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Kindle Notes & Highlights
it’s comforting to know that even though the past few days have been rough, I still have my family. And the good thing is, unlike a boyfriend, they’ll never deceive me.
Is there real value in knowing the truth when it tears your world apart? Or is it better to stay in comfortable denial and be a fool?
She laughs and her laugh is sweet like a wind chime. Note: Mine is not. Mine is more of an asthmatic trombone.
I hear him, but it’s like I’m underwater. My heart pounds and blood roars in my ears. I must be having an out-of-body experience. I’m actually dead in the mud and an attractive boy ghost is tethered to my spirit.
He’s not laughing at me. Well, he is, but it’s more like an inside joke than making fun of me. Thanks to middle school, I’m well aware of the difference.
My grandmother recently turned seventy-eight, and raised six children, but she looks better than I do most days.
The three of us are kind of like Charlie’s Angels, if the angels were Black, adopted Korean, and snoring Chinese.
That you can love someone and still not be right for them. Or maybe you were right for each other at one point, but you grew in different directions and trying to stay together won’t work. Once you let go, all that strain fades and you’re lighter.
People said I shouldn’t have expected to stay in contact with someone who’d moved so far away. That most childhood friendships don’t last.
But all I can think about is how it felt to look in his eyes with his hand over mine. I can’t explain it, but it felt like someone handing me an umbrella after I walked in the rain. That kind of easy comfort just flowed through us.
“You’re so much more than you think you are,” he says. “You can do whatever you want—whatever you truly want. I know it.”
It’s hard having years tangled up with someone, and honestly, the most difficult thing has been letting go of the future, of all the plans we made.
“You’re not a competition or a game to me,” he says. “You never were.” He pauses and then says, “You’re not like anyone. And you’re perfect the way you are. I know you don’t believe me, but I hope one day you will.”
There’s nothing wrong with a family as a safety net—that’s how things should be. But somehow things morphed in my mind and they went from being a safety net to a glue trap.
I shake my head. “It’s not your fault. I had this vision of us being together forever, and I wanted it so bad. I was so caught up in this safe zone where I wouldn’t have to experience life that I was willing to do anything to stay. That’s on me, not you. You never asked me to do that. And I don’t think it was possible for you to respect me when I didn’t respect myself. When I accepted any way you treated me. Instead of expecting you to expand your world to include me, I shrunk myself to fit into yours. And I can’t fit back into that space. I won’t again.”
I know that even though people claim romantic love matters the most, sometimes all you really need is the love of your ridiculous family.
