Heart Bones

by Colleen Hoover

I think when you’re the worst of people, finding the worst in others becomes a survival tactic of sorts. You focus heavily on the darkness in people in hopes of masking the true shade of your own darkness.

I wonder what kind of upbringing is worse for a human. The kind where you’re sheltered and loved to the point that you aren’t aware of how cruel the world can be until it’s too late to acquire the necessary coping skills, or the kind of household I grew up in. The ugliest version of a family, where coping is the only thing you learn.

It’s weird how your whole life can completely change in the hours between waking up and going to bed.

I want that victory. I want to be the reason I turn out the way I’m going to turn out.

Sometimes I believe personalities are shaped more by damage than kindness. Kindness doesn’t sink as deep into your skin as the damage does. The damage stains your soul so bad, you can’t scrub it off. It stays there forever, and I feel like people can see all my damage just by looking at me.

Come at me, world. You can’t damage the impermeable.

Something about this guy is digging into me, like his aura has claws.

There’s a heaviness behind his reflective eyes that I assumed only people like me were familiar with. What could possibly be so terrible about this guy’s life that would lead me to believe he’s damaged? But I can tell he is. Damaged people recognize other damaged people. It’s like a club you don’t want a membership to.

It’s weird, though, isn’t it? Why do people judge other people based on how tightly their skin clings to their bones?”

I don’t understand humans sometimes. I hate it, because I find myself wishing that the entirety of humanity would suffer just a tiny amount more than they do. Maybe if everyone tasted a bit of what that dog has lived through, they would be more hesitant to be assholes.

Sometimes things are so pretty, it makes everything else a little less impressive.”

He really is a beautiful person. It’s hard not to stare at people like him. But I think his charisma comes more from the way he carries himself than how he looks.

“Because most of the time, the fun you have that leads to the pain is worth the pain.”

Maybe you don’t have to know a person’s history to realize who they are in the present. And who I’ve started to realize he is on the inside makes him even more attractive on the outside. Attractive enough that I think about him almost every waking second.

“There are two different kinds of wrong. The wrong that stems from weakness and the wrong that stems from strength. You made that choice because you were strong and needed to survive. You didn’t make that choice because you were weak.”

You can fill your life with nice things, but nice things don’t fill the holes in your soul.” “What fills the holes in a soul?” Samson’s eyes scroll over my face for a few seconds. “Pieces of someone else’s soul.”

I find myself watching him more than I’m watching the fireworks. He looks enamored with everything.

I want to melt into him. Become a piece of him. I want to see if I make the inside of his chest feel as alive as he makes mine.

“Don’t worry. Hearts don’t have bones. They can’t actually break.”

“If there’s nothing inside a heart that can break, why does it feel like mine is going to snap in half when it’s time for me to move next month? Does your heart not feel like that?” Samson’s eyes scroll over my face for a moment. “Yeah,” he whispers. “It does. Maybe we both grew heart bones.”

He might be right. Maybe we did grow heart bones. But what if the only way of knowing you grew a heart bone is by feeling the agony caused by the break?

holding everything in accomplishes nothing. It just causes the truth to hurt even worse in the end.

There’s a saying from Maya Angelou that reminds me of our situation. When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

I am still made of steel. Come at me, world. You can’t damage the impermeable.

Look at us. Two lonely kids who slipped through all the cracks, but then climbed right back up to the top of the world.