The Bodyguard

by Katherine Center

And he’d underestimated me, as well. Because it’s so much harder to love someone who’s difficult than to love someone who’s easy.

We’re very dismissive, as a culture, about heartbreak. We talk about it like it’s funny, or silly, or cute. As if it can be cured by a pint of Häagen-Dazs and a set of flannel pajamas. But of course, a breakup is a type of grief. It’s the death of not just any relationship—but the most important one in your life. There’s nothing cute about it. “Dumped” is also a word that falls short of its true meaning. It sounds so quick—like a moment in time. But getting dumped lasts forever. Because a person who loved you decided not to love you anymore.

And that’s when I saw something I never, ever would’ve expected to see. In Jack Stapleton’s garden, out by the pool house, partially hidden behind a Palmetto tree … Robby, my ex, and Taylor, my friend … Were kissing. Each other. Robby … who had dumped me a month ago on the night after my mother’s funeral … and Taylor … who had come over right afterward to console me while I cried … Were kissing. And worse than that: on the job.

“People who want to be famous think it’s the same thing as being loved, but it’s not. Strangers can only ever love a version of you. People loving you for your best qualities is not the same as people loving you despite your

“I think just because you can’t keep something doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth it. Nothing lasts forever. What matters is what we take with us. I’ve spent a lot of my life trying to escape. I’ve spent too much time on the run from hard things. But now I wonder if escape is overrated. I think, now, I’m going to try thinking about what I can carry forward. What I can hold onto. Not just only always what I have to leave behind.”

So I decided something right then: Every chance you take is a choice. A choice to decide who you are.

“You can’t control the world—or other people. You can’t make them love you, either. They will or they won’t, and that’s the truth. But what you can do is decide who you want to be in the face of it all. Do you want to be a person who helps—or hurts? Do you want to be a person who burns with anger—or shines with compassion? Do you want to be hopeful or hopeless? Give up or keep going? Live or die?”

“You can’t make people love you. But you can give the love you long for out to the world. You can be the love you wish you had. That’s the way to be okay. Because giving love to other people is a way of giving it to yourself.”

He kisses you like it’s destiny. Like that’s what always happened. Like there’s no other conceivable version of the story. And you kiss him back the same way. And your whole body feels like fireworks. And so does your soul.

It helps you remember to be alive, if nothing else. It helps you stop wasting time.

But you don’t have to be perfect to be lovable.

The people we love help teach us who we are. The best versions of who we are, if we’re lucky.