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It was empowering to create a world in which I was the center, the prize, the one desired.
They just became about our relationships with my own made-up boys instead of someone else’s. Like, fan fiction of our own lives. It wasn’t like we could go to a bookstore and find many fluffy love stories with girls who looked like us in them.
My brother has disabilities. We used to call it special needs before a teacher pointed out that his needs aren’t special. They’re just his.
Yeah, growing up with him is hard. But his function in life isn’t to teach us something. He’s a human being, and this is his life, happening right now.
I hate when people say that, because as difficult as life is with Miles sometimes, he’s not dead. He’s very much alive. And I don’t like people insinuating that his life is somehow not enough, that I should be mourning the joyful, hilarious, and yeah, kinda annoying brother I was given. He is exactly who we want.
You would have self-rejected instead of taking the risk, and I just don’t want you to let your worries have that kind of control,”
“Because you have to. You’ve got this.” He wriggles out of my hug and shrugs, like it’s just as simple as that.
Writing is you. And if you don’t have writing, then who are you?
“Other people’s opinions of me aren’t really my business. And I think that situation says more about them than it does about me. So I’ve let it go.”
This thing that I’ve loved for so long wasn’t mine anymore, and someone might as well have chopped off my arm or something.
Miles’s tantrums are our family’s earthquakes. We just need to get him somewhere safe and ride it through.
I was trying to do too much, and they were honest with me like they should have been. I’m grateful for the experience. . . . You can’t learn without critique.”
Why do his words get to come out all flawlessly Times New Roman, and mine are, like, Wingdings?
I still feel like myself, but . . . elevated. I feel like myself if I didn’t have all the worries—the constant barrage of voices in my head telling me that I don’t belong, that I need to shrink and be quieter. And that’s how I want to feel tonight.
That I’m trying to get myself back by not acting like myself anymore.
Maybe not recognizing myself is just part of growing up, the storm before the rainbow. But I don’t know. It doesn’t feel right.
And I realize I’ve been describing kissing all wrong. In all my years of writing—kisses with Harry and Edward and Thad and Thomas—I never got it right. That was mechanics, logistics . . . and this, this is completely different. This is intuitive, this is urgent. This involves everything, my whole body, even though the only parts of us touching are our lips and his hands on the back of my neck, fingers woven in my curls. My heart has left my chest and is beating in my ears and my stomach is doing triple backflips. I think I’ve reached my limit. That I can’t possibly feel any more. But then his
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That’s really the point of romance as a genre, I think: girls—women—asking for what they want, without apology.”
But I think there’s something to be said for making art just to make you happy. Not to win awards or impress others or get the attention of your parents who can be a little clueless at times. But art for art’s sake. Art for yourself.”
“Of course I did it. I’ve always been doing it. Consistently. It’s just that now other people are taking notice.”
But what I know now is that I’m done taking up less space than I deserve. I’m done staying quiet just so I can be someone others might like. I want to like—no, love—myself.
And that is the greatest risk, presenting something that you love and asking others to love it too.
I’m intoxicated with the magic of it all, being able to share my words with others. And I wouldn’t have been able to experience this joy, this rush, without first taking the risk of sharing myself. Without saying, Here. This is something I love, please love it too.
