Layla

by Colleen Hoover

“The problem with sex after college is that I hate dating. It takes too much time. You dedicate an entire evening to a person you can tell in the first five minutes is a waste of your time.”

“I think existence is simply luck of the draw. We’re here for a while, and then we’re not.” “That’s depressing,” she says. “Not really. Imagine what heaven is like. The incessant positivity, the smiles, the lack of sin. The thought of living eternally in a place full of people who spent their lives spouting off inspirational quotes sounds way more depressing to me than if it all just ends with death.”

I binge-watched every season of Seinfeld when I was fifteen and came out of it believing that Jerry was right—there’s something annoying about every single human on this planet. Annoying enough to make relationships seem like torture. After witnessing all of Jerry’s doomed relationships, I started seeking out the most annoying traits in people. Their laugh. The way they treat waitstaff. Their taste in movies, music, friends. Their parents.

But the girl is definitely someone worth worrying about. It took me several weeks to figure it out, though, probably because I was only paying attention to how much my dick liked her and wasn’t aware that the way she felt about me was on a completely different level.

Concern might be the only difference between liking someone and loving someone.

Up until that point, I had always assumed anxiety was just a heightened sense of worry. But she explained it was an actual physical feeling. She feels it running through her body like tiny waves of electric shocks.

“The most expensive coffee in the world is made in Indonesia. It’s expensive because the beans are eaten and digested by a cat before they’re used to make the coffee.”