Instructions for Dancing

by Nicola Yoon

Happiness is tricky. Sometimes you have to fight for it. Sometimes, though—the best times—it sneaks up behind you, wraps an arm around your waist and pulls you close.

Why are grown-ups constantly surprised that we kids grow up? I’m pretty sure that’s what we’re supposed to do.

It was beautiful. But it was sad too. Both things, and at the same time. I don’t know why so much of life is like that.

If you get very, very lucky in this life, then you get to love another person so hard and so completely that when you lose them, it rips you apart. I think the pain is the proof of a life well lived and loved.”

Love is the question and the answer and the reason to ask in the first place. It’s everything. All of it.”

“Do you feel ready to make your mark on the world?” I ask. “I don’t want the world, Eves, just my piece of it.”

Mom said just because a thing ends doesn’t make the thing any less real. Just because everything is different now doesn’t mean we didn’t love each other once. Maybe we will again.

And then I do the thing you’re supposed to do when you find love. I hold on.