It Starts with Us (It Ends with Us, #2)

by Colleen Hoover

It was hard to focus on the television because the words I love you were still tickling their way up my throat, and I didn’t want to say it, couldn’t say it, because I didn’t want you to think it was too fast, or that those words held no weight for me. They were the heaviest damn thing I’d ever carried. But I think about that day so much, Lily, and I have no idea if that’s what love feels like for everyone, like it’s an airplane that just fell from the sky and crashed right through you. Because most people, they have love seeping in and out their whole lives. They’re born being wrapped in it and they go their whole childhood being protected by it, and they have people in their lives that welcome their love in return, so I’m not sure it hits people like it hit me—in one small moment, in such a colossal way. You were wearing this shirt I loved. It was too big for you, and the sleeve was always falling off your shoulder. I should have been watching the cartoon, but I couldn’t stop staring at that stretch of exposed skin between your neck and your shoulder. As I was looking at it, I once again felt that incredible pull to say I love you, and the words were there, right on the tip of my tongue, so I leaned forward and pressed them against your skin. And that’s where they stayed, hidden and quiet, until I worked up the courage to speak them out loud to you six months later. I had no idea you remembered that kiss, or all the times I kissed you in that spot after that day. Even wh...