The Heart Principle (The Kiss Quotient, #3)

by Helen Hoang

People like me better when I make them feel good about themselves. So I’m constantly assessing her reaction and editing my words to appeal to her.

And I don’t want to act like this is more than it is. That’s the beauty of it—that it’s nothing.

No one should need a diagnosis in order to be compassionate to themself.

I don’t want or expect her to solve my problems. I don’t say anything, however. She gets mad at me when I have an “attitude,” which is what she calls it when I disagree with her or express frustration or anger or any emotion contrary to what she wants.

“Smiling and laughing doesn’t always mean happy.”

Maybe I need to talk about it in order to really understand and accept it. But I’m also afraid. If she’s suddenly ashamed of me, it’ll break my heart.

He trusts me to know myself. I didn’t know how important that was to me until now. I get to be the expert on me.

Will she be ashamed? Will she walk on eggshells around me now? Will she still love me?

I told her because I yearned for her to understand me. But it’s never been more clear how much she doesn’t.

The thing with feelings is they pass. Hearts aren’t designed to feel anything too intensely for too long, be it joy, sorrow, or anger. Everything passes in time. All colors fade.

Her dismissive words sting, but I’m used to this. It’s tough love, meant to help me overcome my extreme sensitivity and be realistic about myself.

That’s what you do when you love someone. You fight, no matter the cost. You fight even when it’s hopeless. Right?

My compliance is and has always been a foregone conclusion with them.

I realize we’re the same, the two of us. Neither of us can speak. Our lives are both dictated by other people.

I told her that I’m sick and I need help, and she threw my words in my face.

I threw up, I fell, I cried like a little kid, but I made it. I finished.

But I guess that’s how it must be when someone’s standards are so impossibly high and their capacity for empathy so limited. They are cruel to others, and cruelest to themself.