The Bodyguard

by Katherine Center

Because it’s so much harder to love someone who’s difficult than to love someone who’s easy.

“We were better off without him,” I said. It wasn’t true, of course. We were far worse without him. And that, right there, was the reason I would never meet him for coffee and make pleasantries.

He’d forfeited all rights to the future when he ruined our lives.

People loving you for your best qualities is not the same as people loving you despite your worst.”

There’s nothing like the mutuality of a hug—the way you’re giving comfort but you’re getting it, too.

I didn’t know what to do with the sadness that was soaking into my heart. It felt so full, I could wring it out like a sponge. What did people do with sadness like this? How did they dry it out?

“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.”