Part of Your World (Part of Your World, #1)

by Abby Jimenez

“Don’t let them decide the life you’re going to live. You only get one.”

“Just keep her laughing,” Doug said. “When a woman laughs, her eyes are closed more. She won’t notice how ugly you are.”

“Grace costs you nothing. My grandma used to say it. She especially liked to say it to herself when I was being a little shit.”

“Okay. Well, just remember not to name his penis. Once you name it, you get attached.”

“My point is, the penguin’s not picking her mate because he’s the one who has the best rock. It might look that way, but she’s not. She’s taking the rock because the male she wants the most is offering it. Sometimes what you have to give is enough. Even if it’s a rock instead of a diamond.”

I wondered distantly if we’d known each other in a former life and we’d found each other again. If that’s why he was so familiar…

My vagina has officially been closed so long I’m afraid a Spirit Halloween is going to move in.”

It’s amazing how someone can touch you, even if you only know them for a moment in time. How they can change you, alter you indelibly.

“I believe you. I can handle anything you need to tell me. You don’t need to protect me from the truth and I’m here to help you in any way I can. It’s not your fault. And you don’t deserve it.”

I wished I had a genie in a bottle or a fairy godmother, someone to grant just one wish.

She wouldn’t take the drawer I offered her or the key I’d tried to give her. Every time she left, all of her did. And it always made me feel like this time could be the last time, because there was nothing here for her to come back for.

Love follows you. It goes where you go. It doesn’t know about social divides or distance or common sense. It doesn’t even stop when the person you love dies. It does what it wants. Even if what you want is to not be in love.

I fell into one of those sleeps of the brokenhearted. The kind that breathes in and out, between here and gone. You want to dream about them but then regret it when you do, because waking up hurts too much. So you hope for nothing but black. The temporary reprieve from existing without them.

“Margaritas!” she sang. “It’s super strong. I measured the Patrón with my heart.”

You can decide to put yourself first—you do have a choice. It’s not an easy choice. It’s not without consequences. But you do have a choice.

I was a mosaic of someone else’s design where none of the fragments were put in the right place. And now I had finally put myself together and I recognized myself for the very first time.

Because sometimes family isn’t what you’re born into. Sometimes family is found.