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“If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.” – Jane Austen, Emma
And I didn’t want her to hurt anymore. I don’t want her to hurt ever.
Rooney laughs, warm and bright, all teeth and dimples and crinkled eyes, a face of pure happiness,
Soft, glittering, she looks like fresh snowfall kissed by sunlight.
He begins to let go, then stops and leans in, gently adjusting the ring until it’s just so. I can see in that moment the way he must step back from his paintings, frowning as he examines it, then step in to make it just so.
Why is this so hot
I want to kiss that skin. And I’m definitely not supposed to.
This is hell. Marrying someone you’re in lust with is hell.
“You can talk more about it,” he says. “If you want. I’ll listen.”
“The deeper you love, the deeper the risk of disappointment, and hurt, and loss. The more you care, the more pain you might face. And yet, I hope you won’t always let that stop you,” I tell him. “Fear of failure, fear of not living up to these standards you hold yourself to, which sound pretty damn high. Because…well, have you ever considered that the depth of feeling for the subject is the reason you’re the very best person to paint it?”
“You don’t have to say it’s okay,” he says. “It hurts, doesn’t it?” In so many ways, I almost admit.
“Sorry,” I whisper. “I get nervous when I talk about it.” He nods. “I understand. But you don’t need to, with me.”
I want so badly to lean deeper into the comfort of his tenderness.
This is why teachers are superstars. They don’t just learn their subject, they learn how to teach it to you.”
“I know they did their best, and I know, in their way, they love me. But sometimes people love you their best, and it’s still not enough.”
I know I’m not broken or defunct. But I know I’m different.
Could someone want that with me? And if they did, could I take that risk and share it with them? Let them in and let them rearrange it a little? Could I love them the way they need, too?
“Just because you experience your emotions differently from other people, Axel, doesn’t mean that experience isn’t valid, or that someone can’t love you for it. With the right person, love is possible for any of us who want it.”
And that’s the best kind of friendship, isn’t it? Friendship that lets laughter and tears hold hands, where grief and gratitude can be friends, not enemies.
It’s being human. This is existence. This is friendship. We love each other. We take turns holding each other up.”
Because I hate kissing, but I love it when it’s you,
“I want to kiss you so badly, it’s obliterated every other thought in my brain. There’s nothing but wanting it. Wanting you.”
We. That word again. I savor it shamelessly.
“Why?” “Because all our lives we’re taught it’s shameful and undesirable to discuss that aspect of our bodies, let alone when it malfunctions. It’s not a part of myself that I can trust other people to handle compassionately.
That’s when I know. When every question I had is answered, and I know this twisting, aching, terrible, beautiful something that’s grown and deepened inside me for weeks is a feeling, and that feeling is all for her, and it’s nothing like I’ve ever felt for anyone.
Will loving her be like painting? Like building this home? Like running? Immersive, consuming, so intensely possessive of my thoughts and energy and time?
Is his heart soaring and snapping and crashing to earth? I won’t know, will I?
Tomorrow I’ll be brave. Tonight I need to be safe.
And that’s how he falls asleep, holding me close, my name on his lips, a soft, breathless sigh.
And if so, is that loving someone, to tell them something that could make them torn about their future?
I whisper against her hair, He’d wait forever.
She glances my way and catches me staring at her. “You’re not watching the sunrise,” she says. “No.” A blush stains her cheeks as she smiles faintly, her expression perplexed. “You love sunrises.” “I love you more.”
“Now it can be familiar. Just you and me.”
I always thought realizing you loved someone would be this epic moment, an emotional firework grand finale. But this wasn’t. It was quiet and steady, tender and unexpected.
And finally I know what kind of quiet this is. The adoring quiet. The reverent quiet. The one that drinks in beauty and savors it.
I am the woman he finds light in the darkness for and holds close when the storm is raging.
We each do things in our own time,” Viggo says. “What matters is you did it when you could.”
“But most of all…I want to be with you forever. Not just for a whirlwind month. Not even until death do us part. I want every day, cramming as many lifetimes as possible into the one we’ve been given because finding you thirty years into my existence and only getting one chance to love you isn’t nearly enough.”
“As soon as I’ve kissed you, I want to kiss you again. It’s a vicious cycle.”
“I can’t wait to live life with you.”
