One More Step

by Lillian Schneider

“I don’t know where this is going to end up, but the last fucking thing I want to think about is saying goodbye.”

“That’s because it sucks being apart. But we’re making it work,” I said. “It’s hard, but it’d be harder not to have him at all.”

And that’s the point of everything—to embrace the unexpected.

“Some of the best things in life are the things we don’t see coming.”

I’ve become that girl who doesn’t know what’s good for her, and she’s fallen back into the arms of the man who broke her. The man who doesn’t deserve her.

To those of you who lie in bed with the one who’s supposed to love you, yet never touches you. To those of you who cry each night for the love you deserve, but don’t have. To those of you who feel alone, even when you’re mere inches away from the one who vowed to love you for life. To those of you who no longer have the energy to try with the wrong person. To those of you who desperately seek your other half. To those of you who’ve finally said, “Fuck it—I’m doing me.”

Having issues with people who were supposed to love you unconditionally was a beast he knew too well.

“If you try to find your worth in others, Elliot, you’ll come up short every single time. Your worth is in you. It’s in the things you do when nobody is around. It’s in how you treat those who have less than you. It’s putting others before yourself and the goals you had planned out. The man I’m looking at has far more worth than most, and I’ve been all over the world and encountered all kinds of men.”

“That’s the funny thing about brokenness, Elliot. The pieces can be used to make amazing things. In welding, when you solder two broken pieces together, it is stronger than ever before.”

I was her beginning and she was my end. A circle. Endless. And it was time for us to begin.

I do question whether I could describe emotions and reactions better if I had lived through the things I was writing about. I think every writer questions that part of themselves.”