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My mom turns to me so fast, it’s a wonder she doesn’t break her neck.
Ignore the flutter in your chest, ignore the butterflies in your stomach. Just because a boy does something nice for you doesn’t mean anything bigger is happening.
Love is all over her face, and it’s hard to figure out if that’s from music, her unborn son, or both.
But because I’m disabled, they never see me as a violinist first.” Muscle spasms crash through my arms and legs, and I grit my teeth against them. “They see an inspiring disabled girl who plays violin, not a talented, disabled violinist. Even though that’s what I am.”
“You’ve got it all wrong. Just because she’s my girlfriend doesn’t mean I should expect her to want to come. You have to keep the magic alive,”
Daisy is beautiful. Performing with her, even when there’s no one watching us, is a hell of a time for me to realize that. I’ve always known she was pretty, but this is different. She’s beautiful, and I know now, there is a difference between those two words.
God, I can’t breathe. Why can’t I breathe? Why can’t I hear anything? Why does my heart hurt from its new place in my ears?
“I just love it so much, and, well, it’s important to have fun with our art, right?”
Our lives are even more different than I realized that day at his penthouse. Each of us carrying around our own weight.
“Enough isn’t good enough. I want to be greater than they ever imagined. They deserve that from me.”
I wonder if she’s aware of how beautiful she is.
She’s perfect. Bright and beautiful and complex in the way her violin is.
“Coordination isn’t my thing.”
Only this time, we close that infinitesimal space, because I kiss him.
“You can be upset,” Noah murmurs. “We worked hard for this.”
“I feel a little bit anxious all the time. Even when nothing is going on, it’s there, buzzing just underneath my skin. And I don’t know what to do.”
“Yeah. But I don’t know what to do. This anxiety?” I pause. “This tightness in my chest, my loud heartbeat, the hard time breathing, the racing thoughts, this need to be perfect. It’s there. All the time.”
My hands pressed my glasses to my face. My ribs were too small for my lungs. I gasped for the air I couldn’t seem to find. My heart pounded in my throat. The pressure choked me as the beat raced in my ears.
It’s nice not to be pitied.
“It’s the city.” She tugs on the tassels of her cape. “It’s too loud for God to hear if there’s traffic.”
“Sir, what’s disrespectful is your ableism,” I manage to fire back. “I’m pretty positive God doesn’t care that I’m sitting.”
“You are not what some pretentious asshole sees.”
“Therapy is nothing to be ashamed of, you know.”
“Love makes the most sense when it is simple,”
“Best friends also allow each other to have romantic moments with their significant other,”
“I know.” Noah’s voice is the G string on my violin: low, dependable, the foundation for so many songs.
“They’re teenagers. The internet’s in their hands wherever they go.”
I make someone this happy.
I’m only thinking about our daughter’s best interest. I don’t want her to lose her dream just because we can’t afford it. I already feel like I’m letting her down.”
Either choice might cause her some grief, and you can’t keep her from those hard experiences.”
was protecting you.” “By completely ignoring who I am?”
“What I need is for the rest of the world to wake up and respect me. To see me as fully human, something my own boyfriend is apparently incapable of!”
But in my head? There’s a fog too opaque for me to see through.
it’s normal for relationships to have problems.
no relationship is always easy. Even the best ones have had to endure. Even the ones that seem rock solid have had moments where it seemed like there was no path forward.
“It’s not my job to teach him,”
“So why are you weaponizing that comfort now?”
We don’t need to apologize for ourselves. Especially not to each other.”
