It’s never felt right to be apart from the person who once knew me better than anyone else—who knew me even as I was learning myself.
There’s something delicious about the tension of the forbidden, how you dance around its edges, like caressing a trip wire.
There’s everyone else, and then there’s you.”
He’s your typical entitled male, but a liberal, so in some ways he’s even blinder to his own privilege because wanting to save the world assuages his guilt for getting all he wants from it.
It’s perfect because it’s her and it’s me and it’s about time and it’s overdue. And we kiss like there’s no tomorrow because there have already been too many yesterdays, too many years we were apart.
It feels like we were this one thing that was severed in half, and our parts want to be rejoined.”
both unsure if we’re doing it right, but completely sure we want to do it wrong together.
I know what it’s like to feel like the token and expected to speak on behalf of an entire community. I also know what it’s like to press and perm myself into the form most likely to succeed.
Simply being myself is an act of resistance.”
“I don’t just want you when you’re strong. I want you when you’re vulnerable, when you’re lost, when you’re not sure. I see the armor you have to put on to make it in your world. I just want you to know here, with me, you can take the armor off.”
“I was six years old.” I chuckle humorlessly and touch my empty ring finger. “And again when I was seven. Eight. Nine and ten. I think I fell in love with her every day for the first thirteen years of my life, and as soon as I saw her again, my heart just remembered.”
“Love is not a tidy thing, Kimba. It can’t ever be perfect because none of us are. Someone at some point will make a mess. The test of that love is how you clean it up. Your father stayed and we cleaned it up together.”
“It sounds like you don’t want right now,” Mama says. “But you do want forever.” “That about sums it up. If there’s any forever left when this is over.” “When it comes to love, some messes take longer than others to clean up.” Mama’s smile is wise. “Believe me—I know.”
It’s the kind of contentment only found when you stand still. When you stop running long enough to run into yourself—to collide with your future and release the past.
“Study your queen so you can give her what she wants without asking.”
