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people who don’t make assumptions about you when they discover your brain doesn’t work like theirs; people who don’t judge you; people who simply stay with you and ask what they can do to help. People who trustingly hand you all of themselves in PDF form.
“I can’t explain it, but when I’m kissing Dev, I’m not in my head about it. I don’t feel the pressure to make it work. It just works. And I don’t have to force myself to feel anything. I feel everything.”
Most of the time, Dev is like a human bonfire walking around generously warming everyone with his presence. But burning that bright and that fiercely must be exhausting; no one can sustain it forever. Charlie wishes he could tell Dev it’s okay to flicker out sometimes. It’s okay to tend to his own flame, to keep himself warm. He doesn’t have to be everything for everyone else all the time.
He lathers the soap between his hands and imagines he can scrub off the days of fog, the days of never feeling fully awake, the days of climbing deeper and deeper into that place where he feeds the darkness with his self-loathing, his loneliness, his feelings of inadequacy. The depression has a special knack for listing all his shortcomings, and this time, it had his epic mistake of kissing Charlie to throw in his face.
“I’m not afraid of anything. Except emotional intimacy and abandonment.”
fathom
Understand
For someone who claims to love love, you’re really good at pushing it away.
“You said sometimes easy is better than happy.”
Leland Barlow,
Singer
The Notebook.”
I don’t love you despite those things. I love you because of those things.”
He knows it’s hard work he will probably have to do for the rest of his life.
